Also I have my boost set at wg pressure which is 14 psi. I can't go any lower so I don't have the boost control activated. I'm thinking about getting a new spring that will let me lower to 10 psi. This way I could lower my psi to 10 for 1st and 2nd gear. Will this help me hook up?

 

If you can use the lower boost setting for 1st and 2nd that would help out a lot. As far as your tires they should do well but they do require some heat and much lower tire pressures.

Also about the dragging water onto the track, this is why you continue the burnout out of the water box. I have been doing this for many, many years and have never gotten a complaint nor cause any problems.

With your 2nd gear spin I would try several different passes on riding the spin out into third then try to pedal it on a few passes. Be sure not to short shift into 3rd because you are spinning. Play with it until you find the right spot.

And lastly slicks. Yes slicks are a much easier, faster way to achieve a faster time but my logic is this. I know this may offend some people but don't take it personal. Any dipshit can drive with slicks. Let's face it. It really doesn't teach you much about driving than learning on street tires imo. In my mind it only prepares you for slicks and as long as you apply what you have learned then you should be good and not break to many parts.

 

In regard to your last question...trial and error will tell you what is better. I would suggest getting decent air pump to bring with you so you can drive home without worry.

 

I haven't made the jump to slicks, but I do run drag radials now. I like the fact that I can drive to the track on them, air down, run, and air up and drive home. My times dropped .3 when I made the switch, and I was very consistent already on street tires. This was also a lower powered car, making maybe 170 at the wheels. Drag radials do work best heated with a burnout, and give less shock to the driveline, and don't skip anywhere near as badly as street tires.

For a comparison, my buddy and I both run 4th gen preludes, and same track, same night, he ran best of 13.8 @112, on street tires, where I ran 13.4 @ 106, on drag radials. so I obviously have much less power, but am getting down the track quicker.

Oh yeah, I and I carry one of the little air pumps that plug into your 12v socket, just look for one with the highest flow, that says it fills tires the fastest. I got a decent one for around 25 bucks at Canadian Tire.

 

absolutely no way in hell you are making 430whp and only trapping 113. (maybe putting down 250-300) even on street tires. i put down 405whp in a 2450lb 4dr eg, on slicks i ran the times/mph in my sig, and on street tires, i just left the tree like i was leaving a stop light, then punched it once i hit second gear and trapped 129.9 (was trying for our local tracks 130mph club, which requires street tires) so even with 430whp you should have easily been 125+ seems your REALLY down on power and that could explain your poor times, rather than your lack of driving skill.

just my .02

 

I just don't see the logic in doing a burnout with street tires. The rubber compound is different and won't respond to heat the same way that slicks or DRs will. If anything, they'll just get harder and will slip more. Doing a burnout in a waterbox will splash water into your wheel wells and even an extended burnout isn't going to magically dry your wheel wells. While you may not have received any complaints from the track or other racers, I don't think it's a good practice. Any perceived traction from a burnout from the water box on street tires is most likely the result of a placebo effect. IN reality, it accomplishes nothing more than shortening the life of your street tires.
I agree that it's a good idea to get comfortable on street tires before you go gangbusters on slicks and end up breaking things. But it will take a lot of runs before "good" 60' times will be achieved. If you can go to a track every week, that's great, by all means, go for it and eventually set the "60' on street tires" record. For many of us, where the track is a good 2+ hours away, that's not practical. We want to turn as good of an ET as possible in a short amount of time.

fm

 

Yes the rubber compound is different and no they do not respond as well as dedicated drag tires. But it does help to clean them off and get some heat in them before a run. I have done this test on many different occasions over the coarse of the 12+ years I have been drag racing just to see what the differences would be and the results where always the same. I actually did this in other cars that friends asked me to drive to see what I could do in there car compared to their times and after I played with the tire pressure and burnout technique the times did drop considerably. As far as wetting the track down from wet wheel wells then every car would do the same thing. Unless the guy spraying water on the ground has you doing a burnout in a small pond the water you might drip onto the surface is negligible.

Street tires are more rough on drive train than slicks if you don't exercise proper launch technique and imo once you learn how to launch on radials making the change to slicks a much nicer transition. People break parts all the time with slicks with inexperience. Either way you go it will take some practice and patience. If you have a significant trip to get to a track and cannot go that often then you have a serious decision on what tires to use. Like I said before it is much easier to drive on slicks to get good E.T.s and I am not knocking people that use them. I just think it's more of an accomplishment to run good numbers on radials. The fact that I have run on regular tires and drag radials makes me proud to do something that most FWD guys don't really try.

 

let me give you the advice street tires an drag racing dont mix unles you have a AWD car. So get urself a set of slicks an watch times drop buy a second without even tryn.

 

I'm not denying that it doesn't help to knock the drek off your street tires before doing a pass. I see people doing a short, dry burnout for this purpose. I just don't think that doing a wet burnout on street tires is effective. While it may have worked for you, for most, it does nothing but roast perfectly good street tires and annoy the other racers.

But couldn't the drop in times have been due more to the drop in tire pressure than to the heating of tires that don't respond to heating well? Said another way, did you try just dropping tire pressure and not doing a burnout? If so, how much time did they pick up w/o the burnout in comparison to with a burnout?

The only reason I question this is that all of the guys running street tires at the track I went to avoided the water box. Like they all knew better. Very few even bothered with a burnout at all. And some of these guys were running really good 60s...the AWD Porche Carrerra 4 was running 1.8 60' times, turning 12.7 1/4s.

Well, I can't argue with that.
Well, street tires that are hopping certainly are.

No argument there...
I agree that there's something to be said for turning a good '60 on street tires (thus a good ET)...being able to say that your car ran the 1/4 in the same trim as you drive in street will definitely give you some street credo.

fm

 

The few times I tried not doing burnouts wet or dry ended with some wheel hop and it deterred me away from doing that again from fear of breaking a trans. The only times I have ever broken a trans is out of the water box honestly. Dropping the tire pressure is definitely 75% of the problem with most crappy 60' times in my experiences. The best method I have used to date is something I picked up from the American cars and that is to roll through the water box, spin the tires over once in the water with no e-brake, stop just at the edge of the water, and proceed to do a small burnout.

AWD are spoiled! They don't need to do anything really to pull great short track times. Just get off the line smooth and shift right and nothing else is typically necessary. The few I have seen that go through the water box and actually need to do a burnout are slicked on all four corners and have parachutes!

 

If you cant afford slicks, could you afford a set of drag radials? Tires make all the difference man. Streets, I pulled 2.1s, Drag Radials I pulled 2.0s-1.9s, finally got a set of slicks and lensos and extended wheel studs, best 60' so far, 1.75-1.80s all day. Just got the car to the track last thursday, best time was an 11.9@122 hitting boost cut, found a hairline crack in the manifold, now taking it off and going topmount. Car makes around 450 on pump gas. I dont know what its going to run on race gas.

 

Damn didn't you have the M&H's DOT's? They should have worked better than that!

 

Still need seat time. Learning the twin disk, And I dont think im getting enough heat into the tires. Still working on it My drag radials have always been MTs, I bought the lensos brand new in box and they came with brand new 22" M&H Slicks.

 

whats the best way to avoid wheel hop and if i get wheel hop off the line what can i do to stop it?

 

From my experiences wheel hop is a result of loose/stock engine mounts, worn out suspension components (bushings, shocks, springs, ect.) , and too much tire pressure. I am sure there are more contributing factors but these are the ones I am most familiar with.

If you are having this issue I would inspect the areas listed above and go from there.

 

Thanks for the replies again. Yes I want to learn how to do this on street tires before I move to slicks. I need practice to improve my driving skill.

 

Hey bro I see what you are saying but I'm sure my lack of skill could be attributed to my bad times.

When we tuned 2 years ago I made 430 @ 14 psi, and 512 @ 22 psi. I've only put on 2000 km since then. Unless I'm having some kind of issue that I'm unaware of. When I'm on the highway doing 3rd 4th gear pulls it feels the same. I really think I am just that BAD at drag racing lol. I'm actually going to send my tuner some data logs and see what he thinks. It wouldn't hurt to double check if there is some kind of issue I'm having.

 

good quesion...
hard to answer dont know=(

 

And to everyone that chimed in thanks for you input. Great responses and it gives me a lot to think about. I will update this thread with the changes I make and how my times end up.

 

Is there anyway that your tuner could go to the track with you? That would be ideal in your case I think.

 

That would be ideal. However I flew my tuner in from the U.S. to Canada because there is no one that can do Honda's well in my area.

 

unless your car weighs 4,000lbs, or you are shifting at 5k, or drag racing at half throttle...there is absolutely no way you are making anywhere near 430whp...seriously like half that. drag racing is nothing more than a mathematical equation. and your numbers just dont add up. shitty driving doesnt equate to a 15-20mph drop in trap speeds from comparable cars.

the absolute bottom line when it comes to racing on street tires is modulation. keeping a balance between wheel speed and car speed. keep the rpm's up (tires spinning) in order to get the car speed up to match the tire speed. I personally like to modulate the gas so that the rpm's hover about 1k-1500rpms before redline....once car speed, catches up with tire speed, the rpms will catch and the car will pull to redline like it should. in 1st, and 2nd...you will probably have to bang the limiter a couple times. (when tire speed matches car speed, the limiter comes up FAST)

 

Doing a burnout longer than whats needed to clear debris from your tire is not recomended. Street tires are designed to evacuate heat. Why you ask, because they have metal cords that expand under heat and stretch the hard rubber compound around them. If you wish to risk having the front end of your cars body damaged by chunks of tire, then have fun with the burnout, otherwise don't.

The purpose of a burnout with a slick is to have the tire temp match the track temp at the time of launch. The compounds in a slick are designed to match the compounds sprayed on the track, so that for fractions of a second they bond to each other.

If you want the cheap easy way to get your street tires to hook, spray belt dressing on them in the pits, and do a very light spin before approaching the line.
Take it for what its worth, but those are the facts. John from M&H will tell you the same.

 

no burnout on street tires ever. a 3-4 revolution chirp is all thats needed to clean off any debris. burnouts are for slicks, period.

take a step back and look at the tires designed use..

is a street tire designed to have max grip when with only being heated from the surface they are riding on and the friction between them and the road?? yes.

is a street tire designed to have max grip on the street after a burnout? no. (if they were, the mfg would clearly state that right? right.)

is a slick designed to have max grip when they are cold? nope. (does tire mfg recomend that?)

is a slick designed to have max grip after a burnout? yes. (mfg DOES recommend that)

i really dont see why there is even an argument or discussion here....logic, and common sense say we use 2 different types of tires, for 2 different types of purposes. just cause your using a street tire on the track, vs the street, doesnt change the way it's composition reacts to the surface.