First day at the strip

[NewfoundlandDude]

Today myself and a few buddies decided to make the trip to the 1/4 mile strip for the season opener test & tune. It’s rained for a few days now, and rained this morning, so the only turnout besides us were the dedicated trailered drag cars that were camping out for the weekend.

The only drag strip on the island is about a 250km drive from the city, but we took the chance and headed out for the day during heavy rains this morning. The convoy included my S14, an 08 Evo X MR, a built Talon that ran 11.9 the last time out a few years ago with the previous owner, and another heavily modified Talon that ran 12.43 on it’s only track day last year.

When we arrived, it was still drizzling, and the day hadn’t started yet due to the rain delay. Finally after an hour or two, the traction compound was laid and the strip was opened.

Each of us were driving 2.0L Turbo vehicles, and as I mentioned, the others were dedicated drag cars, I think the fastest was a 7.1 second car. Obviously, all 3 of my buddies had the launching advantage of AWD vs my RWD street tire setup.

Each of us had the disadvantage of trying to launch street tires through the traction compound, myself feeling the worst of it, as I had 1/2 as many drive wheels…

Both of the Talon guys use DSM Link (Now ECM Link), and were launching from 5500rpm. One was using C16 race gas (116 Octane), and was tuning from a terrible base tune all day (the 11.9 Talon), and the other was still on it’s well tuned street gas tune (The 12.43 talon).

I had played with my launch control last night for about 6-8 launches and was launching nicely from 3K, building 8-10psi. However, from the traction compound, the tires were breaking loose much easier, and that launch was basically useless. I tried bumping it down a few times, then finally resorted to manually launching the car as usual.

All day, I had TERRIBLE 60’ issues. First I was breaking the wheels loose off the line, then letting off to straighten up and bogging 2nd gear. After I got the launch under control, I was getting a good 1st gear pull, then as I shifted in boost, I was smoking 2nd gear, even when shifting early.

I wasn’t impressed with my times today, even though it was my first ever time at the track, but I felt that I could have been much faster if I got my 60’ times down better.

My trap speed was 112mph (180 km/h) all day, both when I had problems off the line and when I had traction problems in 2nd gear. That’s a very respectable speed, and the Talon guys were running low 12’s with that speed. Unfortunately, since I couldn’t ever keep the power to the ground, my best run for the day was a 13.15 at 112.86mph.

To put that in perspective, my buddy who was running his Talon on race gas ran a best 12.22 at 111.9mph approximately, but his 60’ time was almost a second faster than mine. If I can get the car to hook up any better, I’m sure to get into the 12’s easily.

I lined up with the EVO a few times, and it was interesting to see what the outcome would be. Each time the EVO beat me off the line with it’s AWD goodness, before I caught up to it part way down the track and overtook it in 3rd then 4th.

Overall, it was a good day. The track was pretty bad, considering it was the first day of the year and it was raining most of the morning. Even the regulars were complaining about the quality. I think that if we go out there again, I’ll have much better times.

I think the EVO had a best time of about 13.7 at 105mph approximately.
One Talon (Race Gas) ran 12.22 at 111mph approximately.
The other Talon ran 12.65mph at 110ish.
I ran a 13.15 at 112.86mph.
My 60’ time on that run was 2.347 seconds, terrible compared to the DSM low 1 second 60’ times.

The guys did take some pictures and video’s, but they’re not up online yet. If they do make it up online, I can post them.
How does this compare to some of your guy’s 1/4 mile times, and do you have any tips that might make the next time out more successful?

I also didn’t mention that I’m running pig rich at about an 11.5AFR, so if I leaned that out and maybe boosted the octane up from our 91 pump gas a little on race days, I’m sure I could run considerably better than 13.1
In fact, the guys that have been out there occasionally over the years said that with a good tune, and a better launch, they figured I could hit the 11’s with some time to dial everything in.

[Tacoboy]

What suspension are you running?

[NewfoundlandDude]

Enduratech coilovers, Tanabe F & R sways & braces.
Tein front toe arms and Kazama rear toe and camber arms.

[Skinny]

got any pictures?
“pics or it never happened”

[NewfoundlandDude]

Pics are uploading currently on my buddies computer.
He said he’d have them by this afternoon.

In the mean time,I have my slip and a phone picture…lol

[NewfoundlandDude]

Finally, the pics are up.

First, here was the terrible morning drive that we had to the strip.
I’m not sure many would opt to leave on a 2.5hr drive in these conditions.

When we arrived, it decided to intermittently drizzle for an hour or more, so we ended up eating greasy “pit shack” food and walking the pits a little to check out the unnecessarily expensive trailers & such that were in attendance. Pit Pics:

Now for a few action shots:

[Fobwall]

Cool shit dude! But some of the pics aren’t working for me

13.1 is a pretty good time… I’m sure that your car has potential to be 12.8 or 12.7.

[NewfoundlandDude]

Which pics can’t you see? (Counting from one of the sentences or the top, etc.?)
I hosted them all at the same time, so that seems strange to me.
Anyone else have this problem, I use Firefox.

[system]

I had no problems with the pics and im on IE

[Re_Ameyami]

thanx for all the pics, what camera are you using?

[NewfoundlandDude]

I believe most are my buddies Nikon D40.
A few might be a Kodak point & shoot with HD vid.

[SlidewaysRPS13]

Man where is that track? And where are you from in NFLD? I saw Whitbourne and Clarenville signs which made me take a second look. I’m from Placentia but I moved when I was 8 years old with my family. God I wish Peter never sold that car…it’s to damn hot lol

[NewfoundlandDude]

The track is set up every few weekends at the Clarenville airstrip.
All of the track setup is temporary, and basically consists of temporary wiring for the lights and beams, then a track skeleton with cones. They have a tower where they announce times and miscellaneous things, but that’s it for permanent facilities.

You can probably guess by the Whitbourne sign that I drove there from St. John’s. I go to school there.

I think Peter would agree with me when I say that the car will get a lot more use out here. He never really had the time to ever track or use the car much with the build and all the articles. I’m sure he is glad to have gotten those few years with it to build it up in the magazine, and now that it’s finished that era, it’s getting a lot of use as my DD, my AutoX car and now I guess a 1/4 mile car…lol

I’d like to go back and find all the articles on this car, and see the transformation. Since I’ve bought it, it’s been through a full interior tear down and surface rust duty, it’s gotten a roll cage, some race wheels, and a leather interior. It’s had the head taken apart a few times from that blown rocker. I’ve found and re-wired some quirks and moved some gauges. I’ve also installed and aimed some 4300k HID’s in the projectors, and taken care of some other minor stuff.

So to say the least, the car isn’t finished. (As any modified car owner would agree, it never is).
My next step, and an ongoing campaign will be to improve the tune with the car, and make use of some of the AEM features. One of which is the 2-step antilag launch control that I played with this weekend.
The only real upgrade that I’m thinking about is a 1.5 way diff and a more reasonable clutch, as the current clutch is not the best for street duty. I’m adjusted to it now, but it’s not as practical as I might like.
I’m sure other small things will come up, and I’m sure I’ll continue to mod the car, but for now it will get the most use as possible, and I hope to continue to bring the story via these threads after each weekend…

[Sparko]

dude i admire ur car a lot man…so clean and simple
and yea, tuning to get it perfect will take lots of time, so be patient
look on the bright side: now u know
13s isnt bad at all, im sure u can skim off 1 second or 2 with a good tune
good luck

[Tacoboy]

he wont get 1 or 2 seconds with a tune, he’ll get into the 12.5’s with a drag radial and stock rear suspension.

[Chad_Dugan]

@Tacoboy"

he wont get 1 or 2 seconds with a tune, he’ll get into the 12.5’s with a drag radial and stock rear suspension.

you dont need to run stock suspension to get a good launch, there is always a tire that will eliminate all your launching needs, if you bog, launch harder, if you spin, lower tire pressure, until you find that sweet spot, but stiff suspension has to be in the happy medium because if you launch stock suspension yes all the force will get to the wheels but if your tire is decent you can run a stiffer set up, and get that force a little bit earlier, plus stance of the car help, bull dog set up front low back high, also helps with launching fwd or rwd, but they rock the suspension solid -

[NewfoundlandDude]

Yeah, the car is used mostly for an AutoX car. I’m involved in our local club as the slalom director, so I’m at every event, and put in the time on the organizational end. So the drag strip was just a fun thing.

It was my first time out there ever, so I think I did ok. My first run of the day was pretty bad with a ton of wheel spin in 1st and 2nd, resulting in a 14 flat at about 100, so getting down to 13.1 a couple times and constantly trapping 112 was a good improvement in my books.

I somehow forgot my pump that day, even though I had a full tool, fluid, and jack spread…lol. So my tire pressures weren’t changed at all, they were the usual 32 or whatever they were at. I know I should have obviously played with the pressures all day, but just didn’t have the equipment to do so.

I would think that if I went back there again now with some launching experience under my belt and actually set the car up a little better, and gave it a better tune, I’d be quite a bit faster, and in the 12’s somewhere.

For any of you guys that have been out to the strip a few times, I have a few questions.

1. If I took my r-comp tires out for a day, would they maybe net me some better times? I guess I’d have to hit up the burnout box to heat them up, but would they launch better?
2. My coilovers are adjustable obviously, a friend advised fully stiff rears and fully soft fronts, but would doing it the other way allow more squat and a better launch?

On a side note, I jacked the car up today and inspected the brakes a little. It turns out that my 2-piece rotors were trying to live up to their name, and were backing out at a bunch of locations…lol
I tightened them down, bled the brakes and clutch, and found a little air still in the inner parts of the Brembo calipers.

I’m a dumbass, and when I hastily bled the brakes a few weeks ago, I did the rears and the outer nipples on the Brembo’s…neglecting to do the inners. The brakes felt better at that point, as I bled a bunch of air out, but they feel much much better now that I found the rest of that air on the inside…

I realized that the down pipe has a large split almost 3/4 of the way through, so that might have explained the full heat wrap. I guess I’ll be investing in some more of that soon.

The only other casualty from the weekend is the wing. I guess casualty is the wrong word, but the tape that held it to the trunk lid is basically all detached now, so it’s only held by the 2 bolts in the back. This weekend was my first decent highway run, so I guess it served as a shakedown. I found a pretty bad steering wheel vibration at speed above about 95km/h and the wing thing. I’m going to have to try and get the wheels re-balanced and see if that helps, and get some of that good 3M tape that everyone always talks about to do the wing and lip with. The lip could use some stability when I’m doing the wing.