By this time I'd visited drag strips a fair number of times, so my technique was pretty consistent. I'm not sure that I'm the best mind - someone else might be able to shave another 0.1 or 0.2s off the times with a better get away technique.
I managed four runs at the Total Vauxhall day at Santa Pod. The times were 16.2s, 16.0s, 15.8s and 15.69s. So I was getting better every time. This was with the car as driven every day; no letting air out of the front tyres or stripping of the interior. I was pretty pleased with the 15.69s since 15.7s was the Autocar test figure for the GTE 16v back in 1988. This suggests that I was making similar power and torque to a GTE 16v. I had previously decided that 15.8s would be the target, so I beat that by a fair margin.
A few weeks later I got another four runs in at the Pod. This time all the times were better than 16s, with the best being 15.65s, a 0.04s improvement on the previous best. The trap speed was 88mph. This time I had no dash in the car, but I had some extra ballast in the form of some camping gear. Who knows, with a bit more practice I might just be able to make 15.5s.
I am well pleased with the quarter mile times. They confirm that the car is in good shape. I really feel that the car is now pushing into a serious performance bracket. More power would be nice of course, but I'm pretty happy with what I've got.
Selected 1/4 mile times for various cars.