I went back again last night to run my sunfire. as u may have read in my previous post from last week i only got 1 run in and i ran a 11.35 at 60. well the only thing i did to the car different this week is i pulled my 17" motegi's off and put 14" steelies on with a 185-65-14 tire which is about an inch shorter. first run right off the street i ran a 11.058 at 63.96mph, i circled right back around to make a second pass with no cooldown and ran a 10.987 at 63.45 needless to say i was stoked that the car picked up 3mph and 3/10ths of a second just by switching on a set of 14" steelies. i did run 3 more times and they were all 11.0's but i couldnt match my best of a 10.987, this was also with 35psi in those front tires. i think with more of a cooldown and maybe 28-30psi in the tires i could have got a 10.8 out of it

Congrats i am glad you tried the trie swap and it worked out for ya

Congratualtions on the improved run!

The lower rotaional mass of the 14" steelie, combined with the shorter tire, droped your time just like we've been saying.

I need to do the same thing. I just haven gotten around to getting me a set of tires for my 15" steelies, but I'm going to try a set of 205/50R-15s. They are the same width as my 16s, but nearly 2" shorter. This should give me an equivalent to a 3.71:1 gear ratio. I should be getting off the line much quicker, which will help the top end slightly also, just as it did with yours. (I'll probably have them by June 22, for the Florida J-Body Meet's Track Night at Orlando Speed World, to test them out.)

If this pans out like I believe it will, I'll be looking for a 3.33:1 differential for my tranny. This would give me tha 3.73:1 effective ratio I feel I need.

yeah my best pass was a 10.98 and right now ive got an asp underdrive crank pulley on order so im gonna put that on and run again. hopefully that will put me at a solid 10.8 in the 1/8th ive also got another complete intake manifold that im doing a pretty extensive port job on myself and im gonna run that to see what kinda improvments i can get.

Replace the stock cat with a 2 1/4" high flow unit (the biggest restriction left in your exhaust) and do a 1.6:1 roller rocker conversion (see this thread), that should about do it for minor mods. After that, you'll have to pull the head for a P&P and/or a cam regrind to find more power out of your motor.

Did you spin the tires any with them at 35psi? I'm sure you probably did! Dropping the air pressure on the fronts to about 28psi (to help them grip better) and raising the rears to max listed psi (to reduce rolling resistance) will probably help a little also. Try different launch rpms to get the quickest launch, with the least amount of tire spin to find your best results.

Why only 11's? I run low 10's


Caution: Redneck Posting

what was your 1/4 time?



15.2@89mph 2.171 60ft. 9.830 1/8 R.I.P. "LULU"

The Evil J wrote:Why only 11's? I run low 10's

well prolly because i only have a few modifications done to one of the slowest j-bodies made lol. its a 96 2.2 with the 3 spd auto. the closest track to me is only 1/8th mile so ive never run it on a 1/4 mile. im thinking it will prolly run a 16.8-16.9 in the 1/4

Andrew Howe wrote: im thinking it will prolly run a 16.8-16.9 in the 1/4

Actually a stock 2.2L 3sp runs high 17s to low 18s. With your mods, you'ld probably run in the mid 17s, maybe low 17s with some practice.

If he's running low 10s in 1/8, I would guess high 16s, also. Mid 16s if it was a 4 speed.

Andrew Howe wrote:

The Evil J wrote:Why only 11's? I run low 10's

well prolly because i only have a few modifications done to one of the slowest j-bodies made lol. its a 96 2.2 with the 3 spd auto. the closest track to me is only 1/8th mile so ive never run it on a 1/4 mile. im thinking it will prolly run a 16.8-16.9 in the 1/4

Ah, I have an ECOtec powered Sunfire, with a GETrag 5-speed


Caution: Redneck Posting

My best 1/8 mile is a 9.92@71.34MPH....stock sunfire.