How to Perform a Killer Burnout With a Manual Transmission
Here’s how to perform a nice, smokey, manual burnout without growing a third foot.
If you have a 2015 or newer Mustang GT with a manual transmission, you can pretty much skip this tutorial. There’s a line lock in the computer’s Track Mode that does all the hard burnout work for you. But if you don’t have one of those cars, and want to lay down a serious patch of rubber, we’ve got the tutorial for you.
In the video above, Engineering Explained walks us through the process of doing a burnout with a manual transmission. While it’s technically not much more complicated than a burnout with an automatic, it does require a bit of fancy footwork and brake modulation to prevent the car from stalling out.
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Here’s the basic gist:
Step 1: Put car in first gear with the left foot on the clutch.
Step 2: Apple throttle while foot remains on clutch.
Step 3: Dump the clutch and immediately put left foot on the brake.
Step 4: Modulate brake and throttle so the car doesn’t move, but also so the tires are spinning and the engine doesn’t stall.
Step 5: Profit!
In a car like the Honda S2000 featured in the video, it’s more difficult to do because you need a high engine RPM to launch, and the lack of torque really hinders the process. With a giant V8, it should be a much easier process to perform. But it still requires a bit of practice.
What’s cool in this video is that they shoot the tires with a thermal camera to show how hot they get, and how quickly they cool off afterwards. Plus, tire smoke everywhere is just cool.
Remember, do your burnout someplace safe. Even so, it’s not entirely without risk. But in a a few short steps you can be burning your tires away like a pro.
