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View Full Version : 93 plymouth sundance vs 90 dodge omni



nomercy811
08-11-2012, 02:16 PM
ok so me and my buddy (hybridcuda) were coming home from another friends house one night. i pulled my sundance next to his omni at a light. the light turned green and we both took off. no hard start just go. we stayed dead even all the way thru 1st gear. we shifted mirror image of eachother which i thought was crazy he has a tach. i dont. when we let off the clutch in 2nd my car jumped ahead and pulled on the omni. then again in 3rd. now for the details of the cars. they both have 2.2 tbi bone stock. the only mods i have on the sundance are egr delete and cat delete. stock diameter exaust back to the middle of the car with an 18 inch cherry bomb then over the axle and strait out the back with no tip. that shouldnt be enough to make that big of a diff. the only other diff in the cars is he has the 520 and i the 523. it there a big difference in the gear ratios or something?

moparman76_69
08-11-2012, 07:00 PM
Is his car swapped to a 520? If not it is a 525 and probably a 3.05 ratio, if it is a 520 it is a 3.50. Your Sundance is a 3.77 ratio car. There are also some taller 1-5 gears in the 523, don't remember which ones exactly. But yes the ratios are lower in the heavier cars to give them more get up and go.

Vigo
08-12-2012, 02:13 AM
Yeah, i think its a 525 but i doubt its the 3.05.

I am surprised the sundance kept up, honestly. Tbi/5spd omni's feel decently quick for 100hp. Ive driven a 2.2/523 shadow and it didnt feel anywhere close..

My first suggestion would be fore the omni to check his base timing.. lol

cordes
08-12-2012, 04:47 PM
The omni was a 2.2 and the Shadow was most likely a 2.5. That's a difference. Depending on where each of you were shifting could have made a big difference in the speed relatively speaking.

nomercy811
08-12-2012, 06:45 PM
The omni was a 2.2 and the Shadow was most likely a 2.5. That's a difference. Depending on where each of you were shifting could have made a big difference in the speed relatively speaking.

my sundance is a 2.2. As far as i know his omni has a 520 in it. he has the set up with the reverse left of first. honestly i was suprized at my performance aswell. like i said also we were dead even thru first gear. shifted at the same exact time. but as soon as 2nd hit i jumped in front..

cordes
08-12-2012, 11:20 PM
my sundance is a 2.2. As far as i know his omni has a 520 in it. he has the set up with the reverse left of first. honestly i was suprized at my performance aswell. like i said also we were dead even thru first gear. shifted at the same exact time. but as soon as 2nd hit i jumped in front..

Very interesting. For a Shadow to be a 2.2 it was pretty bare bones I bet. If that's the case the relative weight of the cars could be offset by driver weight especially if he has put a 520 in there. It could really come down to motor health, timing, tire size etc. A little difference in power makes a huge difference in performance at that level.

nomercy811
08-13-2012, 11:48 AM
well he bought the car the way it sat. tire size for both of us was 195/50 15. i have pizza wheel and he has saturn wheels. i did weigh my car once beofore. and without me it weighed 2475. now its probably around 2575with all the air ride stuff in it. his odometer quit workin at 140 something thousand. my car has 227000 on it. we did swap the block in mine for a junk yard block. im asuming the block is an 89 common block cause on the back its stamped with 89. where as my stock block had a 93. we pulled the block from another 2.2 shadow. said so on the hood

RoadWarrior222
08-13-2012, 02:25 PM
Saturn wheels probably save near 60lb , they're like a 15lb wheel usually so around 25lb a corner with omni sized rubber on, even with light "stock" alloys it would be 40lb a corner otherwise methinks.

nomercy811
08-14-2012, 02:41 PM
my mistake he does have the 525. and he said he was on the stock 13s

Vigo
08-14-2012, 11:27 PM
Not to be hatin on your car but there is probably something not quite right with his. You will find lots of examples of people with 100hp omnis running deep into the 16s, even low 16s, or ~15.8 in the case of one stock carb omni i can think of. On the other hand, you can not find ANY talk of a 2.2 tbi sundance (or any other k-based car), ever breaking 17.0 even with mods. Granted there is not as much to go on as far as documented tbi performance in non-omnis, but my personal experience driving the kinds of vehicles in question backs up what little stuff is posted out there. They are pretty far apart stock.

moparman76_69
08-14-2012, 11:30 PM
Yeah, i think its a 525 but i doubt its the 3.05.

Weren't 525s either 3.85 for turbo/g-body or 3.05 for N/A?

cordes
08-14-2012, 11:36 PM
Weren't 525s either 3.85 for turbo/g-body or 3.05 for N/A?

I have seen at east one Rampage with the 3.56 FD in it at the yard. In my experience the 3.05 is actually a harder one to find.

nomercy811
08-15-2012, 12:01 AM
yea honestly i was expecting him to pull on me. ive heard omnis are like 200lbs less then my sundance. so i figured that alone would lose me the race. i honestly couldnt tell you if anythings wrong with his. when theyre next to eachother idling they sound the same other then mine bein louder. i wonder if maybe his cat. is starting to clog

HybridCuda
08-15-2012, 02:16 PM
I Have a Slight hesitation when accelerating in 1st gear but in the rest of the gears it is not there, but it was an interesting test of cars, but like nomercy said we were dead matched until we shifted out of 1st. and my trans is a 525 but to what ratio I don't know.......it is a 1990 base Omni with power steering and AC and had factory 13" on it.

moparman76_69
08-15-2012, 04:25 PM
The ratio tag on the 525, if it still exists would be on one of the diff cover bolts.

4 l-bodies
08-17-2012, 06:20 PM
I'm surprised with all that tire squealing and smoke pouring off the tires you didn't attract the attention of the police (lol).

High 15's with bone stock 90 Omni? Maybe with a 50 MPH tailwind (lol). A bone stock 85-86 GLH turbo ran 15.7 @ 87 MPH under perfect conditions with a good driver. They had another 45-50 HP too. My experience with HO carb'ed Omni's is they were much quicker than their TBI counterparts. I have a 88 TBI Omni auto with 37k on it and it's a pooch! Probably high 16's on it's very best effort.

FYI- According to Road and Track mag. a 89 ES 2.5 turbo Shadow ran 16.0 @ 86 MPH. 89 CSX VNT shadow ran 15.6 @ 89 MPH. They tested them against each other.

I think you should try another scale as Shadow's typically weigh considerably more than that. The weight you listed is typical weight of GLH turbo. Lots of rust on your vehicle (lol)?
Todd

Vigo
08-17-2012, 08:54 PM
The only stock high 15 carb/tbi omni i have heard of was Angelo Taylor's lightweight HO carb omni. But i would bet the difference between that and a tbi with the same trans and weight would be maybe 3 or 4 tenths.

If your tbi/auto runs high 16s, pigs will fly. But if it was a 5spd and DIDNT run better than high 16s id say there was something wrong with it. The difference between 3 and 5 gears with cars with extremely low power is HUGE. This is why i go around shitting on every thread where someone wants to do an n/a automatic 8v build. It's going to suck pretty much no matter what you do, while a 5spd swap is almost guaranteed to drop 2 whole seconds or more off your 1/4 mile e.t. My stock tbi/5spd caravan ET'd faster than most of the modded auto carb/tbis that have actually posted times.

ATaylorRacing
08-17-2012, 09:08 PM
The only stock high 15 carb/tbi omni i have heard of was Angelo Taylor's lightweight HO carb omni. But i would bet the difference between that and a tbi with the same trans and weight would be maybe 3 or 4 tenths.


Old Matchbox ran those high 15s with the 110 hp HO motor and close ratio 5 speed. It was stock wt back then and still lighter than the GLH cars. Now it has a bone stock 94 Shadow common block 2.5 that has the 84 intake, Weber 32/36 carb, and Shadow header. The new weight is now 1950 and runs 16.5s normally with 2.19-2.23 short times and only 77 mph. The mph is not very high since I do not run any timing advance off the computer...got tired of every year or so the puter taking a crap and not giving it full timing....so just pluged off the lines and run base timing.

I found it very interesting that back in 94 when my Sundance Duster was new and stock with the automatic and 3.0 V6 the heavier 3.0 V6 Spirit and automatic would out run the Duster by quite a bit. The difference that parts dept found was a different computer part number.

Vigo
08-17-2012, 11:37 PM
And didnt you run that 3.0/4spd car down to ~15.0? Most people couldnt seem to even get into the 15s with them in all the time ive been reading about it on the internet. Heh

4 l-bodies
08-18-2012, 03:01 PM
The only stock high 15 carb/tbi omni i have heard of was Angelo Taylor's lightweight HO carb omni. But i would bet the difference between that and a tbi with the same trans and weight would be maybe 3 or 4 tenths.

If your tbi/auto runs high 16s, pigs will fly. But if it was a 5spd and DIDNT run better than high 16s id say there was something wrong with it. The difference between 3 and 5 gears with cars with extremely low power is HUGE. ...
Adam,
You'd never even come close to using 5th gear in a TBI Omni 5 spd running down the dragstrip. Not with 100 HP (lol). I don't care if you have 3.05, 3.56, or 3.87 gear with whatever tire size you where running. You'd be shifting at 3500 RPM if you hit 5th gear in 1320'. I'll do some diggin and see what the car magazines ran with N/A auto and 5 spd Omni's. I imagine no where near high 15's. Closer to 17's than 15's. I don't think your giving away as much as you think at dragstrip between auto and manual.
Gas mileage, well that is another story. I just changed over my 89 ES Shadow from auto to 523 with 3.77:1 final drive. Same size tires now running about 700 RPM less at 70 MPH. That translated to around 6 MPG on interstate driving vs. the auto. Went from 25 to about 31 MPG.
Todd


My turbo Shadow's auto and 5 spd similarly equipped were close to same ET. Manual was consistantly about 4 MPH higher, but auto was consistantly better on 60' times with street tires. Primarily because it could hook better (or at least more consistant), and I could load the converter building boost quicker.

Vigo
08-19-2012, 12:53 AM
Adam,
You'd never even come close to using 5th gear in a TBI Omni 5 spd running down the dragstrip. Not with 100 HP (lol). I don't care if you have 3.05, 3.56, or 3.87 gear with whatever tire size you where running. You'd be shifting at 3500 RPM if you hit 5th gear in 1320'. I'll do some diggin and see what the car magazines ran with N/A auto and 5 spd Omni's. I imagine no where near high 15's. Closer to 17's than 15's. I don't think your giving away as much as you think at dragstrip between auto and manual.

Well i wasnt suggesting that you would use all 5. But in either a 5spd or 3spd the 'final drive' ratio is catered to the available gear ratios, with the net effect that in a 5spd you have MORE torque multiplication/mechanical advantage right up until 5th gear because of the lower FD ratio. If you multiply gear ratio x diff ratio you will see that 1st gear in a stock auto is closer to 2nd gear on a 5spd than to 1st. On a low power car, launching a 5spd in second would be ET suicide, and that's basically what a low-power 3spd car does. Once you have enough torque to break traction, an auto can give similar or better ETs by making up for the failings of the driver/tires, but to be honest, if you stuck the 5spd in 2nd gear on the line to get the same gearing as an auto in 1st, it'd be easier to modulate wheelspin as well..

The trap speed tells the tale in your example. The 5spds are more difficult to hook up because they are putting more power to the wheels at any given time. If you ran both on slicks you would see the 5spd ET'ing faster than the auto as well. This trend holds all the way until your trap speed is so high and your ET so low that the time lost to shifting is actually more than the gearing loss from the auto. I think opinions differ on where that point is (driver shifting technique is a major variable) but i would say its not until the 12s for a sloppy driver, and probably not until the 10s or 9s for a very fast driver.

4 l-bodies
08-19-2012, 01:07 PM
Okay, did a little diggin. Here is the nutshell version. I will scan and post test results when I get a little time.

84 GLH N/A Car & Driver June 84
2.2 HO motor 107 HP 5 spd. 3.87:1 final drive curb- weight 2328 lbs. non ac car
16.7 @ 81 MPH

85 GLH Turbo Car & Driver May 85
2.2 Turbo 146 HP 5 spd. 3.56:1 final drive- weight 2450 lbs. ac equipped car.
15.8 @ 87 MPH

87 Horizon America Car & Driver October 86
2.2 N/A 96 HP 5 spd. 3.05:1 final drive- weight 2336 lbs. ac equipped car
17.5 @ 79 MPH

87 Plymouth Turbo Sundance Car & Driver November 86
2.2 Turbo 146 5 spd 3.50:1 final drive- weight 2690 lbs. ac equipped car
16.4 & 82 MPH

I'll keep looking, but I don't see anything near high 15's without turbo in l-body. I know I have a test report on N/A auto Omni.

Vigo
08-19-2012, 02:17 PM
Well like i said, i only know of one, and it was a 'pro' drag racer in an unusually light weight car. But i dont think low 16s would be unusual for either a tbi or carb/5spd omni.

Most of those ETs are fairly low for the trap speeds, except for the last one.

For example, the first one is 16.7@81.. Angelo Taylor's current setup ETs 16.4 with 4mph less trap speed. You could get into the low 16s with 81 mph.

The second was 15.8@87. I ET'd 15.2@88 w/ 2.16 60' in my 3.0 dynasty, only one mph faster but over half a second quicker.

As for the third example, you can find lots of examples of cars running 16.9 or 17.0 @79mph, over half second quicker ET.

So i think those old magazine ETs are not representative of what the cars would do with modern tires (or DR or slicks) and good driving.

4 l-bodies
08-19-2012, 07:08 PM
Well like i said, i only know of one, and it was a 'pro' drag racer in an unusually light weight car. But i dont think low 16s would be unusual for either a tbi or carb/5spd omni.

Most of those ETs are fairly low for the trap speeds, except for the last one.

For example, the first one is 16.7@81.. Angelo Taylor's current setup ETs 16.4 with 4mph less trap speed. You could get into the low 16s with 81 mph.

The second was 15.8@87. I ET'd 15.2@88 w/ 2.16 60' in my 3.0 dynasty, only one mph faster but over half a second quicker.

As for the third example, you can find lots of examples of cars running 16.9 or 17.0 @79mph, over half second quicker ET.

So i think those old magazine ETs are not representative of what the cars would do with modern tires (or DR or slicks) and good driving.

Adam,
Those were with very good drivers in excellent weather conditions but with original epuipment tires. Track or testing area was probably not prepped anywhere near as good as they are today. I was there running these cars when they were new. That is what they ran with OEM tires! You were doing really good if you could match car magazine or manufactures claimed times. Bolt on a set of slicks and yeah, different story.
Tires have evolved a whole bunch in the last 28 years! Comparing anything of yesteryear with drag radials or slicks is a whole different animal. Besides, who is gonna be running a drag radial or slick on their 16-17 second street Omni or Shadow? Angelo's car almost certainly was prepped to a degree. Floor mats removed, spare tire and jack removed, trunk pad and sound deadener removed, probably running 1/3rd to 1/4 tank of fuel, perhaps better fuel, good modern tires of the day, probably played with intial timing, colder plugs, cooling down between runs, etc. More than likely if running a NHRA stock class, probably a whole bunch more tricks. Hardly could call that indicative, typical, or average whatever you want to call it. Like you said you've heard of only one (Angelo) Omni that ran that fast. It was an odd ball HO motored manual tranny Omni/Horizon to boot, with a driver that's been racing for years.
I still want to see a 2.2 5 spd TBI omni in street trim run high 15's. Talk about pigs flying (lol)! I would think it would be easier for me to run high 16's in my poochy TBI auto.

Vigo
08-19-2012, 08:09 PM
Well, i wish i could be the one to do it, as a tbi/5spd omni is a car i would actually like to own. But, the number of people running them at the strip is extremely small, and the few people i have heard of doing well in TBIs (i have heard of two modded tbi omnis in the 14s, one i can name the owner and one i cant) were years ago and it's not really documented. I can only base my impressions on the one 2.2 tbi/5spd omni ive driven which felt like a possible low 16 car to me.

If you do get your TBI auto to run high 16s, i suggest you go pick some fights with stock log/auto t1 cars, because if you make it into the high 16s you're doing better than most of them. :p The 2.5/auto tbi cars i have run (only my old gtech) fell between 20.0 and 18.7 depending on how much i had fiddled with them (base timing, tire pressures, shift points). I ran 3 back to back passes in my stock 2.5/5spd caravan at 18.2@73. The van is about 600-700 lbs heavier than a non turbo 5spd omni.

HybridCuda
11-21-2012, 02:25 PM
Just sayin my Omni is a 2.2Ltbi(soon to be ITB) 525_5SPD Weight unknown at this point.

Turbo Joe
11-22-2012, 12:25 PM
the 3.85 gear ratio for the A-525 was a Mopar performance kit from the catalog. It came with the ring and pinion and the instructions for swapping over the old gears to the new pinion shaft too.

Ondonti
11-24-2012, 03:58 AM
I don't put any faith in magazine numbers. They tend to favor whoever recently paid them off. I will always poke and prod about how the SRT4 got slower throughout the years even though it obviously got faster (GM paid off to help their cobalt). They also don't seem to try very hard in cars they don't like.

Force Fed Mopar
11-24-2012, 04:21 AM
FWIW opening up the exhaust on my '89 2.5 TBI Lebaron made a considerable difference in it's power.

Vigo
11-24-2012, 01:04 PM
According to my old g-tech i took my old tbi aries from 20.0 to 17.0 with the stuff i did with it (5spd swap, exhaust, intake coolant bypass, base timing, 23" tires, tb spacer, stuff im forgetting) and it was very out of tune and traction limited in 1st by that point. It was so out of tune that it felt like it had about 20 more hp when you started it cold and lost it as it warmed up. I think if it was in tune it would have done 16.5@80-81. Weighed 2640 without me at that point (stereo) I also took the top speed from 95 to 115.

If i were to do it over again id focus almost all my effort on the throttle body and intake manifold, and getting it in tune (even something as simple as adjustable fuel pressure). I would still do the exhaust and everything else but the tbi is limited primarily by the small throttle bore, and after that, by the transition from the throttle body into the manifold. My .02

HybridCuda
11-27-2012, 05:53 PM
I got my ITB's"indevidual Throtle Bodies" almost ready I just need the lower part to a 2 piece intake Manifold so I can continue making the adapter for the ITB setup..

nomercy811
11-29-2012, 12:42 PM
I'm surprised with all that tire squealing and smoke pouring off the tires you didn't attract the attention of the police (lol).

High 15's with bone stock 90 Omni? Maybe with a 50 MPH tailwind (lol). A bone stock 85-86 GLH turbo ran 15.7 @ 87 MPH under perfect conditions with a good driver. They had another 45-50 HP too. My experience with HO carb'ed Omni's is they were much quicker than their TBI counterparts. I have a 88 TBI Omni auto with 37k on it and it's a pooch! Probably high 16's on it's very best effort.

FYI- According to Road and Track mag. a 89 ES 2.5 turbo Shadow ran 16.0 @ 86 MPH. 89 CSX VNT shadow ran 15.6 @ 89 MPH. They tested them against each other.

I think you should try another scale as Shadow's typically weigh considerably more than that. The weight you listed is typical weight of GLH turbo. Lots of rust on your vehicle (lol)?
Todd actually there's no rust on my car. At the time it was weighed it had full interior and 2 12's in the trunk. 2475 on a scale that was inspected for accuracy once a month. Due to the fact it was used at a chicken processing plant they need accurate readings. I'm thinking next spring when the track opens back up I'm gonna challenge him to a proper race. I'm taking my air ride off but for the time leaving the car the way it sits. Maybe we can get someone to video tape the race and we can post it up for y'all along with what's sure to be 17+ second time slips

Vigo
11-30-2012, 01:37 AM
Full interior shadow with extra weight at 2475? Sorry, you'd be the only one ever to claim so so i'm skeptical as well.

nomercy811
11-30-2012, 09:30 AM
ill get it back on the scale soon and take a pic of the reading

HybridCuda
12-11-2012, 12:22 PM
Official Weight Reading of my 90 Omni "Base" 2660lbs with me in it, a 12 gal air tank in the back for the air shocks "and soon to be bag overs in the front", and a 1/4 tank of fuel.

Vigo
12-11-2012, 08:34 PM
Sounds like a cool 2400 or so, pretty normal for that car. Thanks for the info.

RoadWarrior222
12-11-2012, 08:53 PM
Full interior shadow with extra weight at 2475? Sorry, you'd be the only one ever to claim so so i'm skeptical as well.Though we never knew for sure what made Josh's 3.0 so quick.

Vigo
12-11-2012, 09:53 PM
It was definitely light. How light, i dont know.

HybridCuda
12-13-2012, 04:16 AM
Sounds like a cool 2400 or so, pretty normal for that car. Thanks for the info.

I weigh around 350lbs..............Im overweight.

Vigo
12-13-2012, 10:54 PM
Well in that case the car would be 2200 and change? Thats fairly light for a full weight omni.