(quoted from post at 15:32:30 11/16/11) Sorry but you said it was a street car not a real drag car. And lencos don't hold up well to street use.
Let's face it, any car capable of running 7.90's IS a real race car, slightly modified to be street legal. Lenco's hold up just fine for street use in what used to be called a Pro-Street car, but if you read my post again, you will see that I said "Real drag racers going that fast don't use automatics, they use Lenco's ...", and later in the same post, I mentioned a Lenco designed specifically for street car applications up to 1200 HP. You think the company is going to market something for street use that they think/know won't hold up to street use? In reality however, it's like any other decision in life; What are you willing to put up with in order to do (or, in this case, drive), what you want? Don't expect great fuel mileage and forget about much in the way of creature comforts and winter driving with a car capable of running 7.90's in the 1/4 mile. And I wouldn't want to take any long trips in it, either, as it probably doesn't have A/C, and those big HP engines give off a LOT of heat!
As for your claim that you "work on race cars" for a living, Livernois Motorsports is not known as a race car builder, they are known as a tuner shop, which is another way of saying bolt on performance, no intelligence required. Just pick it out of the catalog and pay your money. Your employer will make it easier still and not only sell it to them but install it for them. "Like the old adage says, how fast can you afford to go?" What do you drive there, bolts, the parts truck or the shop broom? Or maybe you're a paint and body man? Nothing wrong with that, I always admired custom car painters, artistry in motion, not to mention you'd most likely have the best paint job on a tractor of anyone at the pull.
As to your original suggestion for a plow and pull type of competition, the logistics of it just won't work except under very specialized circumstances. I understand what you are wanting to do, it's just that plow-n-pull is not a real good execution of it. Don't feel bad about it though, lots of others before you have tried to come up with ideas to accomplish the same thing and they didn't really work all that well either, if at all. For instance, there used to be a pull in KY where the promoter put tractors on a dyno if they pulled too well, to see what kind of HP they were making, and if it made more than a certain amount over that tractor's NE test figure, he disqualified it from farm stock. Problem with that approach was, he used a PTO dyno, and not every puller has a working PTO in it. In my case for instance, my '40 H didn't come with one and also has no provision to install one and hook it to the transmission to make it work. To install a PTO in it, the counter shaft has to be swapped for one with driver splines on the end. This doesn't at first glance sound like a big deal, except that it is not a simple matter of finding one in a later model and installing it, they won't fit! Too long. Seems IH made about 45,000 or so tractors that way before seeing the error of their ways, and building all the rest with the splines on the counter shaft no mater if a PTO was on the build sheet or not, but it was too late to do mine any good.
How about my suggestion on your custom intake? You going to try it? With those kind of resources available to you, (Livernois), you should have NO problem getting a stock intake to work better than anyone else. I will add to my suggestion and say you should get to be real good friends with one or more of the port polishing men there and talk him/trade him into working on your tractor's head/intake combo. Then you won't miss that custom fabricated intake at all. Might even out pull it!
