Driving skills or lack of traction?

  • Sponsors (?)


Procharger95 said:
My car dyno'd 529 rwhp and on Nitto drag radials ran a 12.0 1/4 mile @ 124mph. My car is/was fairly heavy about 3650lbs and I was wondering if that's such a horrible time at a track that is maybe average with an engine that is supercharged and only has 306 cu

We had 2 500rwhp LS1 Firechickens running 13.00 last night at our track, timeslips show 99% humidity :eek:. Both were running Vortech superchargers with over 20lbs of boost (So they say). What elevation are you at? That can make a big difference. 12.00 sounds pretty good to me. Probably have some traction issues too. Do you spin through first or second?
 
TweekedGT said:
We had 2 500rwhp LS1 Firechickens running 13.00 last night at our track, timeslips show 99% humidity :eek:. Both were running Vortech superchargers with over 20lbs of boost (So they say). What elevation are you at? That can make a big difference. 12.00 sounds pretty good to me. Probably have some traction issues too. Do you spin through first or second?

Yes on the Nitto Drag Radials 1st and 2nd were just there to give me enough movement to get into 3rd where I finally hook. My 8th of a mile time was 8.0 @ 90mph. It has been a while since I did this but I was just thinking back today at how much power the car made and the fact that I couldn't ever get the car to show what it was truly capable of with a good 11 or 10 second time slip. I even laid waste to a few 03 Cobras beating them by multiple car lengths that should've been mid 12 second cars but I couldn't ever get that kind of launch at the track :(
 
Procharger95 said:
Yes on the Nitto Drag Radials 1st and 2nd were just there to give me enough movement to get into 3rd where I finally hook. My 8th of a mile time was 8.0 @ 90mph. It has been a while since I did this but I was just thinking back today at how much power the car made and the fact that I couldn't ever get the car to show what it was truly capable of with a good 11 or 10 second time slip. I even laid waste to a few 03 Cobras beating them by multiple car lengths that should've been mid 12 second cars but I couldn't ever get that kind of launch at the track :(

Man, I wish I had that problem :(! Have you tried launching at idle and feathering it out of the hole? The procharger has an increasing power curve like a Vortech I believe, so as more rpm is achieved more power goes to the ground right? Mind you Nitto Drags don't have the greatest traction either. With my measely amount of power my 315 Nittos broke loose in 1st and 2nd and that was with an 8 second burnout. Mind you I was stupid to keep 31 pounds of pressure in them as well. It sounds like you just need to get used to that power wagon of yours again. Sounds like an awesome car. Good luck!
 
Procharger95 said:
My car dyno'd 529 rwhp and on Nitto drag radials ran a 12.0 1/4 mile @ 124mph. My car is/was fairly heavy about 3650lbs and I was wondering if that's such a horrible time at a track that is maybe average with an engine that is supercharged and only has 306 cu

Definitely traction issues. You need a far better tire than those Nitto's, those are horrid tires. Fix that and you should do a lot better.
 
TweekedGT said:
Have you tried launching at idle and feathering it out of the hole? The procharger has an increasing power curve like a Vortech I believe, so as more rpm is achieved more power goes to the ground right?
I think the trickiest part is launching hard enough to get moving without annhilating the tires and if I launched to soft (losing time) then I would have to worry about not annhilating my tires (losing more time) when the boost kicked in really hard around 4000-4500 rpm. It's been a while now since the car was running, it was just something that has always bothered.
 
According to your mph, you should be good for low 11's once you have everything figured out.

A calculator I tried out has you at 543 RWHP....is the weight you gave out including yourself? Thats the only thing I can think of.

And theres alot more to getting traction than just tires....proper inflation, shocks, springs, control arms, bushings (polyeurothane spec.)and tweaks to the front end play a major role as well.

Even adding weight to the back like a couple bags of sand can make a big difference. Once you can get your 60 fts respectable, an 11 sec. timeslip is inevitable.
 
Yeah you gotta prep the tires well. Drop the air pressure to about 15 psi(and play with it from there) and do a good burnout the first run. You have to clean and heat the tires thoroughly. Now I'm not talking 60 full seconds but more than 8 for sure. The magic number seems to be 10-15 seconds for the first run then just a clean and warm after that(5-8 seconds). You gotta find the edge were the tires are slipping without spinning wildly. NoNos is right,you mph is good for low elevens. Maybe its time to bite the bullet and pick up a pair of dedicated slicks and rims for the track. If you've got that much cash invested in the motor,it's not much more for the tires.
 
NoNOS said:
According to your mph, you should be good for low 11's once you have everything figured out.

A calculator I tried out has you at 543 RWHP....is the weight you gave out including yourself? Thats the only thing I can think of.

And theres alot more to getting traction than just tires....proper inflation, shocks, springs, control arms, bushings (polyeurothane spec.)and tweaks to the front end play a major role as well.

Even adding weight to the back like a couple bags of sand can make a big difference. Once you can get your 60 fts respectable, an 11 sec. timeslip is inevitable.

Yes that was the approximate weight with me in it. The car was dyno tuned with by Johnson Motorsports making 529 rwhp but I later had the intake elbow ported (a 95 thing), then replaced the slipping clutch with a spec stage III and aluminum flywheel, and fixed a few vacuum leaks with those bolt-on type clamps (I kept blowing the screw on ones off or air by them). I really don't think this car saw its potential before the block broke. I did step up to BFG drag radials but the block didn't last long enough to get a track time because it broke in the winter.
 
Get a set of ET streets for the track and keep them Nitto's for the street. With that MPH there are some DEEP 11's in that car. My 04 Cobra mule went 11.78@119 last year on Nitto's with a dyno of 487rwhp, but the tires were VERY inconsistant. Go ET Streets, you wont ever go back. :canada:
 
The Mickey Thompson drag radials will last about a week on the street. They are down to the wear bars after 2 weekends at the track, ULTRA soft. And besides that our car didn't like them at all, shatty 1.8 60' with wheel hop,switched back to ET Streets and went low 1.7 and no wheel hop.
 
brownbrosperf said:
The Mickey Thompson drag radials will last about a week on the street. They are down to the wear bars after 2 weekends at the track, ULTRA soft. And besides that our car didn't like them at all, shatty 1.8 60' with wheel hop,switched back to ET Streets and went low 1.7 and no wheel hop.

Cool thanks I'll keep that in mind...I'm now starting to consider going back to the Nitto Drag Radials like I had on my 95 because even though those tires didn't hook well at the track I could hook them fairly well on the street when I wanted to let loose a little bit.

Oh yeah and wheel hop is a horrible possibility with my Cobra so I may have to consider some upgrades for the rearend before too long or shoot for wheelspin or bog because in between is just wheelhop :(