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DSM 1/4 mile time lists of old...

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Man its awesome to see Dave and Sean chime in.I used to love reading about these guys in the few import mags then. maybe John Shep will chime in also.
 
Welcome to the thread Sean! I was at VMP and saw your 8.63 pass. I've got a bunch of pics of your Talon I was planning on posting once Phil got us up into 2005 on this thread. I believe it wasn't long after that that the Talon disappeared and Shep took over and went into the 7's. Before that though it was extremely exciting watching you and Shep trade record passes. The good ole days for sure!

Man its awesome to see Dave and Sean chime in.I used to love reading about these guys in the few import mags then. maybe John Shep will chime in also.

I agree, this thread needs Shep! :hellyeah: That would make it even more epic!
 
Welcome to the thread Sean! I was at VMP and saw your 8.63 pass. I've got a bunch of pics of your Talon I was planning on posting once Phil got us up into 2005 on this thread. I believe it wasn't long after that that the Talon disappeared and Shep took over and went into the 7's. Before that though it was extremely exciting watching you and Shep trade record passes. The good ole days for sure!



I agree, this thread needs Shep! :hellyeah: That would make it even more epic!

I'll talk to Jack Culotta see if he has an account.
 
Welcome to the thread Sean! I was at VMP and saw your 8.63 pass. I've got a bunch of pics of your Talon I was planning on posting once Phil got us up into 2005 on this thread. I believe it wasn't long after that that the Talon disappeared and Shep took over and went into the 7's. Before that though it was extremely exciting watching you and Shep trade record passes. The good ole days for sure!



I agree, this thread needs Shep! :hellyeah: That would make it even more epic!

There were three things that plagued the Talon: transmissions, transfer cases, and driveshaft yokes. Of course fast forwarding a decade which will mark the anniversary of the Talon breaking into the 8's..... if I had a PPG gearset like I have for the Evo, it would have been only two things to worry about. I had run transmissions from Shep and TRE as well as bone stock units with a welded center diff--- when they worked, they worked but never with any amount of consistency. I had arguments with both Jo(h)n's over it and we never had a real solution. I finally decided to stop running the car until I had a solution for everything. The transfer case is simply small... and the yoke is also in the same boat. Sometimes they would last three passes, others for ten. Not good at all. Usually I would twist the yoke 2-splines worth in two passes.

There was one point when running NIRA that the Talon was going to undergo a huge transformation: still AWD, but with a complete R33 Skyline driveline with a Hollinger or Hewland dogbox. That was until NIRA made one little rule that killed that: you couldn't change the orientation of the engine in the engine bay. I figured that at the rate that I was going through driveline parts, that would solve it and a lot of parts were already available.


Engine was always fine and well underutilized, and you wanna know about it....

To date, only two people know what turbo size I had run. Tons of speculation, but I never let the cat out of the bag.... until now. The "T4 Secret" that is listed was a 70mm compressor wheel with a GTQ turbine wheel in a .70 T4 turbine housing and the last one was from PTE--- even for then it was old school, but it worked. Now, the best part. 33psi + 150hp shot of nitrous. Yes 33 PSI. I had never run any more than that for one reason: it would shift even less consistent than it did. So I had capped the boost that I was running until transmission woes were sorted out. And you're wondering what the engine combo was--- another part that is fun as well and never fully let out. The last combination was Arias 8:1 pistons, Groden rods, Moldex custom billet crank that I had on the shelf for over 4-years , and for the head was Ferrea valvetrain, Hyperdrive solid lifters, Crane cams, and the head was done by an awesome friend--- Dave @ Headgames.

I also had tried automatics back as far as 1999 all without luck as everyone that promised they could make something work, could not and I backed away from that three or four times. I even had a transmission company call me and say they could solve the problem of the manual transmission.... they did make the first one on their dime and in the end it lasted 3-passes before it grenaded. Then they bailed.

The only thing that I have never mentioned is the fastest pass the Talon ever had. It was a test pass locally and one small problem was that I blew the transfer case on the second pass to the point there was nothing left under the car except two bolts. The pass was an 8.23.... and it was every part of it, but I HAVE to have a backup run to make it count in my book, so without that I never really counted it. There was also one other pass that was on track (I believe) in the same season at Englishtown. We got rained out on Saturday and Sunday they ran round robin. I went through the traps sideways, chute open, and in a cloud of smoke as an Integra had blown its engine the run before and they never cleaned the track because they were rushing...... needless to say, to see the side of the car next to you out your windshield is not comforting. And when you're sliding at 160mph on oil.... pucker, pucker, pucker... That pass after all of that drama? 8.77.
 
Wow, I thought you'd might post after we spoke yesterday. It's great to hear your knowledge on what actually worked for you. it's a lot different then all the 42r's 70mm or 74mm that is so common on big turbo setups of today. Was that with the hks 272/272cams in the car when you broke into the 8's
?
 
There were three things that plagued the Talon: transmissions, transfer cases, and driveshaft yokes. Of course fast forwarding a decade which will mark the anniversary of the Talon breaking into the 8's..... if I had a PPG gearset like I have for the Evo, it would have been only two things to worry about. I had run transmissions from Shep and TRE as well as bone stock units with a welded center diff--- when they worked, they worked but never with any amount of consistency. I had arguments with both Jo(h)n's over it and we never had a real solution. I finally decided to stop running the car until I had a solution for everything. The transfer case is simply small... and the yoke is also in the same boat. Sometimes they would last three passes, others for ten. Not good at all. Usually I would twist the yoke 2-splines worth in two passes.

There was one point when running NIRA that the Talon was going to undergo a huge transformation: still AWD, but with a complete R33 Skyline driveline with a Hollinger or Hewland dogbox. That was until NIRA made one little rule that killed that: you couldn't change the orientation of the engine in the engine bay. I figured that at the rate that I was going through driveline parts, that would solve it and a lot of parts were already available.


Engine was always fine and well underutilized, and you wanna know about it....

To date, only two people know what turbo size I had run. Tons of speculation, but I never let the cat out of the bag.... until now. The "T4 Secret" that is listed was a 70mm compressor wheel with a GTQ turbine wheel in a .70 T4 turbine housing and the last one was from PTE--- even for then it was old school, but it worked. Now, the best part. 33psi + 150hp shot of nitrous. Yes 33 PSI. I had never run any more than that for one reason: it would shift even less consistent than it did. So I had capped the boost that I was running until transmission woes were sorted out. And you're wondering what the engine combo was--- another part that is fun as well and never fully let out. The last combination was Arias 8:1 pistons, Groden rods, Moldex custom billet crank that I had on the shelf for over 4-years , and for the head was Ferrea valvetrain, Hyperdrive solid lifters, Crane cams, and the head was done by an awesome friend--- Dave @ Headgames.

I also had tried automatics back as far as 1999 all without luck as everyone that promised they could make something work, could not and I backed away from that three or four times. I even had a transmission company call me and say they could solve the problem of the manual transmission.... they did make the first one on their dime and in the end it lasted 3-passes before it grenaded. Then they bailed.

The only thing that I have never mentioned is the fastest pass the Talon ever had. It was a test pass locally and one small problem was that I blew the transfer case on the second pass to the point there was nothing left under the car except two bolts. The pass was an 8.23.... and it was every part of it, but I HAVE to have a backup run to make it count in my book, so without that I never really counted it. There was also one other pass that was on track (I believe) in the same season at Englishtown. We got rained out on Saturday and Sunday they ran round robin. I went through the traps sideways, chute open, and in a cloud of smoke as an Integra had blown its engine the run before and they never cleaned the track because they were rushing...... needless to say, to see the side of the car next to you out your windshield is not comforting. And when you're sliding at 160mph on oil.... pucker, pucker, pucker... That pass after all of that drama? 8.77.




Wow this thread has really picked up and its great to hear from the guys who set the bar.

The lack of clutch technology should be noted here as well. What did you run back then for a clutch?

Also when you went to the Pro class in the Hyundai...who built that car? What caused it to crash?.. My memory and brain cells have taken a beating since then so I HOPE that Im not confusing your car for another, but I recall looking at the rear setup and thinking something wasnt right...like it was too narrow?

Anyway, your 1G was an amazing machine :thumb: I miss those days and the crowds it generated when the Import scene was in full swing.

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I seem to recall going out to Extreme and seeing a lot of Clutch Masters stuff. I hung out with Jack a lot back then when he worked there. I want to say I remember Terry talking about trying a Tilton at one time. See what Sean has to say.
 
Wow, I thought you'd might post after we spoke yesterday. It's great to hear your knowledge on what actually worked for you. it's a lot different then all the 42r's 70mm or 74mm that is so common on big turbo setups of today. Was that with the hks 272/272cams in the car when you broke into the 8's
?

Ah, clutches... that was definitely an interesting one for a while. The first clutch that really held power and did not fall apart was the brainchild of Chris Jewel of Clutch Masters. It was a cintered iron disc and a double diaphragm pressure plate. I ran that for quite some time and it worked well, that was what was in the car when it went it's first 8. From there I went to the CM twin disc which is what I finished up with. More consistent and lighter, plus it got me away from running OEM materials in an engine that revved over 10k.

Cams in the first grouping of 8-second passes were good old HKS 272's as they were the largest non-custom grind available at the time. I had already tried a dozen combinations at that point, and they simply worked well. After that I ran the largest Crane cam available and it definitely made more power and also required a lot of new thinking when it came to setups as none of the clearances that I ran would work.

For the Hyundai it was a catastrophic ordeal. The car originated from Kike in Puerto Rico and then was completed by Jon Little in Hanover, PA. When Jon got done with the car it was awesome and from the first pass in testing it did one thing--- go straight and smooth. We did some testing at MIR and the first pass was a 9.1xx which was wild as the car was so quite, smooth, and was as composed as the Talon always was. For me it was a big change and a very steep learning curve that I had to climb fast to catch up in the class. I also was trying a few things that didn't work as well as planned and I was also grounded a number of times (including the one year at the DSM Shootout) as amazingly I was able to kill two Motec ECU's and ignition as well as the MSD that I had in it before it. The car had a total of 9 passes between competition and testing. What had happened was that at the top end there was oil on the track--- just like the Talon had a month or so later, but without AWD I was screwed. We have video, but it ends less than a 1/4 second before the car went sideways. I had already pulled the chute at the finish and before it fully deployed the rear of the car hooked hard left to the point the corner of the chassis on the left rear dug in and pitched the car to the right wall which I hit almost straight on. The the car went for a ride as it rolled several times and somewhere in the middle of it all it landed it came down flat which hurt like hell then it went over again and slid into the left wall which then the fuel cell exploded, upside down. The track tried to say it was the chute that wrapped around the axle, but that was from the car rolling at 150+mph and it got caught up in it at some point. I did walk the track and simply, there was oil right where the groove was.

In the end, we had taken the car all apart and of course the body was trashed and then the killer to the car was the chassis did its work and made the ultimate sacrifice: it saved me. Both main hoops were bent as well pretty much every other tube as well as the engine was a paper weight--- so we were left with a transmission, rear end, computer, and the seat. In the end it was a huge financial setback, but I am still alive and thank God every day that if I could have had an accident in a car it was in that car as well as on a track with medical help on site. I also give tons of credit to my Hans Device as well. I had the first one in the import racing scene back then and it definitely did its job.

As far as the rear of the car being too narrow, it was actually correct width. The difference was that I had the 14" tires (from what I recall) on it and they definitely look narrow under the car. What was really crazy about the car was that the car ran the 8.1 on less than 550hp at the wheels. No nitrous, no hard launch, and also on its 9th pass. I wish it could have been a 7-second run just because, but I'll take staying alive over a better time any day of the week!
 
It would have been very cool to see Extreme get into exotics, there are dozens of 1,000 HP Gallardos running around, only 2 shops really doing them, Underground Racing and Heffner Performance. And they are like Buschur and Extreme. But the Lambo guys are forking out $50-$60,000 for twin turbo setups. Thats definitely something Sean has the know how with, they are using Motec management and a few others, and they are AWD so they already had the dyno. And it wouldnt be a matter of there being some locals to hang out at the track with, these guys ship their cars all over the world to get worked on. Very profitable avenue to take.
 
I'm around, just not alot. Without getting into my usual run-on I'll just say:

VERY INTERESTING
 
Sean wrote:
"If I still have the video of the RWD and in-car camera... I'll post it on Youtube. I know I could have cared less what boost the car was running, only that with no datalogging as everything was piggyback in that car..... you had no idea and were clueless as usual . I offered the use of my mount and the camera and all that I remember was that we got it in, tried to get a shot of the gauges.... and vibration took care of the rest. Solid mounted everything did it all in. Nothing usable as it was a blurry mess, yet made for some good controversy and conversations. So I guess you still are the only one to know how much boost it really ran.............You ran the VPC and to this day I still detest the thing, so my direction was the PMS. Just as you said, you look back now and all of it seems so antiquated and even a basic 2G MAS and an old school AFC would have been that much better."

Well, I don't remember it that way, I remember you being pretty concerned as it was the quickest/fastest a DSM (even if RWD) had gone at the time. Clueless...I'll just ignore your attempt at being cute.

Good or bad the VPC ran 7's at 174.8 mph and by even today's standard's is quicker than nearly everyone else. That was back in 2001.
 
We need the rest of the legends to come in as well.

It's great to see Sean and David on here and even settling it.

Sent from my T-Mobile HTC HD2 using tapatalk
 
Nothing to settle, all this crap is just old "history". I don't want to be insulted by him but beyond that I don't really care about it all..........too many years have passed and it just makes for good stories now.

I could write a book about all the "adventures" over the years, nobody would read it but I could write one!

BTW, speaking of cams. Those old HKS272's ran 7.8's in my car and are still in Albert's car running 7.60's now. I'd love to go back and build another tube chassis car to run again with what I know now.....
 
It's actually pretty cool to see some of the old legends in here sharing stories for all to read, especially the big rivals (who still battle it out now in the Evo scene). It seems way back when there were so many secrets and so much speculation throughout the community... now that you guys aren't focusing on setting records with DSMs, we can now read all about what was going on behind the scenes and in the private forums.

You can still sense that competitive attitude in their posts too, even after so much time has passed. :)
 
Definately a good read! I love this old stuff. It will never cease to amaze me what alot of the "old guys" accomplished back then. Even now with newer and better technology alot of those times are still standing as some of the fastest dsms ever. Keep up the posts, this is getting good!
 
Nothing to settle, all this crap is just old "history". I don't want to be insulted by him but beyond that I don't really care about it all..........too many years have passed and it just makes for good stories now.

I could write a book about all the "adventures" over the years, nobody would read it but I could write one!

BTW, speaking of cams. Those old HKS272's ran 7.8's in my car and are still in Albert's car running 7.60's now. I'd love to go back and build another tube chassis car to run again with what I know now.....

This is exactly it... definitely nothing to settle as it is all for fun and good stories. The where and how "then" is so different than the "now" that looking back it is amazing how fast we actually went with what we had to work with. The biggest thing to date for me is that with all of the new technology and advancements over the years and how few have actually been able to faster. I had gotten glimpses of some serious DSM and Evo projects from here and over the pond--- none ever came to fruition and in the end, we paved the path to which many follow and try to go.
 
Thanks for the great stories!
Dave, Sean, can I ask you guys something?
Back when you were getting into the low 11's and breaking into the tens, did it seem easy? Or was every tenth a struggle?
And when you hit tens, did it seem like you were reaching the limits of the DSM platform?
Did you ever think you'd eventually get into the 8's?
 
Nothing to settle, all this crap is just old "history". I don't want to be insulted by him but beyond that I don't really care about it all..........too many years have passed and it just makes for good stories now.

I could write a book about all the "adventures" over the years, nobody would read it but I could write one!

BTW, speaking of cams. Those old HKS272's ran 7.8's in my car and are still in Albert's car running 7.60's now. I'd love to go back and build another tube chassis car to run again with what I know now.....

This is exactly it... definitely nothing to settle as it is all for fun and good stories. The where and how "then" is so different than the "now" that looking back it is amazing how fast we actually went with what we had to work with. The biggest thing to date for me is that with all of the new technology and advancements over the years and how few have actually been able to faster. I had gotten glimpses of some serious DSM and Evo projects from here and over the pond--- none ever came to fruition and in the end, we paved the path to which many follow and try to go.

Both of you have at one point dominated your classes thruout your careers of building, tuning, and racing DSM's. Dave your tube chassis car was a force on the track. Still not sure how a powerglide, 660's, HKS 272/272, "t-61?" and a zex 75 shot could run 7.80s?.(I didn't get into dsm's into 1999-2000 after reading Turbo's article on Sean).I didn't know about 4banger untill you did an article for Dsport. TO ANYONE, I'LL BUY THOSE ISSUES FROM WHOEVER HAS ANY? Sean you were running 8's when everyone even thought it was possiable. They made rules, to stop you with weight penaltys, and even banned your car from competitition.

We know Shep beat up the Drag Radial class or Street Tire class for years. But before Shep, Sean was running the Quck class for years. If my friends would not have been older then me, and that Talon was never in Turbo Magizine. I would have saved over 60,000 dollars on money lost on DSM's thru the years. For all of that, Sean AND Dave I'd like to say THANK YOU. I can only imagine how many relationships have ended because of Sean and Dave? Im sure some ended in the worse way possiable, so you two better be on the lockout for some of these women. What's amaing is that both of you have been thru it all suvived. Both of you should never of had serious accidents with oil on the track and made it out fine which is a blessing. Both are still married. Thanks for all you did and continue to do.


With NRG-TECH, aka Miller civic running 8.30's @181 with a 72mm turbo and 26 inch slicks, w/ no wheelie bars. He also run's a 67mm turbo 14 inch slicks and a air to air I/C. With his true street setup he runs 8.80's @ 177+. Is there anything that would be competitive aginst this purpose built class car? Did you two ever think honda would ever be the current king of the import classes and be so fast? Curious to know what would you have done differnt knowing what you know now, and what you think the results would be with whatever car's you may of had? Please continue with your own stories, as if you two would write a book we woiuld all read it anyway.
 
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Definite DSM Legends. Im convinced that most of the parts and mods that are available for our cars wouldn't even be available if it wasn't for Extreme and Buschur Racing. Im glad I was around back then. I remember being at MIR when both Sean and Jack were in the low 11s. Jack split the weld on his intercooler and I think the pass before that had run out of gas.

Then we were walking around and saw Eddie Bello's White Porsche on a Uhaul trailer, Jack looked under it and laughed, "Its not even AWD" Cant be that fast, he pulls it off the trainer, stages, rolls out short shifts into second, nails it halfway through second, I thought the front wheels were coming off the ground, flies through the traps at 12.1 @ 140, Jack says "WHAT THE F*&K WAS THAT?" ROFL ROFL ROFL

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Thanks for the great stories!
Dave, Sean, can I ask you guys something?
Back when you were getting into the low 11's and breaking into the tens, did it seem easy? Or was every tenth a struggle?
And when you hit tens, did it seem like you were reaching the limits of the DSM platform?
Did you ever think you'd eventually get into the 8's?

Running low 11's was never that bad. Breaking into the 10's was definitely something to go after and after doing so and not just squeaking in by a couple of hundredths it really opened my eyes to what was next. I basically asked myself that if we went from 12's to 11's to 10's, how far away were the 9's? That took a lot more work and frustration.

The biggest headache that I had was that I prefer the simple and elegant solution over anything else, and two areas at the time became a huge challenge: fuel management and clutches. Once I switched to Haltech back then and had some semblance if a clutch that was going to work my times dropped pretty fast. Then we got hooked up with Nitrous Express and that is when we got into the 9.1's. That is where I knew 8's were right around the corner.

The last few races of the NIRA season I had a problem that reared its head when it wanted to--- I would have a backfire in the intake manifold and it took the winter to figure out what was going on. It turned out to be something simple and the next season it was solved. That was also the season that I went 8's and even then it took a good part of it to get there.

That was the starting point of huge limitations. I knew I could go faster, but it was going to be a really tough road. Going from 8.8's to 8.6's was not bad and having a couple of what I called "miracle runs" that I never backed up of an 8.2--- I knew that is where the limitation was going to be for a stock transmission setup. When I first went 8's when we got home I went to move the Talon and when I went to start it--- the 3/4 slider exploded in the transmission. I then had this happen after another race as well. The total number of passes was 3 on that transmission. So just like a Tootsie Pop... 1...2....3.... CRUNCH! 3.

Really after I had stopped running until I figured a number of things out, John went from there and was able to slice off another 1/2 second (from my best non-backed up time) with huge changes that equated to more power and ability to get it down--- methanol versus C16, a "new" turbo at much higher boost, dog engagement transmission--- as well as other changes that I am sure of that some day he will talk about. There is still more left in that car if it can go straight....

So I would say as the times dropped the 10's were easy, 9's were not bad, and 8's were a bi***. If there was a indestructible transfer case and I had a PPG gearset.... 7's were there for the taking, but just like the 8's it was going to be interesting.

One thing that I will point out that I have to mention overall: the Talon was built and ran in sanctioned events and there were limitation on the car right down to turbo size. I am sure that if I was on an open platform that I would have achieved the times sooner, but with rules to contend with it definitely made me work harder for the same goal.
 
I didn't mean it in that terms. I said "settle" for lack of better words. Just going over everything with these stories are amazing.

Sorry to put off that as something it wasn't to be.

Continue with these stories and entertain us!
 
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