Well, I took my 06 Mustang GT to the 1/8 mile strip. My car is stock except for UDP. I am running Nitto 450 250/17/50s. The car is manual.
1st couple of runs I was launching at 2500. I was getting massive wheel spin and hop. The times where as followed:
60' 2.9
1/8 mile 10.69
speed 74.81

After dropping the PSI to 25 and launching around idle my time improved.
60' 2.510
1/8 mile 9.667
speed 76.7

Next run was a little faster
60' 2.43
1/8 mile 9.487
speed 77.614

Would lCA help? I was thinking about new tires. This is my daily driver and I drive about 30 miles to work, so I think drag radials would be out. Would BFG TA KDWS be an okay choice. Thanks.

 

If you are getting wheel hop some lower control arms should be quite helpful. I'd say those BFG TA kdw's would be a good step up in grip. You might not be able to drop the clutch at 3000-3500 with them but you should easily be able to ease it out from there and cut a solid 1.8-2.0 60' with practice.

 

LCAs will eliminate 95% of your wheel hop. The other three things to help with your times are:

1) Practice.

2) Tires.

3) Practice some more.

 

Best I've done on my factory stock 18" BFG KDWS tires was a 1.862 sixty foot time and the 1/8 mile for that run was 8.492 @ 81.55 mph (1/4 mile on that run was 13.319 @ 102.13 mph). In fact, that entire race day, I posted an average for all 5 runs of 1.873 sixty foot, 8.545 @ 81.16 mph 1/8 mile, and 13.390 @ 101.64 mph 1/4 mile. Stock airbox, stock exhaust, the only mods that day were 4.10 gears, stall converter, and canned tune from Predator tuner.

The key to getting the factory tires to stick is to run lower pressure (I was at 26 psi that day) and heat them up in the burn out box just like a drag radial or slick (but stay out of the water!).

I must be very fortunate that my car has never had an issue with hopping, and my suspension is 100% stock.

 

I think my biggest problem was adrenline and anxity. I practiced launching at a stop sign. It was early in the morning, no traffic and I didn't break the speedlimit. I launched at 2500 RPM and had very little wheel spin. I did chirp the tires.

 

Believe it or not, that has alot to do with it..... anxiety and just plain 'ol fashioned nervousness will get ya for the first half-dozen or so runs.

 

I think I am so occupied at trying to cutting a good light. My RT has improved. Before it was around 1sec, now it is about .5 sec. I know still slow.

 

reaction time makes no difference....the clock starts when you go and when you end

 

I know technically I could wait a min after the light turned green then go and still get 8-9 seconds, but I think I was so worried about beating the other person, which was pointless. The cars I was put against where old school muscle with slicks. They had major tq. The front wheels wheels came off the ground when they launched and 6s low 7s. One race they put me against a dragster.

 

It's hard to ignore the car in the next lane, but to perform your best you need to block them out and concentrate only on what you're doing. Try feeding just enough throttle (while easing out the clutch) to keep revs up enough to keep from bogging, but not so high as to torch the tires.

Your goal should be a 60' time under 2.000 seconds and is quite easily attainable on factory tires with a lot of practice. Every tenth of a second you improve in the 60' time should net you a 2 tenth improvement in total ET for the track. So, if you can improve your 60' time from 2.4's down to 2.0's, you'll likely improve about 8 tenths in the 1/8 mile (from the 9.5 you listed down to the 8.7's). Practice makes perfect!