5 spd said - "But again if people are trapping 108+ without h/c/i wouldn't that lead you to believe that with the h/c/i they would be approaching 118mph...Viper, zo6, territory...so now a few 5.0's can beat zo6's and Vipers with just h/c/i "
I don't draw the same conclusion. HP is HP. The 'factory freaks' - those that fall into the 10% of quickest cars stock from the factory - they're simply making more HP stock than the other cars are. You can see it in their trap times. You have the same thing happening on the other end all the time - that poor schmuck with one that he can't get out of the 15's - or with H/C/I that he can't get into the 13's. Instead of looking at CleanLX's car and saying 'it can't be', I look at CleanLX's car and conclude it is an example that proves the theory; there are cars from the factory that run noticeably better and noticeably worse than average.
The other thing you have to remember is that even those cars (like CleanLX's) aren't strictly stock. He's got underdrives, low restriction filter/silencer removed, lots of gear, great traction, longtubes and full exhaust, and clearly a skilled driver. You put all that (incl. the driver) on one of the cars at the other end of the curve (the lemons) and you likely wouldn't see a full second's difference. But a half to 3/4 of a second difference between two identical cars with the same driver is completely believable to me. Throw a skilled driver in the quick one, and an unskilled driver in the slow one and you could have a second and a half difference - easily.
What likely happens with 'factory freaks' is that due to the law of averages - an engine gets assembled that just happens to be in great balance, with all the clearances stacked in the direction of peak performance. Think of it as an accidental blueprinted engine. This isn't people just putting one together really special - it's purely a 'happy accident'.