Angry Bird migrates for the winter..

When we say "Migrate" what we really mean is push it into the garage for those long cold nights of busted knuckles, lacerated wrists and the inability to locate that 10mm socket.

Finishing up 2017 with a personal best of 11.85 over the quarter the car showed potential. That potential remained untapped for the team, as, like most, they had a very tricky year to get on top of their cars with the Northern Irish weather doing its best to thwart any progress.

Ryan took some time out of posting pictures of his co workers on instagram to give us the rundown of the car.

" Its a 1994 Civic 1.5lsi auto, current engine is a ek9 b16b block and head, Darton mid wet sleeved block, Ek9 cams Garrett gt3582r turbo, Full forged bottom end Skunk2 valve train with ferrea comp valves, S9b gearbox Link g4+ xtreme management Current no driver aids Best run on slicks 11.855 Best run on r888 12.01 "

For Ryan, it was a season that was good, but not good enough.

However, there were two things to look at, the good and the bad, we didn't run with an "ugly" element!!

Ok, so lets start with the good, the trap speed.

The tiny 1600cc turbocharged Honda powerplant is making a bucket ton of horsepower, 554bhp to be precise. That can only mean good things for speed. 138 mph through the traps is certainly not hanging around, more than enough to run into the 10's with the right setup.

Now for the not so good. That 60 foot! This is where the little Honda has really struggled all season. A best of 2.0 sec flat over the 60' is lethargic at best when you consider you have 550+ horsepower and an 8 x 15 slick shod pair of shoes. But if anything it gives the team something to really concentrate on over that winter break.

.

As we've seen multiple times on our tracks here in Ireland, cranking the boost up and chucking more horsepower at it rarely sees the expected positive result when the achilles heel of the car isn't addressed. Any savvy car guy would think there is just no way you wouldn't go quicker if you just poured on a ton more ponies.

The 60' time is killing it, we've seen fwd Honda's run deep into the 1.6's over here and if Ryan can finally get a handle on the cars inability to hook it up and really sit up on those tyres then 10 second elapsed times are not far away.

Ryan informs us that there are a few tweaks going on in the Angry Bird stable ( or should that be nest? ). But for now, they are being kept under wraps. The team exited 2017 on top, being the quickest Honda in the country. Can they capitalise from the top spot in 2018?

We'll have to wait and see.

Good luck from all of us here at Drag Day.

Checkout AngryBirds progress on the youtube channel

https://www.youtube.com/user/weejoeturbo