Street/Strip, Strip, Street ??

[Newold1]

We should do some serious discussion and definition of the good old use terms that get thrown around when discussing engines, cars, parts, issues, problems, successes, etc.

I think we should better define:

Street:

Strip:

Street/Strip:

What are your definitions of these terms and lets define roughly how many miles, races, horsepowers and build types that are usually used in each case and how the real driving environments are different and change even in each separate use. IE: A performance built car driven on the streets of downtown Chicago is going to be totally different that one being driven on the small town country roads in rural Missouri.
The performance built car driven 3000 miles a year on the "street" is going to experience different success and issues versus the performance built car driven 12,000 - 15,000 miles a year for to and from jobs or travel will experience most likely a completely different type of success and issues.

I think you get the idea of what I am throwing out here. Lets discuss and think more about what these descriptions mean and how they might be better defined to help assess what are do's and don'ts for engines and cars built and used for these different uses.

I think the way they are now being used are way to broad and can lead to a lot of misinformation and confusion for some Speedtalk participants with questions and information gathering.

What do you think?

[John Ross]

I see what you're driving at but I'm not sure how to answer.

For the last 45+ years I've seen the phrase "Street/Strip" tossed around in magazines and parts catalogs with the implicit assumption that there were a lot of guys out there that wanted to have a single car do dual duty both as a daily driver and as a racer on the dragstrip.

I have never met anyone like that, at least, not anyone who stayed like that for more than a short period of time.

My own experience, starting in the early '70s when most performance transmissions had a 1:1 top gear, is that driving a 400+ HP car that's turning 3000 RPM on the highway gets old in a hurry. So does driving anything with a tire/wheel/suspension setup optimized for 1/4 mile runs. If you go to the strip once just to get an idea of what your car can do, fine, but if you like drag racing and want to get lower ETs, pretty soon you're going to end up with a car that you're not going to enjoy driving every day to work, the store, during rush hour, in rain, etc...

Just about everyone I know that's into modified performance cars has something that is comfortable and practical for daily use, and a second car that is either a purpose-built race car (that may technically be street legal but racks up almost no street miles), or what I call a "tearing around car."

The "tearing around car" is a car that's great fun to drive on the street when the weather's nice and traffic is sparse, but you leave it in the garage when you're likely to hit rush hour, it's raining, or there's snow. You nail the throttle regularly on a tearing around car, but you're almost never launching it from a standing start. The tearing around car is set up to go around corners and stop at least as well as it did when it was stock, and it has a modern OD transmission that lets it loaf on the Interstate while giving plenty of snap in the lower gears.

So-called "Pro Touring" cars are just high-dollar "tearing around cars," but any relatively lightweight vehicle with a strong motor, street-friendly gearing, and a wheel/tire/suspension/brake setup that makes going around turns fun and not terrifying would qualify.

I don't know if this is the kind of response you were hoping to get.

JR

[Orr89rocz]

Strip car is one that sees track only. Drag only if talking drag racing

Street is a car that can get registered / stickered and will see street driving conditions. Street rated tire and suspension/brakes up to the task of handling road environments. Long idle times, stops and starts, making turns etc. mileage can be whatever but a true driver may see 5000+ a year. A fair weather nice car can be street and may only see 2000-5000 miles. Can have certain creature comforts, power windows, ac, stereo are examples

Power doesnt matter. Just has to be reliable and low maintenance. A 400 hp all motor car or a 1200 hp twin turbo deal, both can be fairly low maintenance and reliable

Street strip is a street car that takes away some streetability to make it more effective at the strip. May have sknnies and drag tire that can still be used on street. Adjustable suspension tuned for launching and may sacrifice some handling. Weight reduction perhaps, take away some creature comforts. May require more maintenance but still can be stickered and driven

[psychomotors]

Strip car is one that sees track only. Drag only if talking drag racing

Street is a car that can get registered / stickered and will see street driving conditions. Street rated tire and suspension/brakes up to the task of handling road environments. Long idle times, stops and starts, making turns etc. mileage can be whatever but a true driver may see 5000+ a year. A fair weather nice car can be street and may only see 2000-5000 miles. Can have certain creature comforts, power windows, ac, stereo are examples

Power doesnt matter. Just has to be reliable and low maintenance. A 400 hp all motor car or a 1200 hp twin turbo deal, both can be fairly low maintenance and reliable

Street strip is a street car that takes away some streetability to make it more effective at the strip. May have sknnies and drag tire that can still be used on street. Adjustable suspension tuned for launching and may sacrifice some handling. Weight reduction perhaps, take away some creature comforts. May require more maintenance but still can be stickered and driven

This pretty much sums it up for me and what I've done.

[Walter R. Malik]

"Street / Strip" to me has always meant a Street vehicle with mufflers and the required street legal equipment which sometimes will go to the strip for some fun.
They are in all sorts of high performance condition.

[PackardV8]

Unlikely to get a consensus; what's street has always been a matter of individual ego, competitiveness and tolerance for grief. It's also been out there a hunnerd years, since the first time fenders were pulled off to make the first speedster.

Back in the early 1960s, I remember we'd see Mopar 13.5:1 426" wedge stockers with locked 4.56 rears trailered near the strip and driven the last mile, then hearing the track announcer saying these were daily drivers available from your Plymouth dealer.

I remember a street T-bucket with Hilborn injection and a friend having to haul around a squirt oil can of gas in it to give him a discreet hit so it would crank to leave the burger joint parking lot.

Guys who raced for money building two externally identical cars, one with a tame street engine to be examined in the bright lights of the parking lot and then the full-race cheater which showed up an hour later at the dark street race highway.

Today's fake reality "Street Outlaws" again has trailered full race cars posing as street cars.

And most of them will never be as fast as today's Dodge Demon with air, emissions and a warranty. Who in his right mind would build to compete with that? Fortunately, few car guys make reality checks.

[jeff swisher]

Street strip I had some.
My definition of that is that it is legal to drive on the road.
My 78 nova naturally aspirated 350" was all legal ran low 11's got crappy 8 MPG towed my boat to the lake or river to catch catfish at least 2 times a month.
I could hit 176 MPH in 3/4 of a mile.

70,000 miles in 2 years of driving it.. It was my go to work car also.
Left me stranded only 2 times and that was from torque converter breaking. 91 or 93 octane is what it drank.

Today that would not even get you into the game.

[bigjoe1]

What I tell my customers is that a street car will have peak HP at ,or below 6000 RPM. This does vary a little but, but I try to stay within those guide lines. Street and strip, or street racer, is something that might be almost a pure race engine, but is ment to run on pump gas, so it would have power compression to allow this to perform better. This formula has served me well over the years. Of coarse, there are all kinds of variations to this. I also make a big deal on how many miles per year they expect to actually drive the car- ( 1500 miles per year, or , whatever )



JOE SHERMAN RACING

[GARY C]

It's a matter of opinion and will very likely change with age. When I was young the word of the day was "Sleeper" so our street car was usually more radical in appearance and sound then our race cars.

[Newold1]

Some good comments here and it does earn some discussion time because we always see a lot of explanations here on Speedtalk about the way performance vehicles are being built and uses for them.

Sometimes I think some of the suggestions and recommendations that are given in some of the posts may be off the mark sometimes because the OP has talked about the use of his engine and car and the quick nouns get used like "street", "street,strip" and "race" when then in the post later it becomes more apparent that the Op hasn't either hasn't correctly described his actual use or he is trying to what really becomes "trying to have his cake and eat it too"

I kind like terms like "full race", "race only", "street toy", "garage queen", "grocery getter", "transportation" "tow vehicle". There are obviously cars that get built as "street" but might see a few visits a month to car shows, social meets, cruises, etc. They log such few miles that they could be so-called "pro-street" type builds with 1200HP+ race type build engines and yet described as "street" and there are hobby type "weekend warrior" type vehicles which can be built nicely to race engine specs. for a hard weekend of racing and still see a few limited street miles and be labeled as "street". I for one though have not seen or been exposed to any sizeable number of cars that were built with real "race only" specs. that were able to drive day in and day out with thousands of yearly miles and provided real "street" manners or reliability and driving comfort. I have also never also seen or heard of a lot of CLASS WINNING Competition cars that were driven regularly as "street" or "street/strip" I think the reasons are pretty obvious. If a car owner wants competition wins and record setting results it's gonna be almost impossible to build and run a full race engine with performance parameters that allow it to provide reasonable street transportation. If one is building a "hobby street car" and wants a few fun times at a strip or track, some cool cruises and meets, then "let er rip" but I for one will not recommend a big horsepower build for your "transportation" "grocery getter" car that is going to be driven thousands of miles per year in all driving conditions. I think most of the time it will be frustrating and expensive.
The dream of doing both clouds the vision of a lot of performance enthusiasts and I am sure sometimes we have quite a few posters on Speedtalk that are trying to hard to make those dreams come true! JMO

[GARY C]

Sometimes I think some of the suggestions and recommendations that are given in some of the posts may be off the mark sometimes because the OP has talked about the use of his engine and car and the quick nouns get used like "street", "street,strip" and "race" when then in the post later it becomes more apparent that the Op hasn't either hasn't correctly described his actual use or he is trying to what really becomes "trying to have his cake and eat it too"

This is why years ago I decided to quit helping people with cam specs for a "Street" car, my definition of street my be very different than theirs. It seems most people are looking for someone to give them info that matches what they already want so they can say "yeah thats what I was thinking too".

[BradH]

Unlikely to get a consensus; what's street has always been a matter of individual ego, competitiveness and tolerance for grief...

Yep. It's one of those topics that's about as easy to determine as which religion is "right" (if any religion is), the "best" candidate for president, etc. You can banter about it all you want, but you can't define it.

[AMXstocker1]

I would call a street car something that get driven fairly regularly and isn't raced but probably has a little get up most 12-15 second cars fall in this category. the strip car is a untagged pure race car small fuel cell only sees track time. the street strip car is where you get your large variance as we all know from dragweek there are people driving 6.00 second promods on the street these days becuase modern fuel injection and turbos make it possible to live with a 4000hp promod on the street the question with a street strip car is what percent is it street and what percent is strip. this is our friends upper 9 second pump gas amx that does see limited street use, car shows and cruise but for the most part is a drag car. i'd call this a 80% strip and 20% street car.

[Orr89rocz]

Unlikely to get a consensus; what's street has always been a matter of individual ego, competitiveness and tolerance for grief...

Yep. It's one of those topics that's about as easy to determine as which religion is "right" (if any religion is), the "best" candidate for president, etc. You can banter about it all you want, but you can't define it.

It can be defined but would take alot of work. Basically everyone can agree that anything oem from the dealer is a street car. From your 150 hp 4 cyl economy car to the 700 hp hellcat. They all meet regulations to drive on the street in this country. That is the basis for street car. Expand from there

[lefty o]

while you can define it, odds are someone else is going to define it differently.