Yeah, track conditions really matter. Crappy tracks will produce crappy times. And yeah, get some traction bars. If you can afford it, Competition Engineering makes some new ones for $360 for the set called Slide-A-Link, they'll make you hook on a drag strip. I know people that are running those and have cars that are running in the 8's in a 1/4, so they obviously work.

 

Well I pulled a valve spring and measured it. It has 47 lbs of pressure at seat height and 175 lbs of pressure at open height. That is way below what I should be running.

 

lol yeah I would say that's a problem. I remember mine pulling about that on my 289 before.

 

Those are not only valve springs,,, those are rev limiters..... I am surprised you saw 5,000 rpm....

I think briggs an stratton uses 50 lbs of seat pressure.....

 

Holy crap, that's nothing for spring pressure. Yeah, I'm suprised too that you could even get to 5,000

 

I got the new valve springs in there now and it made a huge difference! It runs better at all RPM's not just high rpm. But now it can actually rev till I need to shift. Now, I just need to decide what my next project should be...Thanks for the advice everyone.