You should never burn out if you are running street tires.

And you should always skip the water box on street tires.

Maybe a quick punch on the gas to get the dirt off the tires, but do not heat street tires.

 

With the computer controlled cars it makes sense to let the computer handle it but for those of us in the dark ages without computer controll you either need to spend alot on a trans and a electroniuc shifter that works on rpm or shift it yourself using a rpm shift light to be consistant. Water box is a no for street tires and I do consider cleaning off the tires to be a burnout of sorts just dont go crazy with it.

 

all ur doing when conductin a burn out with street tires in bring out the oil in thread

 

Here's my 2 cents.

I have raced at the strip for the last 15 years. Everything from my old beater 78 Chevy stepside to my 04 Grandprix to my 68 Camaro (drag car) as well as several Chevelles an 01 ZO6 and even my best friends NHRA Stock AND Superstock eliminator cars when he needed to thrash them to sort things out. I have plenty of seat time. there are a few tried and true things (some have been metioned) that work for a regular street car going to the strip.

If you're running a stock street tire, the normal 32-36 lbs won't work. The tire is too convex on the tread. drop your pressure to about 24-26 lbs. Any lower and you will cup (concave) the tire. If you have Radial or bias slick, well that's another post.

As said, stay OUT of the water. You wouldn't believe how much water is thrown in your wheel wells with a treaded tire. No need to do a real burnout.

Pull up just in front of the water box, put the car in drive and mat it. If you don't spin there, you wont on the starting line. The starting line is typically more tacky than the area in front of the waterbox. If you spin, well you've just heated and cleaned your tires. You won't bring out any oil in the tread. That's a misnomer. Why do NASCAR and NHRA want their tires warm? Don't stand on the brakes, just mat it and get to the starting line. Standing on the brakes ruins the rear ones and puts a larger load on the car than those folks with linelocks.

Stage the car and leave at an idle. It's more consistent that way and bringing your RPMs upwith a low stall factory convertor won't benefit most cars on the launch. The flash of the stall is so low that whether you leave at idle or at 2000RPM, the time for the RPMs to come up is neglegible. In fact, most will say the flash RPM stall is better to leave from that the footbraked higher RPM. Flash stall is typically a little higher anyway.

When the lights come down take off. Whether you leave it in OD or 3rd or you shift is up to you but I will say this...You will never know what method of shifting/launching will work best until you experiment with different RPMs and have done this several times. Then you can decide what your car likes and doesn't like. I can say this, some cars may even like to be short shifted, but until you get out there and try something, you'll just never know.

RM

 

Thank you everyone for your input. I think I'm going to just experiment to see what is best for my car, but don't think I will manually shift beacuse I don't want to damage my tranny at all. I'll probably do a pass on D and another on OD to see what works best. Also I have continental extreme contact tires which are all weather so I don't think I'll actually rev it up to"launch."

I dont know, I suppose i'll just experiment around to see what works best.

Thanks again - I've learned a lot about how to race a '95auto on street tires.

 

hey 744b44 or whatever it is lol... what part of pittsburgh you from? I'm form that area too!

 

Well, I never thought I'd say this, but I finally read something decent come from a "Sport Compact Magazine." Ya, I know, weird. Anyway, I was flipping through my friend's and I came across a short article titled "Drag Launch 101." Granted, it was technical enough most people would get confused and stop reading(especially those sport compact guys), anyway, it has a bunch of stuff on what to do with different tires and what benefits and detriments you get from doing a burnout with each type. Pretty good read, check it out. Long story short, doing a burnout on all season radials is more of a detriment than anything due to the composition of the tire and rubber etc.

 

D or OD will not matter, it will not go into OD at full throttle so there is nothing to gain or lose.

 

west mifflin, Hazelwood, whitacker. and Brooklyne..............But right now I'm stuck in Maine.

 

Wow thats crazy... I got to West Mifflin High School! haha