How to Dyno Your Motor and Run Your Car From Your Desk

We really wanted to know what our car is going to run with the changes we had made so far. We already had Performance Trend's Drag Race Analyzer Pro that we used for predicting throttle stop settings. We then purchased their Engine Analyzer Pro software to compliment the other so we could predict the whole package and find what we were doing wrong and what we were doing right.

Having already setup our dragster in the Drag Race Analyzer and backed into the previous horsepower numbers by using actual ET and incremental numbers. All that was left was to enter all of the motor data into the Engine Analyzer Pro to determine Peak HP at what RPM and Peak Torque at what RPM. Taking those figures we then entered them into the Drag Race Analyzer to predict the runs.

The original set up at 36° timing with a 7600 rpm shift and 5400 rpm launch. We had all of the details of air flow of the heads from AFR and all of the cam specs from cam card. The software predicted that the motor would produce 708 Peak HP @ 5650 rpm and 576 Peak ft/lbs Torque @ 5650 rpm and run a 1.16 60 foot,  5.09 @ 137.10 mph in the 1/8th mile and 8.06 ET @ 163.80 mph in the 1/4 mile.

This is where it gets interesting. Having already changed the launch rpm six times and the shift rpm four times to find the best ETs. Then we ran the dyno and the resultant sheets that were able to print. Afterwards, we starting thinking of other tweaks we could make. What if we played with timing, what would happen? Starting at 36°, then running the timing all the way up to 40° and down to 32°. When we lowered the timing from 36° to 34°. The Peak Torque climbed to 582 ft/lbs and the motor gained 1 HP. We then adjusted the numbers in the Drag Race Analyzer and the ET picked up .01 to a 5.08 in the 1/8th and picked up .02 in the 1/4 to a 8.04.