Finally taking the red rocket to the drags

[theredrocket]

Wow, even with a 2.4-2.6 60' you should be putting up better times. Not to mention you are on street tires and have a gtr motor at 17-18lbs, you should trap faster than 105. I was trapping 104 with my vf10 setup on street tires. You should be trapping at least 107 on street tires with that motor. Sounds like you have a dead spot in your map. What kind of engine management are you using?

Also, I ran a 13.7 on street tires with a 2.2 60' on the gtx ecu before I went to MS.

I am using the GTR ECU so I hope there is no dead spot lol. I'm gonna go in for a re-dyno at somepoint in the near future to check a suspicion I have. It may be all in my head, but the car feels to me like it is slowly getting slower since I first got it dynoed at 18psi 2 years ago.

2.2 on street tires is pretty impressive for a FWD. What psi were your tires at, and how do you launch? My method of just revving and letting out the clutch quickly obviously doesn't work.

[theredrocket]

So I went again last night and my best time was a 15.08@104mph... Lol, I cannot get it figured out for the life of me. I never made any changes from the last time I went. 32psi in the tires, stock open diff, etc.. Is an Mfactory LSD and airing down the street tires gonna help me that much, or do I just suck at driving?

[Racerboy]

So I went again last night and my best time was a 15.08@104mph... Lol, I cannot get it figured out for the life of me. I never made any changes from the last time I went. 32psi in the tires, stock open diff, etc.. Is an Mfactory LSD and airing down the street tires gonna help me that much, or do I just suck at driving?

While I've never gone drag racing before, airing down the tires will help BIG TIME! (The less air pressure you have, the bigger contact patch your tires will have, therefor giving you more traction.) If you're worried about the ride home, get a portable 12V air compressor to raise the pressure after you are done racing.

[Lex]

Your MPH is good for 13s for sure - so it's all a matter of the launch and shifting.

[crazycanadian]

So I went again last night and my best time was a 15.08@104mph... Lol, I cannot get it figured out for the life of me. I never made any changes from the last time I went. 32psi in the tires, stock open diff, etc.. Is an Mfactory LSD and airing down the street tires gonna help me that much, or do I just suck at driving?

Sounds like you are getting a little better at getting off the line... Thats going to be the biggest thing holding you back... Airing down your tires will help... try that first and practice practice practice your launches...

[theredrocket]

I'm using 205/50/16 dunlop direzza star specs. They are a street tire meant for the weekend auto-xer/road racer etc. Generally people do a lap on the tires to get them warmed up so they perform better. Would this work for drag racing too? I'm wondering if I should spin them over a little bit to heat them up some/clean them off. I have been going around the waterbox and not spinning the tires over at all. Should I be doing this some? I saw lots of other guys on street tires going right into the waterbox and spinning the tires over a little.

There is one more track day this year that I'll be going to. I'll try airing down and spinning the tires some before the race. Next year hopefully I'll have new synchros(fix my super slow 1-2 shift) and a LSD installed. I don't want to use slicks/drag radials yet as I think I should learn how to use street tires properly first. Baby steps.

Oh and what rpm do you guys on street tires launch at? I know every car and driver is different and there is no concrete method of launching a FWD on street tires, but I'd like to hear some of your techniques. Maybe try some myself.

Thanks.

[crazycanadian]

depending on the street tires I have run as low as 15psi air pressure in the front.. for launching with a boosted car its really tricky.. trying to stick with a set rpm wont help you..

the best way to get boost off the line is to be reving the car up and being on and off the throttle.. its hard to explain, something better if it could be shown.. when you launch you are trying to catch the timing when your rpms are coming down..

off the line you might not be able to just floor it... sometimes you need to pretend there is an egg under your gas peddle.. you are trying to squeez it to the floor with out slamming down...

Your slow 1-2 shift is going to kill your times as well...

Airing down the direzza's will help.. a small burn out will also help a little.. they are designed to work best with a little heat in them...

[Lex]

I usually don't launch on street tires as wheel hop is not pretty, just a quick clutch slip.

[deadly_sleeper]

Ok, so first off everybody needs to realize that you are on street tires not slicks. You can't drop street tures down in pressure range like you can with slicks. Street tires perform best when between 30-32. You can drop your tires down to 28 if you want, realizing they will heat up a bit when moving. Anything below that is too much and you start to ride just on the outsides of your tires. Don't believe me? Go drop down to 25 paid and do a healthy burnout and tell me what the contact patch looks like....you don't get full contact like you do with normal pressure, 32.

Second, go around the water box and do a dry spin to clean the tires. Anything more and you are wasting your tires. Street tires have different characteristics and heat ranges. They are not meant to be heated up in a water box. If you have DOT drag radials you can heat them but not normal street tires.

[mcrumble]

your reaction and 60' need work for sure, that's where you're loosing most of the time, your MPH looks good, just need to get the other numbers down how did you launch it? i was told for a FWD car on street tires it's best to just 'take off' quickly as you would from a light and not drop the clutch at 6000, my friend had a focus and he got 2.0 60' all day long, so i trust him lol

but don't put yourself down, SO many factors go into drag racing like track conditions, weather conditions, tires, weight, air pressure etc. etc.

60 ft times at 2.0 in a fwd car is rediculous! hes either a verrrry good driver, has drag slicks, or a combination of both.

but yeah, more than likely its seat time. like people said, your reaction time was kind of slow, if they were taking that into account. i know when i went to the 1/4 it was test and tune, so they didnt account reaction time into the 1/4 mile time. it was strictly just 1/4 mile tuning. but get some seat time, especially if you only did 3 passes.

[wht95scort]

Reaction time has nothing to do with your ET time. You can sit at the line for 5 min and then go and still run a 13 second pass. What does matter is your 60 foot. The better 60 the better ET. Your coming out of the hole either spinning the tires like crazy or bogging hard. You have almost 3 sec 60 foots. Work on getting the car out of the hole keeping tire slipping to a minimum.

[theredrocket]

I took the car out a few nights ago and practiced launching. (Found the freshest, blackest pavement outside the city I could) I'm starting to get it figured out I think. I was surprised at how high of rpm I could "launch" at if I feathered the clutch properly. That is definately the key with FWD cars on street tires. You guys are right. I have to keep the revs up above 3500-ish rpm so it's somewhat inside the turbos powerband. Letting out the clutch too fast and having them fall below 3500 makes the car fall on it's face.. I got one perfect(felt that way anyways) launch from right around 4000rpm. I will try this the next time I'm at the strip..

[eurotiva]

You'll get it. My car went 13.33 @104. On drag radials. And 13.61 @104 on street tires. I've been racing for 15 years tho.

More seat time and your times will only get better. Another thing is drop any un-needed weight. (temporarily)

[crazycanadian]

I took the car out a few nights ago and practiced launching. (Found the freshest, blackest pavement outside the city I could) I'm starting to get it figured out I think. I was surprised at how high of rpm I could "launch" at if I feathered the clutch properly. That is definately the key with FWD cars on street tires. You guys are right. I have to keep the revs up above 3500-ish rpm so it's somewhat inside the turbos powerband. Letting out the clutch too fast and having them fall below 3500 makes the car fall on it's face.. I got one perfect(felt that way anyways) launch from right around 4000rpm. I will try this the next time I'm at the strip..

Just remember the track and street are different.. using the street will help, but the track is going to act differently..

[psiturbo]

FWD front end suffer so much on a race track. Sometimes the luanch is so sticky the whole front end just jumps and hops, even with strut bars, beefy front sway bar and solid motor mounts, its less but still is horrible.

On FWD from a deadstop feather it a little at some point then after that just hammer it all the way to redline.

I puchased a G-Tech, the cheap one which is like 45 bucks on EBAY, not the best and latest tool, but it does help to see if one is improving or not. Not all seat of the pants is the best way to tell, at least on my case, G-Tech is great from 0-60mph, not your drag race 60 foot, but any improvement on the 0-60 is evidence that one is getting better.

Many may differ, but also there is plenty of variety on street pavement, some are sweet for launching while others just sucks balls.