Well today I headed to Dragway 42 for some runs.

Long story short, I got some pretty decent runs in. First one off the trailer was a 10.72@128.94 on a 1.53 60' time. Spun pretty bad. DA was around 2800'.

Next run. Again spun badly, 10.76@127.87 on a 1.54 60'. Dad watched the tires really close that time. At dragway you can stand by the fence and practically touch the cars. Anyways he said my tires were smashing down to nearly the rims. On both these runs the front came off the ground about 6"-8", but out about 10' the rear looses traction, and drop the front pretty hard. Sorta like pushing a heavy object and your feet slip out from under you. He recommended that I put some more air in my slicks. Now at 14.5psi (cold) normally I do not touch them after I race, cause they heat up and you wind up chasing your tail. I agreed that if they were smashing that much it isn't good. So we added 1psi, from the warm 15.5, which gave us 16.5 warm.

Went back out for the 3rd time trial. Holy crap. Hello baby! 1.481 60' time! Racing a gutted and tubbed out mustang and knew I had to represent the vette crowd. 1-2 was great feeling. Hit 3rd and WTF, major drop in RPMs! Damn it I went into OD. I yanked it back into Drive and it rocked forward to pull a 10.78@125.70. Dang it.

Ahh I couldn't believe it when I got the slip. There was my 10.6X right there at my fingertips. This new shifter is great, but I found that if I really rap it forward on the 2-3 shift, it must hit the linkage so hard it knocks the lever through drive and goes into OD.

So I was pumped with respect to the 60' time and pissed at myself for the 2-3 shift. Oh well, figured I would take the gain and forget what I calculated out to be a 10.66 run had I not messed the shift.

The next run was 1st round of eliminations. I was very curious to see if the car would 60' again. I dialed a soft 10.72, knowing that if it 60'ed again well, I would easily cover the guy and be able to hit the brakes hard enough to slow down. Well it went just as planned except I redlighted by -.020 sec MInd you this was on a zero tree .ooo is a perfect light. I did not see the redlight and did just as I planned, covered the guy and left off at the end and ran a 10.73@127.

He went under his dial, which sorta had me confused cause it felt like it hooked good, which it did 1.487 60'. But it took me longer than I expected to catch him on a good 60' with that dial.

But in the end it really didn't matter.

I had a blast today. The Wife, Kid, and Dad came along so it was a nice day spent together. The little guy stands along the track, sceaming "Don't go red Daddy" Guess he knew something I didn't.

Sorta hard getting dialed into the car 60'ing better than its been. Time to recalibrate the launch process.

Stopped at Summit on the way home. Saw some ricers get busted by the police in the parting lot for street racing or something. Got one of those playback tachs...should be neat to play with.

 

Those are some great times for what you describe as less than perfect runs.

 

Gett'n there Jesse. In a decent DA you'd be pushing 4s or 5s. I had a new best today as well (check your email), but not as good as i'd hoped. I also lost first round.....despite nailing a .004 light

 

Great numbers.

 

Good job man. Wish you would have sent me an e-mail. I would have been out there with you guys.

on the new bests.

Ron

 

Impressive as always

 

Jesse,
I won't believe it until I see it

Was nice weather today, makes the day better when everything comes together.

Dang, I wish I was there, but Carlysle is only a few days away and polishing takes time.

 

Great neumbers Oh yeah, you're going to like that playback tach. I use the VDO version and it's been a real help when trying to figure out what was different.

KM

 

love the addiction

 

A-Mazing! Great times, buddy...

 

sounds like a good day and a great tune!!!.............

chris

 

Sounds like one of thoughs perfect days

 

You guys are cranking it on.

 

nice job buddy are u guys comeing to race at a dragway near michigan any soon id love to come out and race with u guys . and maybe show u the trick making that 434 in the 9s

 

That would be quite a haul to get to the southern boarder of MI. Probably not anytime soon.

 

Hey ski_dwn_it, have you ever thought of trying to limit your front suspension travel to get a better launch? Don't know if this is even possible or legal, but I know with our snowmobiles when we grass drag them we tie the front (and rear) suspension down and some of the bigger snocross teams have suspension tie-down systems to get a better launch. If you could make some brackets that bolt in along with the shock (or get a shorter shock?) that allow you to put a chain in there as a limiter...maybe it would work? It would put some unique stress on your front end, so that's something to consider.

The Corvette's definitely a different animal with the IRS rear, so maybe the problem has to be approached differently.

Dunno. Thought I'd throw my crazy $.02 in.

 

Yes I have thought about it. My front end seperates rediculously, looks like the car tries to turn inself inside out. Then it pulls the wheels off the ground to boot. So there is probably 2 or more feet of upward motion when the car leaves. Not so good for 60' times. You are correct, you want to get *just* enough that your weight is trasfered to the rear, to keep from spinning. Anything more than that is wasted energy that will hurt 60' times. That wasted upward motion, should be used for forward motion.

So to answer your questions - Yes I have thought about it, but have not come up with a good solution. It would take tons of R&D to get the perfect setup.

Its getting there with 1.481 60' times. Few more times out 1.45s should be had. Last night I went to energy suspension parts throughout the rear. Damn that was fun, till 1am.

 

I saw Jim Formatos car in a article. His front suspension was factory soft, but his rear had coil overs and a leaf spring. His was a 10 second Vette, and launched perfect.

 

I don't want to make the impression that our cars do not launch great. Any street driven car sporting factory suspension pulling 1.4 60' times in heavier than stock trim is cranking some serious power.

Every person that comes up to look at the car says, MY GOD does that thing leave hard. It apparely looks pretty violent. All I know is it feels awesome. Some cars are very deceiving on their 60' times. Most of the all our race cars there are running 1.3 60' times. But at a mere 2500#s.

The one guy that came over was running 496 CI motor, in a 2300# car. His ride went 9.8s, on a 1.32 60' time, and he said him and his friends just couldn't believe this thing wasn't on a large shot of nitrous. When I told him it weighted 3400# when he asked, he said he was going to pack up his stuff and go home.

So its all very relative to what your dealing with. We are at a HUGE disadvantage when it comes to turning big ETs. ~10.6s@almost 129MPH in ~3000 DA is damn good for what we are dealing with.

In better weather and some more tweaking....we will be crankin low 10s no problem. That should really make some people start scratching their noggins.

 

Best thing you can do is videotape your runs. You will see so much more.