Lidio
04-02-2003, 07:47 PM
For anyone who might be interested, I will be drag racing the Trilogy owned development Marauder this weekend in Reynolds Georgia for a NMRA race. I will be running the car in the Mod-motor class. I’m hoping to run slightly better then I did in Florida a few weeks ago because of the heat and humidity we had out there. The weather in Reynolds is calling for a littler bit cooler and less humid than I had in Florida.
Just to give an update…. I ran 13.42’s with the car at Bradenton Florida at 102mph. This was all achieved with the Marauder being completely stock every where other than the inter-cooled blower package that Trilogy has developed making 9psi in Florida, where as here in Michigan a few weeks ago in the 20 degree air it made around 10ish.
The sixty foots in FL where any where from 1.9’s to 2.4’s. The more I brake-torqued the car the more it wanted to spin the tires. My best ET’s and sixty foot’s where achieved with just a light brake-torque (1100rpm) and then press the gas pedal quickly to the floor, not slam it to the floor. I experimented with tire pressures ranging from 23psi to 35 in the stock rear tires and got no where so I left them at 26 any way. I firmly believe that if I had a drag radial and could have brake-torqued it to about 1500 to 1700 rpm and hit as hard as I could, I think I would have brought home 13.10 to 13.20’s time slips! On a couple of passes it spun the tires about 100-150 feet out and produce mid to high 14 second runs… still quite a bit better ET then stock. I’m confident that on a cool Michigan day and perfect traction this cars current set up should produce 13.00’s.
I’d also like to note that at the end of the ¼ mile the rpms in 3d gear were only at about 4600rpm! This is not optimal for a drag racer when the engine shifts at 6000 ish. We would usually like to see a trap rpm of about 6000+ on this type of set up. This would probablly produce about a 2-3 tenth increase in ET but traction would become a much more serious problem with out a tire upgrade. This is why I’m suggesting leaving the 3.55’s in the rear for now if the Trilogy blower is in your Marauder’s future. Also the stock torque converter stall speed is perfect for the blower application. Once again a change here would only produce greater traction problems and if loosened up to much can cause a drivability concern around town when locking and unlocking.
I also wanted to mention that on the way home from Florida we were forced to drive the Marauder about 600 miles due to a trailer axle failure on a friends race car hauler, so we put all his stuff in my trailer and simply drove the Merc… this is how we learned that the car would get over 24 MPG on the high way. We did not drive the car down to FL because of it being a development car.
For those who have asked about how it drives under normal, non full throttle conditions all I can say is that you don’t even know what’s been done till you step into it.
I really hate giving that car back to Jerry at Trilogy:) I’ve taken a serious personal interest in this car while doing all my calibration work. I am going to try to own one this summer. I love big cars and I’ve driving a ’99 SuperDuty, Crewcab, Diesel, Dualley every day for five years this past March and am ready for some thing new. The Marauder is actually a smaller ride to me so it’s very fitting to take the place of the SuperDuty as a daily ride.
Thanks
Just to give an update…. I ran 13.42’s with the car at Bradenton Florida at 102mph. This was all achieved with the Marauder being completely stock every where other than the inter-cooled blower package that Trilogy has developed making 9psi in Florida, where as here in Michigan a few weeks ago in the 20 degree air it made around 10ish.
The sixty foots in FL where any where from 1.9’s to 2.4’s. The more I brake-torqued the car the more it wanted to spin the tires. My best ET’s and sixty foot’s where achieved with just a light brake-torque (1100rpm) and then press the gas pedal quickly to the floor, not slam it to the floor. I experimented with tire pressures ranging from 23psi to 35 in the stock rear tires and got no where so I left them at 26 any way. I firmly believe that if I had a drag radial and could have brake-torqued it to about 1500 to 1700 rpm and hit as hard as I could, I think I would have brought home 13.10 to 13.20’s time slips! On a couple of passes it spun the tires about 100-150 feet out and produce mid to high 14 second runs… still quite a bit better ET then stock. I’m confident that on a cool Michigan day and perfect traction this cars current set up should produce 13.00’s.
I’d also like to note that at the end of the ¼ mile the rpms in 3d gear were only at about 4600rpm! This is not optimal for a drag racer when the engine shifts at 6000 ish. We would usually like to see a trap rpm of about 6000+ on this type of set up. This would probablly produce about a 2-3 tenth increase in ET but traction would become a much more serious problem with out a tire upgrade. This is why I’m suggesting leaving the 3.55’s in the rear for now if the Trilogy blower is in your Marauder’s future. Also the stock torque converter stall speed is perfect for the blower application. Once again a change here would only produce greater traction problems and if loosened up to much can cause a drivability concern around town when locking and unlocking.
I also wanted to mention that on the way home from Florida we were forced to drive the Marauder about 600 miles due to a trailer axle failure on a friends race car hauler, so we put all his stuff in my trailer and simply drove the Merc… this is how we learned that the car would get over 24 MPG on the high way. We did not drive the car down to FL because of it being a development car.
For those who have asked about how it drives under normal, non full throttle conditions all I can say is that you don’t even know what’s been done till you step into it.
I really hate giving that car back to Jerry at Trilogy:) I’ve taken a serious personal interest in this car while doing all my calibration work. I am going to try to own one this summer. I love big cars and I’ve driving a ’99 SuperDuty, Crewcab, Diesel, Dualley every day for five years this past March and am ready for some thing new. The Marauder is actually a smaller ride to me so it’s very fitting to take the place of the SuperDuty as a daily ride.
Thanks