I'm heading to the track with a buddy of mine on friday. he has a 5.0 mustang thats supercharged..kinda jealous of the supercharged part. I was curious as to how i would properly tune my car. I don't know where i would start...im guessing the carb or the distributor. also...has anyone dealt with any type of octane booster?

 

Why do you need to tune your car. I run my car the same on the strip and street. People de-tune for the track if they run nitrous to reduce the rick of blowing the motor.

At the track you can make a few passes slightly adding in timing and fuel till you find your best times. But if you dont know how to tune a car you may just hurt yourself.

BC make a nice octane booster / fuel cleaner.

 

If your car isn't tuned before you get to the track you'll find there's very little time to do much there, unless you want waste entry fees and spend time tuning instead of running.
Get it running it's best before you go. Unless you will run open headers at the track, and need to rejet the carb to allow for the leaner engine with open headers. I found when I raced that it was just easier to leave my headers closed and not mess with rejetting.
Do as Gfrench said and "tweak" the timing to see if it improves times, but be sure to mark the distributor and intake so you can line the marks back up if it doesn't improve things.

 

Timing should be set for highest MPH not fastest ET. Other than that I would check a plug after the first run. I had it down to a five minute deal, it takes longer than that cycle through the cars were I'm from. A cap off car cleaner or spray paint or what ever holds exactly a bowls worth of fuel. Just take one of the bottom bolts out first and drain. This is made much easier with a box of holley jets. Not having that, I would leave the carb alone.

 

Well the thing is, where i live, there are a ton of back roads miles from anything that looks like civilization so i go out there and drive faster than i could on regular roads. I found that from a dead stop, when i punch it, my car tends to bog a little bit and then after i let off and punch it for a second time the car decides to take off. I don't want that to happen at the track.

I havent really cared about it until now because i dont floor it very often. I wasnt sure if i should mess with the carburetor because i may be running to lean or too rich or if i should advance or retard the timing. Or possibly both, and if so, what should i start with.

 

That's the thing, i want to tune it before i get to the track. I don't want to mess with the car every time i decide to go. I want to do it once, get it running the best that i can get it to run, and then keep it that way on and off the track. My goal with this car is not to make it a 10 second track car. I want it to be a daily driver (when it isnt raining lol) and still be able to take it to the track and run 12's or 13's...eventually.

I was just curious if there is anything i could do in my driveway. I'm not looking to get to extreme with it.

 

you can find out why it is bogging before you get to the track.
I just drove around and stomped on it for a second. Eventually got it tuned out.

Check the float levels?
Check the accelerator pump?

Both to rich and to lean can cause that problem. Took me weeks to figure out that my floats were to low. I was scared to mess with them.

 

wideband O2 sensor and gauge is a lot easier. But yes I can change my jets in five minutes.

 

It's really hard to tell you what to do to get it running good, with pretty much zero info beyond "it bogs". Might start by telling us what engine, trans, carb, and any changes that have been done to it.
When I buy a used car the first thing I do is check the tuneup, whether I'm gonna race it or not. Pull the plugs to see what they look like. Replace whatever looks bad. Check the cap and rotor too, then see where the timing is set at. A vacuum gauge hooked to manifold vacuum, (not timed vacuum) will help you get the carb set for peak vacuum.
Then it's just drive it and see if you can adjust the timing some to try and get rid of that bog. If it wont go with the tune up, then you need to start looking deeper into the carb.

 

well its a 350ci with a th350. k&n filter, holley 650, performer rpm intake, stock heads, insky cam, lifters, headman headers, flowmaster 40's, msd 6al and pro billet distributor, accel 8.8 mm wires, electric fan, aluminum pulleys. I think thats it.

i'll try advancing the timing a little bit to get the rpm's up tomorrow. i step on the brake and the gas just enough to get the torque up and then let off the brake and smash the gas. When i stomp on the gas it kind of hesitates and then like, a second or two later, it takes off. the carb was rebuilt about a year ago and i have no idea what jets are in it now.