My first trip to the strip

[Brian Denham]

Saturday May 26, 2001..

I meet up with my new buddies in a parking lot in Little Rock. We are all sitting around outside admiring each others cars. Im there in my 00 gts and we also have 3 very fine TT supra's, 1 vert mustang cobra, and 1 TT rx-7. We head out for the 1.5 hour drive to Centerville, AR and reach the track about an hour before things get started. A couple of the supra's stop to get some race gas and we all park under the shade and get ready for some action. Im kinda nervous with this being my first time, but certainly excited! This is only a 1000' track unfortunately, but still alot of fun. My car only has tubes/filters, snake-oyl rear subsection, and mgw shifter. The temp is about 80-85 degs. Not sure of the elevation. Im on stock pilots dropped to 27psi. I was getting a pretty good amount of wheelspin. I was just a little anxious off the line and dumped the clutch a bit too fast

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I will drop that to 22-25psi for my next time out there for sure! I watch a couple of the supra's run and then line up for a couple solo runs myself. My first run went like this:

Reaction: .791
60ft: 2.118
330ft: 5.839
1/8 et: 8.754
1/8mph: 86.00
1000et: 11.028
1000mph:98.66

I did 5 runs during the test and tune and my best reaction time was .632 I was very happy with that. My best run of the night had my worst reaction time:

Reaction: .994
60ft: 2.064
330ft: 5.689
1/8et: 8.566
1/8mph: 86.93
1000et: 10.804
1000mph: 103.49

On that run I was lined up against one of my friends tt supras. I edged him out over his time of 11.072@ 105.53mph. I guess he was busy watching me this time because he was turning 10.6's all day before he and I lined up! The next run I got edged out by one of my other friends tt supras by .280 seconds. Those cars are just amazing! It is totally different talking about racing them, and actually lining up with them at the track. My hat goes off to those guys cause they really know how to tune and drive those supras. All in all it was a great day that was soooo much fun. And I made some great new friends in the process

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We are definetly going back soon!!

Tom Welch, I will be calling you soon for a copy of your video

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Im hooked now!!

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[Y2K5SRT]

Brian -

Awesome stuff! Your reaction times, even your worst, were pretty darn good. I was also impressed with your 60' times, as these cars really are tough to launch. As you have a 2000 (with all the same mods I have except the MGW gas cap

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), you will find they have more high end pull. In the 1/4 you will find yourself catching the Supras that are ahead of you. Even my Viper buddies find me coming on strong at the traps if they get me out of the hole.

Without trying to do a curve on your numbers, I would estimate your 1/4 mile at 12.85 @ 113 mph. While not yet "Motor Trend" territory, you had two things working against you:

The altitude was a bit higher than sea level (477 feet according to the Centerville stats page and your temperature was high. I don't know if you ran at night or during the day, but if you can get some cooler temperatures for some night drags you will see a big improvement in your times and speeds.

I think that lowering the tire pressure may help a little bit, but I have been cautioned regarding the 18" wheels as they don't have as much sidewall and offer little or no "flex". Not sure how that impacts it or not, but I have run as little as 22 pounds in the rears. I have overinflated the fronts in the past to 40 pounds for less resistance (although I can't imagine it makes that much difference). I usually run stock pressures all the way around.

Great job and glad you had fun. It's a blast!

Chris

 

[treynor]

Aaaah, welcome to the club

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Racing of any sort is fun and addictive, and drag racing is perhaps the easiest form of racing to get started in. And yes, those Supras can be very quick indeed. At a recent dyno day, we had several making 400+ RWHP (one made 442!) on the stock turbos & stock fuel system.

If you want to get faster, I'd recommend (in order) Tom's video, practicing launches (use a G-tech or similar to monitor your progress), and if you're serious, a set of Purner's drag racing wheels. Also, you should pick up heavy-duty half shafts if you're not already using them, as a good drag launch puts more strain on the driveline than anything else (except a bad launch

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)

 

[Brian Denham]

Thanks for the cheers guys! Also, thanks for the lookup on the centerville altitude. The runs I made were from about 5:30pm to 7:00pm so it was still fairly hot. The sun didn't go down untill about 8:15 that night. Thanks for the estimate on the full 1/4 times as well. That was about what I was guessing myself. It seems that launching the beast is the key to the good times and trap speeds. Being my first time I was overy anxious. I had practiced some launches prior to going and thought I had it down pretty well. I was watching the video of the 11.8 sec pass with the stock ACR for help

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My plan was to rev to 2000 which I did, then give a quick clutch release but not a dump, bog slightly then nail it. I could not stop myself from dumping the clutch though

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Practice, practice, practice!!! The supras I went with were running bpu setups and putting down from 370 to 420hp with stock turbos and fuel systems so it was a pretty even match up. All of us had video cameras on site and are going to get together for a post race video party soon. Tentative plans are to head back on June 9th for another go. That's soon.....Tom im calling you now!!

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Anybody have any advice on other things I can do to get a few more ponies out of her without breaking my wallet? I really dont want to go the NOS route just yet though. Thanks for all the help!

 

[treynor]

You could get substantially better launches with a pair of 17" rear wheels and Nitto 555R drag radials. Figure you'd knock your 60' time down to the low 1.8s with a little practice. Other than the launch, it's all about shifting technique and horsepower -- and horsepower costs money :^|

 

[Brian Denham]

Ben,

If I got the nitto's would I also need to go ahead and replace the half shafts? Or do they slip enough so as to not put too much strain on the shafts? The supra that beat me was using the nitto DR's. Will those fit on an old oem viper 17" wheel? What size are those tires? And would I be able to drive on them for the 1.5 hour trip to the track without any problems having the 18" wheels still on the front?

Thanks for your help!

 

[treynor]

Brian,
While not an expert on the Nittos (I went with the Purner wheels) I believe the following to be true:

(a) Yes, the Nittos would fit on older OEM rims. The OEM tire size is 335/35-17 on the rears, and the 555Rs are available in 315/35-17. Tom Welch can advise here, as he recently tested the 555Rs.
(b) You could certainly drive around with the 17" rears and 18" fronts. As with any drag tire, cornering is not their forte, and I'd skip driving in the rain as well. The 555Rs are rated to last about 15k miles, and should wear out from burnouts long before they wear out from commuting use.
(c) I'd get the uprated half-shafts as soon as you start regularly drag racing. You can get good ones for a quite reasonable price (~$800) and that's a fraction of the cost of snapping a U-joint on the stockers.

 

[Tom Welch]

Brian,

I have the Nitto 555"R" models on my snake and man did they work great out on the street this weekend. It was my first time out on them and even with nitrous they held fine. I will be trying them at the track soon and it should be no problem running mid 10's on them.

The size is 315-35-17. They need to be mounted on a set of front viper rims. I tried them on the rears 17x13 but they were drawn out a little too much for my liking.

I have a barely used set of BFG drag radials that work better than stock tires and will fit your rear wheels fine if you are interested in trying them. I'll take 150.00 for the pair(315x35x17).

The nitto's are 185.00 each but in my opinion they hook better than the BFG's.

As for half shafts....If you experience "wheel Hop"....violent jumping of the rear end of the car.....you WILL end up breaking a u-joint and perhaps even a stock half shaft(the stock shaft will twist the outer tube). Our half shafts will not break but ANY u-joint including ours will not stand up to repeated violent wheel hop.......nor will any one elses. If you can drive without wheel hop and leave your car stock, your factory shafts will do ok.


In order to accurately calculate your cars 1/4 mile performance from your 1/8 mile numbers I need to know the weight of your car with you in it. Email or post that here for me and I will factor your 1/4 mile e.t.


Tom
Http://btrviper.com

 

[Brian Denham]

Thanks for the info Tom. Unfortunately there was not a station at this track for weighing the car so it will have to be a guess. Stock weight is what....3354lbs? Add in 100lbs for my stereo system and 200lbs for me and that should be close. So I guess we are looking around 3654lbs. Had about 1/2 tank gas in the car at that time as well.

Thankfully I did not experience any wheel hop during my runs!!