cal-tracs ain't enuf
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Senior Member
Joined: Sep 1999
Posts: 829
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From: Irvine, CA, USA
cal-tracs ain't enuf
Well, went to Carlsbad last Sat., and as the heading says cal-tracs ain't enuf. First mistake - went to 76 to fill up 1/4 tank, got in a conversation with worker, ended up filling tank to max. By the end of the day I still had over 1/4 tank.
My first run I had rear tire press. at 25, I was thinking I wouldn't have a problem hooking up since I had done some street practice, so I power braked to 2500 rpm and hammered the sucker. 60' time of over 3 seconds and 1/4 ET of over 17 sec. LOL. The truck actually went sideways, I had to stop, turn it around and go straight again! Oh well, at least the cal-tracs kept the tires spinning in a straight line for a while
To be honest that was more my fault for being over confident and too excited. The Cal-Tracs did make a significant difference as before them I could not launch at all. I do wish I could pre-load the springs more but haven't added the longer bars yet.
If anyone wants to test the traction on their trucks Carlsbad is the place to go. Dusty, no maintenance, slippery as hell, and probably wet from all the rice burners that try to heat up their front tires in the wetbox but I never see any of it burn off (plus they have to get their rears wet).
By the end of the day I lowered the rear tire press. to 22, power braked to 1000, and gradually accelerated. Tires chirped a little but I could get decent launches compared to before. My best ET was against another red Lightning. I don't know if he's on the board or not, a really helpful guy. He had a superchip, cone filter, extra fan on the intercooler, and maybe other mods too, I don't know. He beat me with 13.77 but it was my funnest race of the day. I ran a 14.039 @ 100.17 w/ a 60' time of 2.307. Also barometric pressure was approx. 30.
The whole day I couldn't break the 14 sec. mark and I couldn't get my 60' times better than 2.3 due to traction problems. Do you guys think with DRs I could run mid 13's (w/out a chip)? Well we shall see since I'm ordering a set tomorrow
Also there was a white Lightning running mid 12's w/a 200 HP shot of NO2 and also a daily commuter! No problems at all they claim.
Sorry for the novel, despite the disappointing times it was a great day - after all I'm not a professional just want to have fun and challenge myself.
Later,
Mike
P.S. I killed 2 rice burners, 1 euro turbo car (that one was very close), all claimed they were getting mid 13 ETs, and on the way home I killed 2 more rice burners, a Grand Am GTP, and a little rice burner looking VW
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99.5 Black Lightning
PowerSurge Cone Filter
JBA Jet-Hot coated headers
Flowmaster muffler
So-Cal Lowering Kit; Cal-Tracs traction bars
Watter Wetter
Lo-Jack
My first run I had rear tire press. at 25, I was thinking I wouldn't have a problem hooking up since I had done some street practice, so I power braked to 2500 rpm and hammered the sucker. 60' time of over 3 seconds and 1/4 ET of over 17 sec. LOL. The truck actually went sideways, I had to stop, turn it around and go straight again! Oh well, at least the cal-tracs kept the tires spinning in a straight line for a while
To be honest that was more my fault for being over confident and too excited. The Cal-Tracs did make a significant difference as before them I could not launch at all. I do wish I could pre-load the springs more but haven't added the longer bars yet.
If anyone wants to test the traction on their trucks Carlsbad is the place to go. Dusty, no maintenance, slippery as hell, and probably wet from all the rice burners that try to heat up their front tires in the wetbox but I never see any of it burn off (plus they have to get their rears wet).
By the end of the day I lowered the rear tire press. to 22, power braked to 1000, and gradually accelerated. Tires chirped a little but I could get decent launches compared to before. My best ET was against another red Lightning. I don't know if he's on the board or not, a really helpful guy. He had a superchip, cone filter, extra fan on the intercooler, and maybe other mods too, I don't know. He beat me with 13.77 but it was my funnest race of the day. I ran a 14.039 @ 100.17 w/ a 60' time of 2.307. Also barometric pressure was approx. 30.
The whole day I couldn't break the 14 sec. mark and I couldn't get my 60' times better than 2.3 due to traction problems. Do you guys think with DRs I could run mid 13's (w/out a chip)? Well we shall see since I'm ordering a set tomorrow
Also there was a white Lightning running mid 12's w/a 200 HP shot of NO2 and also a daily commuter! No problems at all they claim.
Sorry for the novel, despite the disappointing times it was a great day - after all I'm not a professional just want to have fun and challenge myself.
Later,
Mike
P.S. I killed 2 rice burners, 1 euro turbo car (that one was very close), all claimed they were getting mid 13 ETs, and on the way home I killed 2 more rice burners, a Grand Am GTP, and a little rice burner looking VW
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99.5 Black Lightning
PowerSurge Cone Filter
JBA Jet-Hot coated headers
Flowmaster muffler
So-Cal Lowering Kit; Cal-Tracs traction bars
Watter Wetter
Lo-Jack
Really Old "Member"
Joined: May 1999
Posts: 1,362
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From: Kennesaw, Ga. USA
Mike/Brimstone:
Posted all of this before, but graduated from Fallbrook High School in 1957. Was sort of a plank owner racer at Carlsbad when it opened. Used to run a lot of '30s Buick straight eights, my /59 LeSabre convert and some other silly stuff. Don't know your age, but Dode Martin, who was then a fireman at Camp Pendleton, where I lived, had a little shack sort of tuning shop in Fallbrook and he did a lot of work on my vehicles. His partner was Jim Nelson, who worked at an automotive machine shop in Oceanside. They did a lot of fairly serious dragster campaigning on the west coast in the 50's through the 70's at least.
I loved your story of doing a sort of doughnut on Carlsbad's strip. If you check my post "Major Muckup - Major Luckout" of about a week or so ago, I did the same thing, but on the street and almost collected a Dodge/Plymouth Minivan. Darn Moby did probably a 210 degree turn on me and I almost ran the guy down. Very embarrasing to say the least.
Anyway, my parents still reside in Oceanside, retired USMC, and Pat and I get out there twice a year at least. Please contact me on the AOL e-mail on my sig and let me know where you live out there and we will try to meet you on one of the trips.
Bill
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Bill Murray
99 Lightning #247
PSP Chip & Filter
Spare Superchip
Bassani full system TBI
Oxford White w/normal options.
98 Lincoln Continental Stock
56 F100 Big Window 272 w/TBird intake headers Fordomatic
56 F100 small window w/built 300" I6
69 Belair 390/427/400 Built
69 C10 Panel Stock
Soon: 92 Town Car
Tamiya 1/10 Lightning
Lightning & Thunder Rag Doll Cats.
E-mail MOSTOYSINC@AOL.com
htuken@BellSouth.net
HobbyTown1@WebTV.net
Kennesaw (Atlanta) Ga.
Posted all of this before, but graduated from Fallbrook High School in 1957. Was sort of a plank owner racer at Carlsbad when it opened. Used to run a lot of '30s Buick straight eights, my /59 LeSabre convert and some other silly stuff. Don't know your age, but Dode Martin, who was then a fireman at Camp Pendleton, where I lived, had a little shack sort of tuning shop in Fallbrook and he did a lot of work on my vehicles. His partner was Jim Nelson, who worked at an automotive machine shop in Oceanside. They did a lot of fairly serious dragster campaigning on the west coast in the 50's through the 70's at least.
I loved your story of doing a sort of doughnut on Carlsbad's strip. If you check my post "Major Muckup - Major Luckout" of about a week or so ago, I did the same thing, but on the street and almost collected a Dodge/Plymouth Minivan. Darn Moby did probably a 210 degree turn on me and I almost ran the guy down. Very embarrasing to say the least.
Anyway, my parents still reside in Oceanside, retired USMC, and Pat and I get out there twice a year at least. Please contact me on the AOL e-mail on my sig and let me know where you live out there and we will try to meet you on one of the trips.
Bill
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Bill Murray
99 Lightning #247
PSP Chip & Filter
Spare Superchip
Bassani full system TBI
Oxford White w/normal options.
98 Lincoln Continental Stock
56 F100 Big Window 272 w/TBird intake headers Fordomatic
56 F100 small window w/built 300" I6
69 Belair 390/427/400 Built
69 C10 Panel Stock
Soon: 92 Town Car
Tamiya 1/10 Lightning
Lightning & Thunder Rag Doll Cats.
E-mail MOSTOYSINC@AOL.com
htuken@BellSouth.net
HobbyTown1@WebTV.net
Kennesaw (Atlanta) Ga.
Member
Joined: Aug 1999
Posts: 60
Likes: 0
From: canoga park CA USA
mike: I'm sure you'll hit 13's with the drag radials, it seems that carlsbad really sucks, you'll love the track at pomona. Oh, when i run on street tires i usuallly have the pressure down to 15-18psi. That's the only way to hook up, and thet extra gas in the tank was probably a good thing too
Dave.
Dave.
Senior Member
Joined: Jun 1999
Posts: 1,487
Likes: 0
From: Oak Point, Texas
Brimstone -
I was at the 1/8 mile in Denton, Texas last Friday night and had the same experience. I had just bought a pair of 17" drag radials, put them on, and drove to the track ~ 10 miles. Just a tip; it's always a good idea to "scrub" the tires in before you really try to get on it. Well I knew that since I had drag radials I could be somebody, but unfortunately had to line up against a 68 Camaro with slicks and a cowl hood that had just run mid 7s. What the hey, right? I brought the RPMs to about 1500 and at the light let her go! Finished the 1/8 in 10+ seconds at 67 mph. I had told my two friends before I went to the line that I was going to be disappointed with anything over 9 flat. When I pulled back to the pits, my buddies were still wiping their eyes from laughing so hard. Ya know, I really enjoyed trying to keep that thing in a straight line (spinning the tires for 2/3 the way down the track). When you've blown it at the line, why back off? I'm not the best driver, but I had as much fun as anybody there.
I did get a run of 8.74@81mph+ before I was done. I'm begining to think this Roush suspension is not the "hot set-up" for the strip.
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1999 Black Roush-Lowered Lightning - w/Super Chip (YEEEOW!), JBA Headers, Power Surge air kit, AAD Cobra hood, carbon fiber dash kit, CD Changer, Towing Package,Grey Rhino, clear corner lenses.
http://www.zing.com/picture/ff/ea/96/8/ffea9684.jpg
[This message has been edited by sixpipes (edited 01-17-2000).]
I was at the 1/8 mile in Denton, Texas last Friday night and had the same experience. I had just bought a pair of 17" drag radials, put them on, and drove to the track ~ 10 miles. Just a tip; it's always a good idea to "scrub" the tires in before you really try to get on it. Well I knew that since I had drag radials I could be somebody, but unfortunately had to line up against a 68 Camaro with slicks and a cowl hood that had just run mid 7s. What the hey, right? I brought the RPMs to about 1500 and at the light let her go! Finished the 1/8 in 10+ seconds at 67 mph. I had told my two friends before I went to the line that I was going to be disappointed with anything over 9 flat. When I pulled back to the pits, my buddies were still wiping their eyes from laughing so hard. Ya know, I really enjoyed trying to keep that thing in a straight line (spinning the tires for 2/3 the way down the track). When you've blown it at the line, why back off? I'm not the best driver, but I had as much fun as anybody there.
I did get a run of 8.74@81mph+ before I was done. I'm begining to think this Roush suspension is not the "hot set-up" for the strip.
------------------
1999 Black Roush-Lowered Lightning - w/Super Chip (YEEEOW!), JBA Headers, Power Surge air kit, AAD Cobra hood, carbon fiber dash kit, CD Changer, Towing Package,Grey Rhino, clear corner lenses.
http://www.zing.com/picture/ff/ea/96/8/ffea9684.jpg
[This message has been edited by sixpipes (edited 01-17-2000).]
Senior Member
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 1,164
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From: Dagobah, lots of snakes & very swampy
hey Brimstone, did you talk to the guy runnin' 12's????? I sure hope you told him to come to this forum & post all of his stuff! I wanna know who, what, where, when, & how he did it. What N2O settup was it from? Did he have any other goodies? Come on spill the beans!!!!!!!
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99' SVT Black Bolt #3443
330.0 cid All Blown
best run 13.54 @ 101.35
Engine Mods
PSP Filter
PSP Custom Chip
Other Mods
Clear Corner Lenses
Painted Calipers
Autometer Boost & Air/Fuel ratio Guages
**Ya it HURTS when you get struck**
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99' SVT Black Bolt #3443
330.0 cid All Blown
best run 13.54 @ 101.35
Engine Mods
PSP Filter
PSP Custom Chip
Other Mods
Clear Corner Lenses
Painted Calipers
Autometer Boost & Air/Fuel ratio Guages
**Ya it HURTS when you get struck**
Thread Starter
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Senior Member
Joined: Sep 1999
Posts: 829
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From: Irvine, CA, USA
Hey guys,
It's good to know I'm not alone
Sixpipes: how wide are your 17s?
Yoda: the 2 very lucky brothers running mid 12's didn't know all the details of their DAD's daily driver. From our conversation, it was an NOS dry kit, also they had a chip, and a shift kit w/chip (which they said made a big difference) - didn't know what brand on either, and "some other stuff" - their dad works on the truck. Oh, and they had a custom cone filter set up with the bottom of the stock air box sitting underneath.
Funny thing is I asked one of the brothers how he's launching and he said he just hammers it from idle, and if it starts spinning he backs off and gets back on it again.
Mike
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99.5 Black Lightning
PowerSurge Cone Filter
JBA Jet-Hot coated headers
Flowmaster muffler
So-Cal Lowering Kit; Cal-Tracs traction bars
Watter Wetter
Lo-Jack
It's good to know I'm not alone
Sixpipes: how wide are your 17s?
Yoda: the 2 very lucky brothers running mid 12's didn't know all the details of their DAD's daily driver. From our conversation, it was an NOS dry kit, also they had a chip, and a shift kit w/chip (which they said made a big difference) - didn't know what brand on either, and "some other stuff" - their dad works on the truck. Oh, and they had a custom cone filter set up with the bottom of the stock air box sitting underneath.
Funny thing is I asked one of the brothers how he's launching and he said he just hammers it from idle, and if it starts spinning he backs off and gets back on it again.
Mike
------------------
99.5 Black Lightning
PowerSurge Cone Filter
JBA Jet-Hot coated headers
Flowmaster muffler
So-Cal Lowering Kit; Cal-Tracs traction bars
Watter Wetter
Lo-Jack
Senior Member
Joined: Jul 1999
Posts: 150
Likes: 0
From: Baton Rouge, LA
Little tip on launching - a rolling tire is much harder to break loose than a static tire. What I do is bring the revs up so the truck tightens up against the brakes and when the last yellow lights up, release the brake, wait a fraction of a second while the truck starts rolling, and then nail the throttle.
This technique yielded a high 1.9x 60' in Wyldmans truck (off the juice) in my only pass in it. It also netted a series of 2.0 60' times for a novice Gen 2 owner in her first ever trip to the drags.
Also, I personally don't believe in reduced pressure in radial tires, ESPECIALLY they low profile jobbies because they will cup and raise the center of the tread off the track surface. I run my DRs at 29 psi and my stock tires at 32. I've ran both tires at various pressures on test and tune days at the track and those are the pressures that yielded the best results. I've had other people with cars like Mustangs and G1 L's make the same kinds of adjustments when they were convinced that low pressure was the way to go and the results have been nearly unanimous - Correct pressure and a correct burnout (if you're smoking normal radial tires, you're just greasing them up) will get you the best 60' times.
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Later!
Jeff S.
President, National Lightning Owners Club - http://nloc.org
SVT Lightning #74 in '95
11.92@115.2 on radials, driven daily
This technique yielded a high 1.9x 60' in Wyldmans truck (off the juice) in my only pass in it. It also netted a series of 2.0 60' times for a novice Gen 2 owner in her first ever trip to the drags.
Also, I personally don't believe in reduced pressure in radial tires, ESPECIALLY they low profile jobbies because they will cup and raise the center of the tread off the track surface. I run my DRs at 29 psi and my stock tires at 32. I've ran both tires at various pressures on test and tune days at the track and those are the pressures that yielded the best results. I've had other people with cars like Mustangs and G1 L's make the same kinds of adjustments when they were convinced that low pressure was the way to go and the results have been nearly unanimous - Correct pressure and a correct burnout (if you're smoking normal radial tires, you're just greasing them up) will get you the best 60' times.
------------------
Later!
Jeff S.
President, National Lightning Owners Club - http://nloc.org
SVT Lightning #74 in '95
11.92@115.2 on radials, driven daily