As you all know, a month ago I ran at the track and the best I could muster was a 17.289 at 80.49 mph and worst was 17.579 at 79.12 mph. (I had a friend riding.) The track that I ran in is at 3,075 feet above sea level. In my automatic SC300.

Since then I had my ecu resetted. I had my tranny fluid changed. I had my semi burned out NGK R spark plugs, replaced with Denso Iridiums, my plug wires replaced, my rotor replaced, and my distributor cap replaced. As well as my spare removed for this time, lil bit less gas, and Rear tire pressure at 28 psi, vs 33 psi, and front tire pressure at 38 psi, vs 33 psi. and my fram air filter removed.

This accumulated to some improvement. I only did 2 runs since the track was closed early.

1st Run.
With car on L 2000 rpm Launch.

60 2.577 (No tirespin, The stupid tranny will not let me shift!!!!)
330 7.241
1/8 10.2961
MPH 67.10
1000 14.125
1/4 16.809
MPH 84.42

2nd run (Same launch I hit rev limiter! my stupid tranny is hard to shift due to stupid delay. HIt rev limiter once, shifted out of 2nd 400 rpm to soon Delay is not same for all gears.)
60' 2.596
330 7.301
1/8 11.042
MPH 67.37
1000 14.229
1/4 16.938
MPH 82.58

(my reactions times were decent)

I never attempted to flash the tc. Track was closed, hopefully they will reopen tommorow. My goal was to run a 16.7XX, as you can see I was off by .009

I wonder what else I could do in the short term in order to improve my car even better. I havent done my cooling. Thats pretty much what I seem to be missing in terms of tune up. What do you guys suggest?


PS. According to altitude correction charts my best run today would been a, 16.182 @ 87.54 MPH. Only .3 seconds off from the magazine results. I believe im losing this .3 seconds at my launch thanks to my tranny. I wonder if i Could flash my TC.

So what could I do next to improve performance of my car?

 

you're shifting your auto tranny on a 1/4 run?? bad...
when i ran my car on the track, i did 16.2 @ 87-89 mph? up in palmdale.. i think its about 3k above sea level..
my 60ft were about 2.4 launch from 2200rpm on D
tires were about 25psi all around. i should've put them down to 20psi.
reaction time doesnt mather.. you can sit at the line for a min lol
i dont have TC on my car
oh yea, my car is bone stock. from its denso plugs, to its toyota quality air filter lol
when i gun my car, it smells like a big fart.. i think i need to get a new CAT on my exhaust system.. i think the combe inside the canaster is going out.. =\

 

Ah, but your car has 2 more cylinders then mine. I was manually shifting my car, becuase my car when left alone, tends to shift way to early.

 

I guess this is proof that SC400's are faster 1/4 than the SC300's.

I got 15.3 at 91mph on a bad launch,... that was my best time, my best pass speed was right at 93mph.

bone stock 97 SC400. If I could launch better, I probably could get a lower time,... I was suckin' pretty bad that night.

 

Get a turbo bc 17 second quarter miles are for civics and geos

 

Well, ok, let me get my piggy bank im sure I have extra thousands of dollars lying in there.

I mean seriously, short term things that I could do? And remember this is at 3100 feet. (and im running 16s now), im already planning a GTE swap, in the coming months.

Right now my main concern are that I need to improve seems to be my 60 foot times. I wonder if there is anyway I could flash my stall converter. I suppose Ill need replace my coolant soon, but that wont help. Launching at 2000 rpm is almost as bad as launching from idle, it sucks.

BTW, I saw a streetable stock looking civic that ran a 12.8xx at 106 mph. But fastest street legal car of the nite was a black supra that ran 10.281 @ 145 mph. Any temporary bolt ons I could put while I wait for my swap?

And I have no idea why there was doubt that sc400s were faster thne sc300s in stock trim. Thats almost a duh.

 

Wax your car, BFI, take more weight off. Maybe synthetic oil could help. You could also try buying some air intake cleaner and if used correctly it's supposed to clean the gunk off the throttle body and upper parts on intake manifold so more air can get in.

 

Speaking of weight, I am wondering how much does 16 inch stock chrome rims weigh.

 

Chrome only adds about a pound per wheel so that's not an issue.

 

It's not just the chrome, it's the wheel. The oem wheel is made to last, and if Lexus wanted to save money, they'd dump more aluminum in the wheel. Even though one pound isn't much, once the wheel starts spinning at high speeds, centripetal acceleration of the wheel puts a lot of drag on the car's overall acceleration. I believe that is the main reason why engines have a redline.

BTW, I don't think you should take your air filter off. I read that for every two aspirin tablets worth of dirt, 70,000 of normal driving miles is gone. I'd recommend you go do the bfi if you're going to swap engines. It's the best bang for the buck, but time is another matter.

 

I did the air filter thing for the 2 runs only. Thats it.


BFI? Im still a newbie explain?

 

 

I can give you a ballpark here. I used a digital scale to weigh my stock 1994 chrome 10-spoke Lexus 16"OEM rims mounted w/225/55/16 that are at about 4/32's. Weight is 43 pounds.

As a comparison, my stock chrome 15 " turbine style (gag!) weighed 38.5 pounds with tires at 3/32.

There is some obviouse room for weight savings in this area. That near five pound jump concerns me. Some time in the future, I'll buy rims with a very critical eye towards weight (suggestions here?).

I have a beautiful set of new, never mounted chrome IS300 17" OEM rims that I am selling. They weigh ~22.5 pounds w/o tire.

Buttercup's suggestion on the BFI (Big Freaking Intake) is right on. see this link: http://www.planetsoarer.com/#BFI

 

Im actually interested in going with supra tt, oem rims. How much do those weigh?

 

I'm guessing a lot. 17x8 front 17x9.5 back. There'll be so much rubber on the ground that it'll be near impossible if not to break traction on acceleration and rolling resistance and air drag will slow the car anyways. But since you're going to get engine swap, the wheels would do good.