My Day @ MIR: Now With Xtra Boost! 10/20/13

"offroadkarter" (04RauderDTR)
10/22/2013 at 22:16 • Filed to: 1320, maryland international raceway, MIR, mercury, marauder, bmw, 745i, e23, drag race, drag racing

I finally had a chance to run the Marauder down the 1/4 mile with its new found power, but would I hit my goal of mid 12's first time out? Read more to find out!

As I posted the other day, I was down in Maryland this weekend. Saturday I took the Marauder and my friends e23 745i to a car meet in Germantown called !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! Sunday was race day. Up at 9am (for no good reason, my friend who was meeting us was an hour and a half late!) I tweaked the tune on the marauder using my SCT Xcal3 just a bit, and cruised around in the 745i until it was time to leave.

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Maryland International Raceway (MIR) is actually only 15 minutes from my grandmothers house, so its actually even easier for me to get to versus me driving to Englishtown Raceway Park in NJ. Sweet! I've never been here before, so the layout was totally confusing to me, The pit lanes were like rows that multiple cars could pile into (I guess this is made for trailer parking) where as E town is just a parking lot. This track is also out in BFE which is also part of the reason I had no idea it was so close. But we made it and got situated.

The black marauder belongs to my friend who lives in Maryland, he also owns the 745i that, against his better judgement, he let us borrow all weekend. His friend from college piloted the BMW on its first run, and when they had to leave later in the day, my friend who rode down from Jersey drove it on the second run.

We actually ended up running into another marauder owner, as well as two guys I knew with a cammed crown vic and a cammed grand marquis. We only got to talk to the marauder owner for a while. His is seen here with the 17" hoosiers on the back. It has a Trilogy Lysholm based 2.3L twin screw with meth injection putting down 519rwhp on a stock long block. Thats a lot more than the 436rwhp I put down with my eaton.

So up first was the black N/A marauder, which only has 4.10's, billet rear control arms and a tune done by the owner at 3 in the morning while he was half asleep. Since this is his sometimes DD he doesn't really get to flog it often, so anytime I get to drive it, I'm usually the one who has to tell him "Hey your trans is fucked dude".

He got lined up next to a 4th gen LS1 SS camaro. The outcome was very predictable.

The Marauder cruised down the track as the SS sped off. I believe the SS ran a mid 12 something, and he ran a 14.46

It was at this point he realized his 3am trans tune was, as I liked to say "fucked", because it messed up the 2-3 shift while locking the converter at the same time, and generally just did very bad things which cost him at least a tenth if not two tenths.

Next up, was the Trilogy Twin Screw Marauder against a loud ass SN95 mustang. The announcer thought we were all driving grand marquis', he was flabbergasted when the Marauder put a hurting on this SN95.

He managed to pull off an 11.81 @117.45 spinning on Hoosier drag radials.

He was happy that he got his car into the 11's, so he took off because he had somewhere to be.

Now, I didn't get to run yet, nor did the BMW, because when we got out of tech, we got lost because my asshat friend in the marauder decided to take off without telling us he was going to the staging lanes, so we missed the cutoff by literally 5 seconds. So during this time we just hung out and I let my car cool off from the drive.

Trilogy didn't make many twin screw kits. I believe they made just over 250 eaton kits (253?) and only 10 or so were twin screws. This car was also his daily driver, and his street tires were the stock god awful 245/55 BFG KDWS tires which are hard to find.

Heading out, back in street trim.

Walking through the pits, I come across two cars I'm familiar with. A blue crown vic LX sport and a gold grand marquis, both cammed. The guy with the vic is actually a member on my forum and won ride of the month one year. The blue vic just got a 4.56 rear gear install and some 26.5" slicks. I heard over the track radio (WMIR, is that their real FCC callsign? who knows) that he ran a 13.55. He said on the forum he's still having trans issues, but mid 13's for a N/A 2v is moving pretty good.

I THINK the grand marquis pulled off a 13.7, he has a little less work done than the vic, but since these cars stock are high 15, low 16 territory cars, they both are doing very well

So its finally time for lanes 1 and 2 test and tune to go up again, so we all get in the lanes. The BMW is up first. The factory times for this car were rated at 15.8. This car sat in the woods for 6 years before my friend got it running last year. The valves were relashed, the trans and rear end were rebuilt, and I know its had a few other things done.

This car looked so out of place at the track!

I know I've posted a lot about this car on here, but for those of you who don't know, this is a grey market import 1985 745i with a 3.5L turbo inline 6 putting out 250hp, backed by a 4spd auto. It has 635csi 18" rims with 265/35/18 tires all around. The engine/trans/rear are all bone stock

What did the fox say? Peace out krautmobile

The BMW did a 15.88 @ 90mph, so it hit our target! The owner was very happy, after 150k miles the car was still performing as it should.

I was up next, and at first I thought I was going up against a four eye fox. However, some guy in a cruze eco (yes a cruze eco) dragged water onto the track (went through waterbox and did no burnout) so they had to clean the track for me. So I lined up next to a chevelle to run.

At this point, my heart was racing, and I was in full adrenaline junkie mode. First time down the track with an extra 100+ rwhp over my last runs this spring. Would the car hook? Would I crack into the 12's? Would I even make it home to NJ after this?

The tree drops, I cut a .211 r/t (my best yet) and a 1.997 60ft spinning through first gear. The chevelle had a .369 r/t but he pulled a 1.7 60ft and got me off the line!

The track had so much compound down, with my 5% increase on the WOT 1-2 shift, it slammed into second gear, caught traction and I started catching the chevelle. By the 1/8 mile mark I caught him and pulled past him. I ran a 12.782 @ 109.53 to his 13.205 @ 99.51. Needless to say, I was ecstatic. I broke into the 12's my first try on street tires. I also did way better on my reaction time this trip (my last runs @ e town my best was a .5—).

Next up was the N/A marauder again. Against his better judgement he ran again to see if his trans issue was a fluke, or his lack of sleep that forgot to change a variable on the shift schedule. It was NOT the former. He ran a 14.6 this time out, and decided to call it quits before he had to rebuild his trans. But at least he has a new best over his previous 14.71 with 3.73 gears.

Back to the pits!

It was at this point that my friend and his friend had to leave, so they left the BMW and my friend ran it down the track. He never raced in the 1320 before, so I gave him a crash course on what to do, and how to launch the car off the brake. He managed to run a 15.7 in the BMW which was excellent. That car is definitely performing great at its age, which is what I figured.

I lined up with this CRX who kept revving his engine in the staging lanes. It was flat yellow with lighting bolts painted allover it, and it had a hood scoop (functional!) I'm guessing it was a K series swap or something, it was N/A on drag radials. Needless to say, he was victim #2 to get dragged down the track by the big merc. I ran a 12.446 @ 110.68 to his 13.278 @ 105.70, but to be honest it was over before it even started. I got so tense up at the start line, that I managed to launch off the brake @ 2000rpm and cut a 0.33 R/T with a 1.767 60' on 265/50 nitto 555 street tires! I aired down to 18psi and the car rocketed off the line like I've never felt before.

Besides waiting around for hours to get a second run, I'd say this trip to the track was a rousing success. I am going to a track meet at E town next month (nov 9th!) to run again with my group, but I'm well prepared on how my car acts on the track. Maybe I can get into the bottom 12's with some colder air, as it was 72 out this trip. But I am beynod happy with how my car performed. I iced down the intercooler, dropped the tires from 20psi on my first run to 18psi on my second, and the blower cooled off enough that I gained 3/10ths on my last run.

After that was all over, we drove the merc 4 1/2 hours back to Jersey in air conditioned comfort, with the double din pioneer sat nav headunit pumping out tunes. Thats what I call a great car.

DISCUSSION (10)

Kugelblitz > offroadkarter
10/22/2013 at 22:27

Nice.Lived in that county for a quite a while and I ran many times at Budd's Creek. Good R/T splits!

offroadkarter > Kugelblitz
10/22/2013 at 22:36

my grandmother has lived down there since the 80's and I had no idea all I had to do to get to this track was make 2 lefts and a right, and boom I'm there.

nlzmo400r > offroadkarter
10/23/2013 at 00:16

trapping 110mph in a 4400lb car....nice. I'd love to supercharge my e39, but my lack of faith in reliability keeps me sane. Is the 4.6 pretty stout in stock bottom end trim like that?

offroadkarter > nlzmo400r
10/23/2013 at 00:19

The rule of thumb is 450rwhp on the cast internal 4.6's. Terminator owners who have forged internals stock have gone well into the 800rwhp without taking the heads off.

I also love E39's, best looking 5 series ever made IMO. Do you have a 540i sport or a M5?

lepie > offroadkarter
10/23/2013 at 10:55

Hi, can i ask for your help? I desperately want to share something on oppo, but i can't figure out how to post here. I know it's probably rude to ask this way, but i don't know how to PM (if you can at all) anyone and ask for help. My post is here: http://lepie.kinja.com/so-they-found-…

offroadkarter > lepie
10/23/2013 at 12:44

you have to be granted editor rights, and for that all you have to do is ask, usually someone who has the powers will grant your wish

lepie > offroadkarter
10/23/2013 at 12:45

They have, and i have posted to oppo.

Thank you for your help, mr Karter

Kugelblitz > offroadkarter
10/23/2013 at 15:29

FYI, I saw a beautiful 1970 Camaro get rear ended by another car whose throttle jammed in the burnout area behind the staging lights. Horrifying (everyone was fine).

BC is a fun day, and taking home some prize money is just about a perfect day. Well perfect for values that include keeping your clothes on at least.

nlzmo400r > offroadkarter
10/23/2013 at 20:35

Damn, so you're near the 'threshold' so to speak.

Funny that you assume I have a 540i sport or an m5...because jalopnik? Nonetheless, I have an M5.

offroadkarter > nlzmo400r
10/23/2013 at 20:55

See, I assumed correct!