As some of you know my Drag Radials should be here tomorrow. I need to know how to set them up for the strip,ie; pressure, burnout or not, water or not, I'm thinking of running a full tank of gas to help keep the backend from gettin away from me. The tires are BFG Comp T/A drag radials. Any and all advice is appreciated
this was in an article by john lingenfelter: "with the bfg drag radial we reccommend tire pressures of between 14&18 pounds (at the track only). start your tire pressures at 18-20 pounds and lower them until your 60' times no longer improve- once you have obtained optimal traction lowering the tire pressure only increases the rolling resistence ( do not go below 14 psi of air pressure on the bfg drag radials)". also "for best results it may help to inflate the non driven wheel tires to their maximum inflation pressure". remember to return the pressures to normal before driving home. hope this helps. gives you a starting point anyway.
thx Don, it helps alot, I would have never thought to take them as low as 14 pounds. I was sittin at the tire store this afternoon when the last freight truck pulled in and my tires weren't on it I was p'od. So no TnT this weekend. I don't think the burnouts on the street tires did much good, they weren't gonna hookup no matter what. Thx again for the advice
the dropping below 14 psi is what they reccomend BUT i myself seem to have the best performance at 13.5,, i talked to Spence Hart (a NMRA Drag radial driver for those who dont know him) and he told me that he runs between 9-14 in his car depending on track condition, now granit his car is known to dip into the 8's i dont know how fast your car is but mine aint even close to that lol..you just have to play with it and you'll get it figured out,,
Purple I don't think the car will have a problem gettin in the low 8's but I think your talkin 1/4 mile and I'm talkin 1/8th...lol. My son thinks high 7's but I'm not that optimistic...Its all speculation till its run anyways.
I always kept dropping my pressure until I could not drive the car stright down the track.....the wiggle! Alot of it depends on your motor and suspension. When my car went 7.70's I could run my slicks at 9 1/2 psi. I tried that with the new set-up and made it to the 60 ft. mark and had to get out of it cuase the tires where "wadding-up" and it was a real handful. I run the same tires now at 15 psi. Thats only 5 1/2 psi difference, but that is equal to around a 50% increase in air pressure...thats ALOT. ** There is alot of things that determine what works for you and what doesn't. Tips and other peoples thoughts are a GREAT tool to have, but to truly fine tune "your" car, you just need to experiment. Good luck and keep us posted!
Test and Tune, that's why we go, to work out the bugs and find out what works and what doesn't. A lot of good advise here and a great question! My only advise is to start safe and go from there, I don't like the wiggle myself (I don't have the balls for it) but to each his/her own. Good luck and let everyone know how this works out for you. Terry
Your right Terry, I guess I really did not finish that statement..... once the wiggle happens...start adding air pressure about 1/2 pound at a time until the wiggle stops. You will run more consistant without the wiggle.
Reaction times Also for reaction times, its easy to adjust the car rather then leave at diffrent times, if you take air out of the frount tires your reaction time will go up (so more time before the car breaks the barrier), if you put more air in, they will go down (less time before the car breaks the barrier) but remember when removing/adding pressure form the frount tires your time will incresse/decress slightly from experince i have learned its often easier just to leave on the 2nd light just before the green, and adjust the tire pressue in the frount tires. Also I deep stage as well. Where i get as close to turning the light off as possible but at the same time keeping both lights on. With this system with in a year i've been able to keep my times consitently in the low 5's on the 500 tree, no electronics at all. (auto tranny)
Also, air pressure in the rear will change your reaction time......when I was tuning the new combo, besides trying to get it down the track, I kept noticing my reaction times where junk....very slow. That was also related to the low air pressure. It seems the tires where "wadding" up at the starting line, causing a very slow R/T. Once I got the air pressure right the R/T went back down where they should be. Camtemple is correct(IMO) its alot easier to change the car for R/T than the driver. At least its alot more consistant. What I do is just simply try to stage in the same position everytime and just real simply change my launch RPM. If I am a little slow, I will just bring the launch rpm up a little until I start redlighting, then just continue to react to the last yellow. Racing is soooo much fun!
maverick5946 Is right about racing it's soooo fun!:bananaman Rick if you haven't been to the track at all or if it's been awhile since you've been just take that SWEET ride of yours and enjoy the 1/4 or 1/8 you have and don't worry about winning. 6 years ago I took my maverick to the track, it was the first time in 20 years that I had been racing and thought I was going to eat most every street car there with my 302 Boss motor. 12:5 to 1 pistons, 585 lift cam, ported and polished heads, roller rockers 800 holley, 411 gears. Well after the first pass and a time of 14.56 I came back to earth and learned that it's not how fast you go it's how much fun you can have. I was very sad that my car was no faster then that but I also won the trophy class that day. Go have FUN, all the rest of drag racing will come later and by all the other posts you can see there is a lot to learn. As always just my .02 Terry Gates AKA Bossmav
Bossmav 14.56, were you topping out at all on those runs? Sounds like your car has a lot more pep them my friends mustangs and fairlane and they arn't running much slower then that. what was your end mph. That does seem fairly low for your setup. Lots of wheel spin?
Well guys it's been 2 1/2 weeks since I ordered the BFG's and I still don't have them, from what I can gather from different dealers is this isn't a "in stock" tire and there waiting on the factory. Anyways I spent most of this afternoon preppin the car, I was gonna run her anyways, after lowering the backend and fiddlin with tire pressure I figured wth...I got the bug now anyways I go to crank her up and the starter solenoid sticks and before I can beat the crap out of to open it up the bendix fries in the starter You can bet from now on there will be a few items on the backup shelf
Jeez Rick. Your not having the best luck. Are you running a late model starter yet or the old boat anchor one?
Oh Ray...the boat anchor...what a pain in the arse to get out too! any suggestions on a different one? I know others will work just don't know model and years
