Talked to a bunch of industry pals at the Race and Performance Expo down in St Charles IL this weekend, did some shop talk on the drag week expectations for this year. (
warning this entire post will be random banter from that expo and might get long)
We found out the hot setup for rear ends is starting to become the Dana60 again, even with the common love for the 9inch. Because of the availability, and how popular they've been with the big-truck and offroad guys, they are starting to get more high hp streetcar love. I know guys have been running 'em for decades, but some of the new setups are 1k+hp safe and around 1/3 cheaper than the 9. There are also more fab housings available now. An "unusual" driveline company may be helping us out with something in that wheelhouse if we can work it out.
I will admit, number of reps who just couldn't carry a relevant discussion about their products. I'm not expecting you to know everything, but way too many of them were clearly just flipping through their catalogs and reading that out loud (like we can't do that ourselves
).
I also was able to spend a few minutes with my friends from Borowski Race Engines, we shot a little interview and talked about some of the upcoming stuff they'll be bringing out this year. They have a badass El Camino that they drag and road race as a shop demo vehicle. It was crazy fast with the LS 383 it had, and its getting a whipple blown 427 this season.
They'll be selling the
nasty drivetrain it had (the above mentioned LS383) if anyone needs a race proven Pro built LS motor. I can probably get someone a very, very nice deal on a very feisty setup.
Only other little piece of Drag Week related rumor was that; due to an overwhelming number of comments and requests from some of the fast-class competitors, the route has tried to keep E85 available as readily as possible. I guess there have been a couple situations with competitors having too many close-calls with random intervals of no E85. Thats not really specific or useful, but what can I say?
