Tire smokin' Cats
Geee, I wouldn't know about non-smoking Cougars. Both of my 73 351CJ cars have no problem whatsoever. (Well, at least they didn't when they were on the road instead of all over the garage floor in pieces.)
My 'Beta' Cat even won a smoky burnout contest at Norwalk (OH) Raceway on a Ford vs Chevy day. I was pitted against a V8 Vega and I literally smoked his as5
. I was even turning a pair of old 8" slicks when I did it
. After the first five seconds I couldn't see a thing for all the smoke. The track officials had to wade through the smoke and knock on my window to tell me to knock it off, I won. My car is ~stock except for a set of 3.70 gears. Just a nice healthy 351CJ, stock dual exhausts and the stock CJ high-stall torque converter. Nice thing about those CJ converters is they have a 2700rpm stall speed
. This car runs
[email protected] at the track, on street tires. This car, straight punched on the street, will light 'em up for around 60', posi.
My Alpha cat? Well, lets just say that it
needs slicks to get a grip at the track, running high 12.80s at 106mph. On the street, it will burn
through first, halfway through second, and still break 'em loose in third. This car is
not stock!
Scott,
There are several possible reasons your car lacks low end torque. The carb may not be adjusted properly. I hope you're running a dual-plane intake manifold! How's the ignition timing? A retarded ignition timing will kill low RPM torque. Did you degree the cam when you installed it? Try advancing the
cam timing to give it some more bottom end. You'll need a multi-keyway timing set for this. If all the above check out, it sounds like your Cat is in need of a higher-stall torque converter. That should 'fix' your 'problem'. One word of caution, though. If you go this route, don't expect any sort of good gas mileage out of your car.
Good luck!
