I've always owned AWDs before and got pretty good with them. With my old 300 whp Evo-8 I could cut 1.65-1.70 60's and run low 12s at 112 all day long. I learned today and the Z06 is a totally different animal that requires a lot of practice
Ran at Mason Dixon dragway near Hagerstown, MD. DA was running between 0 and -500 all day, so great air to run in but it made it hard on traction.
I have a new-found respect for all you high-power rwd guys today. I was definitely a fish out of water after having the Evo at the track for so long. My burnouts sucked (couldn't keep the car straight), my launches sucked, and I wheel-hopped all over the place. My biggest problem with wheel-hop was always set off by my 1-2 shift. I hopped all the way through second gear on 2 out of 5 runs and partially on all the others. Hell, one run I wheel-hopped until about 85 in 3rd gear!
My first run was my worst:
60' - 2.12
1/8 - 8.32 @ 88.6
1/4 - 12.56 @ 118.70
My last run was my best 60/, 1/8, and 1/4 all at once:
60' - 2.04
1/8 - 7.97 @ 94.2
1/4 - 12.099 @ 120.38
Other runs were 12.50, 12.29, 12.15 @ 119-120.
I wanted an 11 so bad but I guess for my first time ever with other than AWD, I shouldn't be too ticked off. Get that 60' down to 1.80 and I should be 11.65-70. It will just take some practice I guess. Everyone had traction issues today.
Saw,
What are you using for tires ? We have almost identical power (430 rwhp 400 tq on mine). I don't know if I can help..having a lot of issues myself except for launching. Lots of experts on this site..they should have you rolling in no time. Pit-man
I have 305/35/18 Nitto 555Rs. Ran between 17-20 psi. I dropped it more as the day went on. My biggest problems were:
1. My burnouts sucked. It was literally the first time I've ever done a burnout. I didn't get on the brake fast enough to keep the car still, and then it started sideways on me, so I never stayed on it long enough to bring any smoke. Heal-toeing just seems awkward as hell
2. I was trying to launch about 2700, let the clutch out slow until it caught, then pretty much dump it and ease into the gas at the same time. Every time, I pretty much bogged, rolled out slow, then took off. I assume this is why 1st never gave me any problems with traction and 2nd was the culprit after hitting my 1/2 shift pretty hard.
Everyone's times were down yesterday, despite the negative DA. The track was very cold and almost seemed slick at times. Still no excuse for my poor launching, though. Any advice is certainly appreciated. It's just gonna take some seat-time I guess..
Well Saw, I just so happed to have launched on the same tire Saturday at Valdosta. I decided to run in street trim a couple times before I put on my ET Streets. Had same burnout problem from not holding the brake long enough. Used 2nd gear and dumped at 4800 for burnout. First run was about a 2.22 sixty and all spin, second I got a good burnout and got a 1.8 sixty launching at 1800 rpm and pressing into the peddle (not too fast) with a 11.8 @ 124 (roughly, don't have slip with me, I'm at work) Third was back to a 2.20 sixty with wheel hop, spin and getting my butt handed to me by a big block, 4200 lb Mercury.
Changed to ET Streets with 12lbs of air and launched at 6500 and 5500 and still couldn't get better that a 1.81 sixty. Ran a 11.5 @ 124...still some spin, actually started a little sideways in second gear. Track was apparently not prepped very well because of being street night.
Try some ET Streets instead of those Nitto's. I bought a set of front 17" Zo6 rims for the back. Good Luck. Pit-man
Last edited by Pit Man : 11-12-2007 at 01:09 PM.
Reason: spelling
Thanks for the advice guys. Yeah, wheelhop was more of a problem than I expected. It's hard to make yourself get out of the throttle when you know it's hurting your run, but I guess the wheelhop itself is enough to kill it anyway.
By next season I plan to do enough research to have the car running better on the track. On the street it runs very well, though
Even drag radials won't allow you to launch this car the way you'd really like to. There's just too much initial torque for the meats and IRC.
My suggestion is to work forwards, not backwards. What I mean is instead of launching at 2700, 3000, 3500 rpms, etc and backing off to avoid wheelspin or wheelhop, do it the other way.
On your first pass, launch as though you were leaving from a stop sign back home in a bit of a hurry. Try to keep full traction through the launch but try and avoid bog as well. Once you've got that down, increase your rpm's on the launch in the next few passes by no more than 200 rpm until you find the sweet spot. Once you've started experiencing spin or hop again, you've moved too far up the rpm scale.
As you can imagine, different days or tracks are going to provide variables to the launch based upon track prep and DA.
Also, between runs you can experiment with tire pressure, going down no more than 1psi per launch. Eventually you will get a feel for the best tire pressure for your car and tires.
'Stepping off the pedal' rather than a slower release will almost always get you spin or hop with DR's.
Also remember that since these cars have so much torque, second gear shift can also cause a loss of traction and can even effect your final times more than the launch. It is also this shift that is the most dangerous on a slippery track and can put you into a wall quick as a bunny.
I've always found the weather temperature variations to be a real ball buster. Our engines love the cooler weather and therefore trap speeds go up. Unfortunately, tires like the hot weather so they launch better on a hot, sticky track. We're damned if we do and damned if we don't.
Anyway, those are a few thoughts about the strip that might come in handy.
Thanks, Mike. To help avoid all the wheelhop in 2nd gear, I kept finding myself wanting to shift a little slower. It seemed like all was well through 1st gear (since I was bogging the launch a little anyway) but then as soon as I nailed 2nd, I was all over the place. It's mind-boggling how you guys get around wheelhop, though I've seen it done correctly in many videos recently. Maybe the track was just that cold yesterday. It was 44 degrees and cloudy all day, had dropped to about 32 the night before.
Just like you said, the car loves the cold air, on the highway it runs like an animal, but traction is horrible. On a sunny day at 70 degrees, I can stomp it in 1st and have a little controllable wheelspin like here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgcrgKwt_S8
But on a cold road, as I found out Saturday night, I can nail it at 50 in 2nd gear and immediately kick the backed sideways.
Thanks, Mike. To help avoid all the wheelhop in 2nd gear, I kept finding myself wanting to shift a little slower. It seemed like all was well through 1st gear (since I was bogging the launch a little anyway) but then as soon as I nailed 2nd, I was all over the place. It's mind-boggling how you guys get around wheelhop, though I've seen it done correctly in many videos recently. Maybe the track was just that cold yesterday. It was 44 degrees and cloudy all day, had dropped to about 32 the night before.
Just like you said, the car loves the cold air, on the highway it runs like an animal, but traction is horrible. On a sunny day at 70 degrees, I can stomp it in 1st and have a little controllable wheelspin like here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgcrgKwt_S8
But on a cold road, as I found out Saturday night, I can nail it at 50 in 2nd gear and immediately kick the backed sideways.
Yea, unless you can master the art of almost perfect speedshifting (which most folks can't do), nailing it in second can throw you all over the track. Better to ease the clutch down slower in second and not lose traction or sideslip.
The problem at the strip has always been the same. You know what you intend to do, you plan your launch and your shift points and........and then the green light drops, the adreneline rush begins and you forget everything you planned and just go balls out for the trap. That's the frustrating part of the drag's....it's also what keeps us coming back for more!
Haha. Yeah, I hear you there. It's easy to go to rangeracceleration.com and read how he runs those insane times and get your gameplan together. Then, just as you said, get to the line and drop the hammer, try to run out wheel hop, hit the rev limiter, etc etc. Next thing you know, you have a timeslip in your hand with an extra 0.5-1.0 second on there, you talk about what you did wrong and what you'll do next time, then go out and do it again .
By the way, I graphed my acceleration from EFI Live data. Unfortunately these were my two worst runs. I didn't log the other three, of course.
Run #1 (12.56 @ 118):
Run #2 (12.50 @ 120):
Run #1 also had about 3-4.5 degrees of timing pulled over about 80 mph. We had messed with my tune some Saturday and added about that much timing. It didn't knock that night but I guess being slightly warmer Sunday, it did knock. We put the old tune back in for run #2 and no knock at all.
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