azoufan

So I cannot confirm nor deny that I may have accidentally went up against a 350z a few weeks ago. Let off at the top of 4th, he was a length or two back, I hit my brakes, he does the ricer fly by, turns on the next road and takes off. I proceed down the road at normal speeds, traffic is around on this road (not the previous one). Catch up to him, see his plate, he turns off down the road and I turn off into my office.

Turns out we have some guys working in that building and they saw his car and heard him telling other people about that "black Mustang that I just blew it's doors off of". [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/lol.gif[/img] Ok, so my boys IM me to tell me, we're laughing. One of the guys says to him "Hey, my man just wanted to thank you". He says "for what?" "For letting him know that his brake lights are burned out since you obviously didn't see them". Hee hee.

Anyway, track night is tomorrow and I'm going, turns out this dude is going too. He swears he beat me, I guess we were racing to see who's car could fit in each others rear view mirror. If so, he won. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/04.gif[/img]

We'll see if we get lined up or if we can arrange it. Never been to the track before, so this should be interesting. Anyone want to place any bets on this? How do you think this will turn out given my list of mods and assuming at least a CAI and tune for the Z?

Thanks for your thoughts...

psfracer

Well, it so happens I just ran a 350z tonight at the track (1/8 mile) Here were the results:

ME: 7.808 @ 89.38
Him: 9.838 @ 74.84

I have a friend whos stock mustang (except CAI and tune) usually runs in the high 8.9's to 9.0 (1/8 mile). You have 4.10's so assuming you hook, you should be in the 8.60's (or a low 13 second pass) The Z on the other hand, probably missed a shift or something, becuase I would have thought they could run at least a 9.2-9.3.

Anyway, if its the first time at the track, get some DR's if you can (maybe borrow from a buddy?). That way you can really take advantage of the 4.10's and blow his doors off. You don't want to spin the tire. If you don't have DR's, then go around the water (don't do a burnout) Also, leave as soon as you see the third yellow, do not wait for the green. You can improve your margin of victory by cutting a good light. If you hook and cut a good light, you have nothing to worry about....with the torque you have you should kill him to the 330 foot mark if you get it to the ground........unless he has a s/c or n20.

Fazm

hey azoufan, meet up with us at firebird. im going, tony (sixysix) and mustang speedar from 2005stang.com are all going.

im the only v6, but ive even taken down 350z's (best 1/8th is 9.311)

psfracer

So what happened? Give us an update........

azoufan

Well the Z didn't show up. My man missed his chance to ever run against me.

This was my first time to the track ever, so I was actually a bit nervous at first. I'm running this stupid 87 octane Diablo tune in my car, which I know is just killing me, so me being as smart as I am, put in 2.5 gallons of 101 and change to a 91 octane tune. Drove around for a bit to mix it all up (had a 1/2 tank of 89 at the time) and then got on it driving back to work, still got detonation. I gave up and reinstalled the 87 octane tune.

So we get to the track, again I'm nervous, my buddy lent me a helmet, I can't hear, I can't see, I can't breathe. Yeah great, this is fun. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/nonono.gif[/img] I can't see the staging section, so I go cruising up there after bypassing the burnout box and blink, blink, blink, blink, oops, drove right past the staging area. Put it in reverse, blink blink, stop, put it in first and wait. Track guy motions me to move back, oh yeah, my rear tires are staged huh? [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/04.gif[/img] Again, I couldn't hear through the helmet, but I believe everyone in the stands was chanting "GO HOME DORK".

I launch at 3K rpm, and absolutely smoke them through first and about halfway through second. Get a pretty good bark out of 3rd, then when I shifted to 4th, something strange happened, my tires chirped again. Scared me half to death. So you'd figure with all that action, major sweet time. Here is the 1st run...

R/T - .536
60 - 2.302
330 - 6.268
1/8 - 9.440
MPH - 78.60
1000 - 12.126
1/4 - 14.397
MPH - 99.83

Awesome first run at the track. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbsdown.gif[/img] Was thinking about tire pressure, but with first time jitters and such, let's see what happens. Launch a little lower next time, should be able to improve a lot without burning the tires up. 2nd run, launch at 2K RPM, feathered it back a bit after the tires got to spinning again, feathered it into 2nd so it wouldn't break loose, then hammered it. Shifted great, car felt strong.

R/T - .715
60 - 2.220
330 - 6.241
1/8 - 9.408
MPH - 78.70
1000 - 12.088
1/4 - 14.350
MPH - 100.45

Yeah, that was much better. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbsdown.gif[/img] Ok, tire pressure is coming down. Get to the wait line and find I didn't bring a tire gauge. I look behind me and it's Fazm and SixtySix. Sweet! We bs for a minute, Fazm has a tire gauge, and I drop the pressure from 34lbs. to 28lbs. Surely this will allow me to hook. I need to get out of the hole. I launch at 2K RPM after a brief dry burnout to clean off the tires. Light turns, tires spin like crazy again all through first, alot of 2nd, feeling good though, BANG, slam 3rd gear like a champ, I'm home free...yeah, um, missed 4th gear. Coasted through the traps as you can see by my MPH and had the quickest run so far. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/headscratch.gif[/img]

R/T - 672
60 - 2.208
330 - 6.053
1/8 - 9.147
MPH - 80.10
1000 - 11.804
1/4 - 14.318
MPH - 85.21

So we pull in and park to let the cars cool down, compare notes with a couple of my friends. Watch some other cars go, then decide for one last run. After 3 seperate incidents before us where they had to clean the track, it was time to line up. OK, launching at 1,500RPM this time, it's getting cooler out, I WON'T miss 3rd or 4th gear this time, a little bigger dry burnout to hopefully heat up these 18" street tires. No chance, spun hard through 1st and 2nd, hit both 3rd and 4th gear (yaaaay).

R/T - .326
60 - 2.223
330 - 6.108
1/8 - 9.258
MPH - 78.93
1000 - 11.927
1/4 - 14.190
MPH - 100.27

A couple of impressions / thoughts...

1. 87 octane tunes suck. My friend brought up an interesting point I'd like some feedback on. He said that it takes time for the car to learn the tunes and such, and I know I've heard that as well. Perhaps changing tunes the day of the run was a bad move on my part?

2. 40 series street tires on 18" rims with 4:10 gears does NOT equal good 60ft. times. Perhaps with some drag radials on my stock rims I could improve the cars ability to hook, drop my hole times and hopefully see alot of benefit at the end of the run? Friends were telling me every tenth off the 60ft essentially equates to .15 off at the end of the run?

3. I have learned where the staging area is.

4. Reading the data above, can someone give me your thoughts on my poor times? I'm blaming it on the absolutely horrible starts I'm getting. It seems that my trap speed at the 1/4 would indicate a much faster E/T, but again, this was my first time to the track, so I have no idea. Through the entire run, if you figure that I spun really bad in 1st, and 30% or so in 2nd, what does the rest of the run state? Is the car coming on strong at the end, or is it just a dog through the whole run? If I had a decent 60ft time, what should I have ran?

Since I don't have a CAI or a decent tune, I'm thinking I'm leaving a ton out there, but I would like some clarification on that. And without traction, it's all for nothing anyway. Forgot to also add, I believe it hit 91 degrees or so today. (man, I've got a lot of excuses huh?)

All in all, this was a blast. Again, I've never been to the track before, it was great just going as fast as I could without needing to look for cops. I drove home like a grandma because I'd gotten my fix for the night. What a fun time, I can't wait to do it again.

Please take the time to answer my questions (why not, you already spent 10 minutes reading my post [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/04.gif[/img] ), I would greatly appreciate your feedback.

Sean

bigaloz

I went 13.6@99.83 with just 300 miles on the car, completely stock.
Just the other night I hit a 1.97 60' with 4.10 gears and the stock tires.

psfracer

Well Azoufan, some pointers.....

First, 60' is almost everything! Thats why in post #2, I mention the DR's. Having 4.10's myself, I knew you would spin with a street tire. Also, I hope you realized that with your street tires, doing a burnout did nothing for you....but if you couldn't go around the water, then you have to anyway to clean the tires off.

You could be spinning also if the track prep sucks. What is the elevation of the track? Just so I am comparing apples to apples. Also the 91 degree temp could effect your mph by a couple.

Run #3 was looking by far the best....your 1/8 mile et being a 9.147. If you could get your 60' down to the 1.9's (shouldn't be hard with some traction and 4.10's), that would be a solid 8.8x which would put you somewhere around the 13.60 to 13.80 range.

And to give you an example of how spinning the tire effects ET....I usually run in the 7.60's-7.70's at Irwindale (1/8mile). One run I completely spun through first and halfway through second....ran an 8.41. If you are spinning a 285/40/18 that bad, I say your car is making the horsepower to turn 13's, just have to get it to the ground. Your next step should be DR's and you practicing on your launch. Thats my .02

Oh, I almost forgot....the 350z didn't show up because he would have lost....although your traction problems would have made it closer than it should have been. On the bright side, you would have beat the 350z I listed in post #2 on every pass....

Fazm

there were a few 350z's there, didnt see any of them runnin in the 13s, a couple in the 15s, and 1 6 speed g35 coupe in the 16s lol.

I was a baby, and didnt try to launch on my DR's until the last one, and found out the hard way that they have a lot of traction. tried to drop it at 3k, and bogged it bad. couldnt get out of the 14.5s

azoufan

The track elevation is somewhere around 1200 feet, my house is around 1280 according to my GPS unit, and I'm only 4 or 5 miles away from the track.

A couple of additional items I forgot to mention. When I launch, I simply dumped the clutch, didn't "sidestep" it, whatever that means. Also, my TCS was on for every run. Obviously it didn't stop my wheels from spinning, and I think it only engages when going sideways, but maybe those in the know would have a suggestion there. Should TCS be on or off at the track?

So there are many others here who have run around 2.0 or even sub 2.0 with just stock tires, how the heck is that happening? Any pointers on my launching technique that would help me out here?

Thanks again for everyone's help!

psfracer

TCS at the track should always be OFF!

azoufan

Lol, ok, I was afraid of that. So since it didn't do anything to stop me from actually spinning, do you think it may have in any way detuned the motor when the wheels were spinning, hence slowing me down a bit?

In case you didn't notice, I'm hoping for an answer of yes here. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/04.gif[/img]

Of course, the other answer COULD be "dude, you just can't drive", but I'm holding out hope for the TCS thing...

05-1947

My advice would be to go to the track and get comfortable with the process. I would probably guess that you were very nervous and your legs may have been wobbling??? It happens to all of us.

Forget about the lights as well (worrying about red lighting), because your time starts when you roll through the beam.

What RPM are you shifting at? With your setup, I would say somewhere between 6-6200 should be optimal.

Go back, and try different scenario's on each run and then compare your timeslips and see where you are gaining or losing and adjust from there.

Fazm

ya, i cut a 2.017 on the pnero tires, and thats in the v6. just takes lots of practice, and its different from track to track.

mustangspeeder

I must have missed you Sean! I was there too with Dave and Tony, although I was an idiot and showed up in shorts, so I had to waste 30mins and go buy pants! My times also sucked that night!

kampendmk

I ran 1.826 60ft at irwindale last week and 8.611 et at 80.56 sp with stock tires and gears.freathering the clutch and gas started at 1000 rp mods 91 oct sctx2 tune bmr lca hurst comp+ shifter maganflow catbacks

afixer

i kept reading his times thinking whats wrong with that! just noticed he has a gt. hey its a reel rush huh. i was so nervous too. try to relax a bit and just have fun. the times are good and with better launches you will be just fine.just try not to smoke the tires so much. its amazing how much that cuts the time. im a newbe at this listen to these guys and you will learn alot. good luck and be careful. keep it on the track the street is not a good place for racing. be glad you have a place near by. its way better.

afixer

hey kamp i was there last week we should have met. shame we didnt

afixer

stu bad didnt you see my post about the rules the other day?

http://www.irwindalespeedway.com/dra...eet_rules.html

351pony

At least you guys are running somewhat near sea level. You should try racing at 5860 ft elevation... Of course I had the same issue with getting traction. I'm trying to find a pair of 15" Weld Draglite XP's so I can run a set of drag radials.

kampendmk

I was there behind you in line I`m i took a picture of engine in your car with my cell phone.