426 motors are boat anchor heavy 100# more then a alu 417 Donovan
My 193" Blown alu SBC with a glide and 9" 1650# with driver and 120# lead on the nose.
Except for the Alu front spindles which were given to me, did not work at trying to make it lite, just did not add all the junk (GL notice I did not say &#@$) that people seem to want to put on their cars today.
what does it matter what crap (or whatever you feel like calling it) is on the car or what motor is in it, or how someone builds there 'junk' just as long as they can hit the number..... just bracket racing after all right!
To answer your first question and your second. What matters is this---- In the type of cars we race, if you remove the engine for now, If you remove all that is not nessesary to pass tech and safely go down the track, all cars weigh about the same, the difference between 200" and 225" is about 10' of extra tubing, or 7 1/2#. There is nothing extra on my car thats not required and did not spend any effort in time and material to make it any lighter, no reason to due to the index, that is the benchmark. If you remove the 120# lead and 230# driver from the across scale weight of 1650# the weight becomes 1300# with engine. Is the difference in weight between my alu SBC w/ 6-71 and the 426 w/ 8-71 500#s???, this is the "long block" we are talking about because both use simular externals and cancel each other out. If the weight difference is only 200#, whats the other 300#, if your weight of 1800# includes a 200# driver, you are still carrying an extra 100# if not, it reverts back to 300# heavy.
The question asked if an 1800# car can run on the index- yes, one just needs to make more power over the lighter cars
the formula for that is #(weight) devided by ET3 X 197.14. The HP number needed to accelerate a given mass and required time and distance
So my 1650# car to run the 1/4 in 7.0 seconds would be 1650 / 343 (7.0 cubed) = 4.81, 4.81 X 197.14= 948 HP
1800# would be 1800 / 343 = 5.25 , 5.25 X 197.14 = 1034HP
If you are confident that your 426 can produce (safely) 1050 HP to run 7.0 then you are fine , if not then you have to look into the "Extras" to reduce weight or spend more money to make power.
2000# (w/driver) is 1150HP