Originally Posted By: Mykl
Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
It was 255HP in a tiny car, I'd have hoped it spanked the 235HP Fox Cobra (assuming we aren't talking about a termi, which would have destroyed you). Though based on a quick search it ran low 14's or high 13's at under 100Mph so it is slower than I expected
I would guess that the RX-7 he was in was modified. Not that it needed a lot of upgrades to run away from a '90's Cobra.
As far as I can tell Cobras must be difficult to launch. Because I was beating the mid '00 supercharged Cobras in my stock 300 hp Subaru at the drag strip, consistently. Magazine numbers put the Cobra faster by around a half a second.
They need a tire for sure. And the '03/04 (those were the two years the car was "390HP" (in quotations because that was a serious under-rate)) cars were hard on the IRS rear suspension they had. Wheel hop could break things. The earlier Cobras were not supercharged, and were 320HP.
If you didn't have it on a tire, and/or didn't know how to drive, a car with traction (like your Subaru) could certainly beat it out of the hole, and if you didn't hook up, you'd be trying to run it down the rest of the track.
That's why MPH is always important to look at. My '87 T-Top cut just under 100Mph (99.8) bone stock the first time I had it at the track, but I was running mid 14's. Wheel spin and being new to drag racing were big factors there. I couldn't get it out of the hole. Came back with an aluminum driveshaft and an electric fan and was cutting 101.3Mph and 13.8's on an Mickey Thompson ET Street D/R, and I was still running the stock 3.08 gears out back. Did heads/cam/intake (still stock gears), was making 270HP to the tires (about 325HP flywheel) and was cutting bottom 13's (13.2) at 106-107Mph when I broke my stock T-5 transmission and had to limp it home. Never had it back to the track, as I wrote it off. Kept the engine though, still looking for a home for it.
Funny thing about that, and going off on a bit of a tangent, but a buddy of mine who knows a LOT about Mustangs (and I learned a lot from him) was teasing me about gears in my car because I was certain that it had 3.55's in it, since my speedo was off. He wasn't so sure about that. I put in the 3.55 correction gear (the black one) and it made my speedo bang-on. This was, to me, certain proof that I in fact had gears. I was wrong, LOL! Car had 3.08's and the speedo was just whacky. We checked when we tore the car apart after the accident. Boy was I red in the face and he teased the [censored] out of me, LOL! This is the same guy of course whose stock '88 (or '87) was a "ringer" and was well into the 13's as delivered. Didn't hurt that he could drive like nobody I've ever seen though
Back on topic: an '03/'04 Cobra will run high 12's, bottom 13's bone stock with a good driver. There have been some deep 12's but those are Unicorn runs. A buddy of mine swapped a pair of twins on his and made 850RWHP and ran a bottom 10 at 145Mph (or something alone those lines, don't quote me on that one) spinning half the track. His car had a solid diff swap.
Anything with a lot of torque (not an RX7) is going to be hard to get out of the hole. I could light the tires up in my '87 easily from a roll, that's why a lot of guys ran around on a DR. And the Fox 'stangs (including the Fox Cobra) weren't overly well weight balanced either, exasperating the issue. On a tire, setup right, they are a rocket though. One of the best platforms for drag racing. And they are also very cheap to modify.