OK, Nothing against you Spike or you Holden. I, like pretty much everyone one here hope you eat your words. I am expecting times of mid to high 12's.
Some that hasn't even been mentioned on here is gear ratios. A quarter mile ET has a lot to do with HP but maybe just as much to do with gear ratios, both tranny AND rear end.
Let's say you have two cars with the exact same engine and HP. One has a manual with 4:10 rear gears and the automatic has 3:73 gears. A expert driver runs both thru the 1/4. He will get better times with the manual every time. The higher ratio of the 3:73s will take some of the HP, it takes more power to turn taller gears to get the same speed. Simple physics. It's easily possible for a car with less HP to be quicker than a car with more HP just by gearing.
Now if I'm not mistaken, I read somewhere that the SS manual will have something around 3:45 gears where the SS automatic will have closer to the 3:73s which will give it improved economy but sacrifice a bit of power put to the ground. The manual SS, with more HP and shorter gears will be at least half second quicker.
Think mid to high 12s for manual and low 13s for automatic. I have a good bit of experience at the track. My first 8 cars I owned were all V8s and all saw track time. My '68 had 3:56 butt gears, couldn't tell ya the ratios on the M22 Muncie, and 375HP 396ci. I got impressive hole shots for tall gears. 396 had good torque which translates into good starts off the line.
Any way, enough said, there's much more to it than HP. I expect to see GT 500s in my mirror. Even at 1000feet.
