Went to Bandimere Speedway (the local dragstrip) tonight after work for my 2-3 times summerly speed fix. Since picking up the nice new Legacy I've been thinking about selling the Talon while it still has value since it's sitting outside rotting in the sun now. I kind of wanted to dip the little 4 cylinder in to the 12s before I did that though. Tonight was a perfect night to go fast, even at Bandimere's 5800ft of altitude, because it was nice and cool.

BUTTT, because it was the last "Test and Tune" of the summer season, everybody with any type of car was out and the lines were so long to run that I sat for 2 hours before my first shot. I sort of wish I'd gone to the 100mph+ day where only cars fast enough to hit 100mph in the 1/4 were invited, but I digress. Lots of cool old muscle cars there tonight, lots of DSMs, lots of foxbody Mustangs, and TONS of Subaru STIs.

On the way out the car was so low on gas that I had to stop. Last time I filled with Sunoco 100 at the local gas station, but that was closed now. I was stuck with putting 91 in and limping to the track, keeping my foot off the gas since the car's computer was set up for 100 octane. I could have changed it, but I was lazy.

Got to the track and the line just to get in was 45 min long. Once in, I drove over to the gas station and, when confronted with WAY too many choices, finally settled on some stuff called something like Sunoco Maximal, sounds like Russell Crowe movie. Basically it was 116 octane leaded gas that I'm only allowed to run when I take my catalytic converter off at the track and put a test pipe on [wink]. I settled on this because I wasn't able to get the car lean enough for optimal power on 100 octane. I was doing the math in my head and averaging out the octane I was adding to what was in there and figured 3 gallons of 116 would put me right around 112 octane.

Went to tech where the guy asked me how fast I was going to run. I asked if there were any helmets left as you need to wear one when you go 13.99 sec or faster and he said no, so I said "it's going to run 14s then". He laughed and said I could get away with that for one run, but after that they'd get mad. I then drove to the staging lanes and sat for another hour.

The first run was nothing spectacular. I ran a 13.5 @ 103.4mph against a poor Ford F-150 who ran an 18.1 @ 76mph. I don't even know why he was there, but he was having fun.

Next run I lined up against the supercharged Pontiac Grand Prix GTP. I was hoping that would be exciting, but as soon as I looked over and noticed he didn't have a helmet on I was bummed. I ran a 13.2 @102.7mph against his 15.3 @ 89mph. This run had enough crankcase pressure to blow the dipstick out of its tube and spray oil all over the place, great...

At this point I'm bummed, still that dang 13.2 time... why can't I get just 0.3 more seconds out of this thing? What am I doing wrong? Even with all-wheel-drive I was spinning bad and I still had a bunch more leaning out to do, so I dropped the tires down to 25psi and changed the fuel map to lean it out some past 3000rpm all the way up to redline, I also turned the boost controller down just slightly.

I line up next to a Ford Lightning... he has a full-face helmet on and everything, whoopee, this is going to be fun. Still spin off the line again, but changing the air-fuel ratio seemed to wake the car up slightly. I run a 13.2 @ 103.8 mph against his 13.8 @ 99mph. It seemed like he was beside me most of the way and listening to that supercharged V8 was nice...

Hmm, it still has a bunch more fuel I can pull out of that curve to wake it up, but as I come around to run again the line is so small that I can't hook up the laptop and make any changes. So in a last desperate effort I just give the boost controller a little twist and turn it back up, probably to just at 25psi... 25psi in the tires, 25psi getting hurtled in to the engine...

Line up against a poor little Jetta, but this time I'm in the left lane where apparently there is more traction. Cover the first 60 feet in 1.77 seconds and end up running 13.1 @ 104.5mph vs. the poor little Jetta's 16.6 @ 86mph. By comparison, it took the Jetta 2.85 seconds to cover the first 60 feet.

Overall I'm not bummed, but damnit, why couldn't I just get 0.2 seconds faster out of that thing? I tried removing the headlight at the track so super cold air could get right to the intake, but the one bolt is in a really precarious place under the bumper and cover and I just didn't have the tools or skin on my hands for it... Sadly, doing that and leaning it out a little more probably would have given me the 0.2 seconds easily...

Here'a video (for those not on dial-up) from a couple years ago when it was a little slower....