When you guys race do you leave your tailgate up....or do you let it down? Just curious??

 

I think most take it off, or have a bedcover.

 

i leave my tailgate on and up...i won't take it off because i'll get too much wheel spin. i have the hitch off already...with everything on and bone stock i pulled a 13.446 at 103. i'm looking to lighten up the front but leave the seats in...but leave the tailgate on unless you have slicks...

 

Mine comes off...but I use ET Streets.

I agree that you should leave it on if you are running street tires and have removed the hitch and spare. Put it down, however.

 

I picked up nearly a full mile an hour dropping the tail gate, but i do not have a tonneau cover. If i had that there would be little gains to be had, and the tail gate only weighs about 30 lbs.

Brandon

 

actually you create a wind vortex with tailgate down and [no tonnue cover ]=with open bed and gate down the air revolves around in a big circle in the back of your bed,you are actually dragging that big continous circle of air it just keeps rotating around in a big circle with gate ,down, with gate up it actually goes out the back of the bed. I know you think it would be just the opissite but it's not
Try this next time your on the highway =if you have a bed mat or rug, watch what the mat does with gate open = it,trys to float around and moves up and down a little, Now put gate closed and mat lays flat=no revolving circle of rotating air , when gate was open you where dragging the big ball of trapped air, it sounds like ,and you always thought the oppisite=gate open less drag,but in reality that's not true.

 

i tried it with the tailgate up and down. Did not seem to make much of a difference, although my best time came with it up, 13.43 @101 mph

 

would it be better to leave the tonneau on for drag reasons instead of off for weight reduction?

 

When I run with the t/g on, it's up , but lately, I've been leaving it off for the weight savings--helped on my newest best et.

Dan

 

What about running with the tailgate OFF and the tonneau cover on???

 

Has anybody tried this? I would think with a tonneau, it would benefit to remove the tailgate due to weight reasons and not suffer any adverse wind effects.

 

Sounds risky to me, especially with a soft cover. I would bet that a soft cover would get pulled right off the truck, due to the vacuum that I think would be pulled with the cover on, tailgate off. Not sure this would happen with a hard cover, but I wouldn't want to be the first to try it.

 

I have run mine with no tailgate and a soft tonneau many times and that is not a problem at all. I just haven't done a comparison with and without a tailgate.

 

I've made passes just about every imaginable way and my best time with the 2lb pulley (12.79) was with the tailgate up and tonneau cover on. My best time with my 8lb pulley and converter (12.27) was also tailgate up, cover on.

Just my $.02

 

I removed my spare yesterday and it weighed 55 lbs. Should I expect any noticable ET reduction because of this??

Does anyone know how much the hitch weighs? I don't want to remove too much weight from the rear for fear of traction problems...