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dannyzabolotny
dannyzabolotny Reader
9/24/17 2:19 p.m.
Vigo said:

Thanks! What's generally considered a good 60' time? I'm still kinda new to drag racing.

Totally depends on the type of car.  FWD/RWD/AWD, auto, manual, power level..  For your car 2.15 is good. In general FWDs struggle to do better than 2.2 on street tires. Very powerful RWD cars with a lot of rear traction and limited slips can do in the high 1s, so something like a new automatic Corvette can do 1.7-1.8.  Powerful FWD cars on slicks can do ~1.8s, sometimes better if they're very powerful or a full on race effort.  Stock manual-trans AWD cars can usually do 1.8-1.9 depending on how fearless the driver is about their driveline.  Very powerful RWD  and AWD cars on slicks can get into the low 1s, 1.3-1.4. 

Your car has a decent amount of rubber but still open diff, and while it's RWD and V8 it is an auto and not a particularly big v8 which means your power level at converter stall rpm (2000-something rpm) is nothing crazy. If you were not spinning off the line that generally means you can put down more power and get a better 60' with the traction you have. Then when you are riding the limit of one-tire traction, getting a limited slip will allow you to launch even harder.  Whether you have that power available (were you flooring it right away?) is another thing. With a small v8 and a stock torque converter you will probably not be making enough power at launch to spin two good street tires on a well-prepped surface and most 'easy' engine mods do nothing for 2000-rpm torque and generally increase higher-rpm performance. So long story short, 2.15 is good for your car and unless you both weren't spinning the tires AND weren't flooring it, i wouldn't expect much in the way of easy improvements from what you already got (as far as 60' times).

Thanks for the info! Yeah, my car has an open diff and a relatively low stall speed on the torque converter, so you've got a point there. I did spin one of the tires when launching, but that was likely due to the open diff. I did floor it pretty much the whole time.

The next open drag night is next October 6th, which is in two weeks. I'm planning to take my Mustang for that one. It's got 215hp/285tq, a manual transmission, and a limited slip differential, so I'll feel like I'm actually doing something as opposed to just mashing the gas pedal haha. I plan to do a lot more with that car since it's not my daily driver— planning on a 4.10 diff gear swap, subframe connectors, PI head + intake + Comp cams to bring it closer to 300hp, some weight reduction, and maybe some slicks.

Rodan
Rodan Reader
9/24/17 11:03 p.m.

Drag racing is all about the 60ft...  crappy 60ft time = crappy ET and MPH.

1.9-2.0  is a good goal for street tires.

Just for giggles, I pulled out some old (1994!) log books...  '89 Mustang LX with some bolt-ons, usually 107-109 mph trap speeds.  On T/A radials it would 60' in the 1.9s, on 9" slicks mid 1.6s.  High 12s on radials, 12.40s on the slicks.  

Cbad 1 by Rodan AZ, on Flickr

BTW, the Beetle in the near lane ran 13 flat... Awesome sleeper!

We later had a '98 Mustang I ran a couple of times just for giggles... don't remember that car ever going quicker than 14s, but it was basically stock.  I was pretty happy to get it to 60' under 2.0.  IIRC, I'd come out ~ 2800 rpm and try to balance throttle against clutch to be full throttle when the clutch was out, without a bog or spin.

dannyzabolotny
dannyzabolotny Reader
10/5/17 7:10 p.m.

Looks like I'll be heading back to the drag strip tomorrow night, gonna try and get into the low-mid 14's. I'm just gonna run a whole bunch of times and figure out what works. I'm planning on deflating my rear tires a bit to 30psi instead of 38psi, going to leave the transmission in D (versus Sport where it waits too long to shift), and I'm not going to do as many burnouts since there's not much of a benefit to them on street tires.

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