I've always had a problem with this car not scrubbing off any mph on the big end even when standing on the brakes before the stripe. Today was another case of standing on the brakes and still breaking out by .09 and scurbbing off no mph. Dialed a 11.24, stood on the brakes big time since he had a .542 to my .525R/T and came up with a 11.231 at 119.??, same mph all day long running 11.23 and 11.24 in TT flat out. All incrementals added upto 11.247.

I've heard stories of this happening despite track owners/managers stating the impossiblity with the way the beams are positioned. Brother in law was experiencing kind of the same thing with his spoiler on his buick which was already low-2" at a rest. So he removed his wrap around spoiler under the bumper of his Buick regal and said this cured his problem. The guy I raced today and lost to is our '04 Mod champ for the 6th time and we got to talking about it. He staed with his 68 camaro he had the same problem so he removed the front spoiler and problem solved.

My new suspension I installed I had to cut 1 1/2 coils off the trick springs to get the tad bit lower ride height up front I wanted and that left my chin spoiler about 3" off the ground at rest. When I strap the front of the car down or had the guys in the pits push on the front of the car the spoiler would get so close to the ground I could just barely stick my hand under it, so "roughly" 1-1 1/2" clearance under extreme braking at the stripe. I took all the frontspoiler stuff off soon as I got home today and wont be able to test my theory until ET finals this weekend, just wondering if any of the serious bracket racers here have experienced this problem too. Distance front spoiler to tire is pretty large so I can see if the spoiler is taking the stripe instead of the tire it will greatly affect ET and mph readings. No feeling in the world like both feet on the pedal and no loss in ET or mph

New struts/springs/shocks are working like a champ. Car does not unload any more out of the hole and has tightened up the 60' from varying .06 to .003 as well as letting the car leaveing 100% level instead of driver side high and pass still grazing the track.

 

If you look on the front on many dragsters you'll see a verticle fin mounted on the front. This is called a stripe taker. It's designed to trip the finish line lights instead of the wheels doing it.

I know if you get hard on the brakes at the finish line you can trip the light early and break out. Having some sort of stripe taker mounted under the front of the car so that it trips the light no matter if you're still under WOT or on the brakes helps.

 

Very common. Low sitting 3rd and 4th gen's both will do this if you dump it on the other end. With some practice you can put it to your advantage, always remember the other guy is racing your nose and not your tires .

 

LOL, if I was'nt so bull headed and could learn to drive the strip better I would I've always tried to be as dead accurate on my dial as possible so I can flat foot out the back door and usually my lights make my rounds a little easier to judge. But it seems I always get bite when I hit the brakes, more often than not the times I hit the brakes it almost always results in a breakout.

Hopefully this will be the answer I've been looking for removing the spoiler. Makes me wonder if I should'nt of just did the whoomp whoomp instead of the brakes...head games again

 

I don't think i've ever tripped the beams with the nose, but I scared the **** outta myself once. I guess bleeding off 7mph on the top end in like .5 seconds makes for an interesting ride

I won though

IHI What new suspension pieces are you running?

 

if it was me, for being consistent, i would just mount a piece of plastic under the spoiler... somthing that can drag the ground if need be, and will always trip it. on and off the brakes.

that way, you can be consistant.

 

The 11.247 vs. 11.231 is about 33 in. @ 119 mph.

You may have tripped the beam with your spoiler, but the car probably picked up on you, too. The .009 break-out is 18 inches at that speed. Have you measured the distance from the front of the spoiler and front of the tire (at the beam height)?

 

As badly as I wanted to buy the QA1 stocker shocks I figured out I could buy all new cheaper stuff front and rear for the same money so i chinced out!! Got the Lakewood 90/10 struts and moroso trick springs up front then the lakewood 50/50's out back. I kept tire pressure the same front and rear as well as air bag pressure so I could get A-B test results. Everything stayed the smae as far as R/T goes and ET/mph. The 60's are the same as they were, but they are now very consistent, something I never had with the stock suspension. So I did in fact get what I hoped to acheive. Car also leaves level now, did throw the big pill in the tbrake for a fun pass Sat., holy cow, more air than ever!!! My shutoff switch panel under my bumper drug the track and got bent Lost the exhaust last night when I got home, so now wondering how bad this is gonna screw up my car with hardly any timeruns this weekend?

5kid, I'm sure the car picked up a lil bit, but one thing I went back through the book and found almost alwyas when I stood on the brake it was a break out pass margin did vary, but the chin spoiler has never sat this low to the ground since the new peices were installed and this weekend was the first race with the new stuff. I know the car always nose dives extremely bad when I 2 feet the brake pedal so after hearing multiple guys tell me they've had problems with spoilers hitting I started putting 2 and 2 together. I never asked our track manager what our beam height is now since the Pro-Am came through and they re-set all the beams, I will find out at Nats this weekend and go from there.

I did speak with a guy today running our track that doubles up in Box/No Box. Got the nerve to finally ask what the peice of tin on a rod with painted on shark jaws was all about under thr front of his Cuda. And like mod313 said, he used it to his advantage for taking the stripe. Sounds to complicated, I got a hard enough time doing what I'm doing already trying to play legite

Ended up 5th in Mod this yr./first yr in mod so pretty happy with that given the competition and 4th for our track in the SSS points chase. The guy I was chasing for 3rd spot in points was only 4 rounds out and he lost first round, I got excited and cut a chit light since I was right behind him in the water box when he red lit so I was done. Been a hellava season though.

 

Last Friday, I had a good lead on the '84 Vette in the other lane. I judged by his bumper, stood on the brakes too much, and he took the stripe . I had a .054 to his .110, scrubbed 7 mph - normally I just back off the throttle, but I had so much on him...

My season was just so-so. The finale was over-the-top, though, and created one more chance (but no plans for installing a stripe-taker...).

 

Damn sounds like you stood it right up there.

Yeah I saw there isn't much for time runs... o well, i'll be running the gamblers races too just to get some extra runs. (not to mention that money is kinda tempting )

Since I've put the skinnies on i've been cutting some pretty good lights, last friday i had two .007's, a .008, .012 and .019. Track manager came down and was like "whats up with those lights!?!"

 

Dont know how many of these ET finals you've been to, but the entry to run the gamblers and the number of rounds you have to go just to get you entry back is ridiculous to say the least. My friend went 8 rounds last yr for $75....I know it's just for a fun weekend especially on Sunday, but yet another race where the track is making a killing and the racers get the short end. I'll be skipping Fri. night this yr and doing the Sat. gamblers out of necessity not choice

Just keep your car away from me with those lights!! I used to be the .000-.008 master back when I foot braked, but now ask how many times I got a red eye, now I've changed the car to hit mid .510-.520 during the day and by night fall it gets into the .50? range when I push it. I have'nt had a red eye all season in elimination rounds, so I at least got to race regardless of performance on the tree. I remember 3yrs ago when I footbraked I was knocking Box cars out left and right in gamblers, finally they paused the program so the tech and managment could rumage through my car for a box since a certain Box racer cried(Ken Perry-runs for Cordova now), I handed his butt to him the previous round and he said that no no-box cars can cut .50? 3 rounds in a row unless they're cheating They never found anything of course so that was a great confidence booster that yr

Now if I just had a 4.56 gear to get my rpm back I could run a lil faster again so the et/mph spread was'nt so great against most of the cars in Mod. Send me a e-mail of your car so I'll know what to look for in the pits Sat.


5kid, I dont even wann get into the dumbazz mistakes I 've made this yr and lost, everyone of them was at the stripe too!!! I can say only a few times I let the guy by me, but when the MOV comes in the .003-.0005 range I think luck plays alot more into the win light then anything else. But I've never been good at driving the stripe anyways, kinda why I try to dial dead on so I dont have to really worry about the big end.

All I really know at this point is I'm very worn out from the yr both mentally and financially I've told the wife I'm not racing next yr to grow my business (racing seemed to always take priority??!!) and spend more time with her and my daughter. I've felt really guilty this yr spending all kinds of time at the shop constantly working/tweaking on this dam car and then weekends at the track or out of town racing. She's been really supportive and has gotten new furniture out of the deal Figured the car is "done" so to speak and if Iget the urge to run a race here or there I will, but not chasing points for sure!! Might've been why I had such a poor showing this past weekend, the ole head just aint in it like it should've been now the summer season is over.

 

I don't even want to think about all the times I've bulbed out this year. In this series, Club Clash, this year, in which I was running last Friday, I went into the 4th race with exactly one round win - and I runnered-up the series last year. I went out 1st round soooo many times Friday nights this year!

At the ET Finals, in 7 rounds I ran it out the end exactly once - on the bye run. I've been accused of being a top-end racer, so going out like I did last Friday was especially frustrating. Like I often say, though, "There are 3 ends to the race track."

The cost of the Finals? Almost criminal. $65 entry, $35 Thursday night T&T, $50 per Gambler race Friday & Saturday, plus gas et al to get there (plus $59.95 NHRA membership and $25 competitor number, if you didn't already have those). Even with the $1000 prize money, I barely broke even.

I'm probably going to race less next year, too. Too many things I'm missing, to say nothing of the strain on the budget. With an NHRA gold card, though...

 

With all the extra fees with a poor return on the dollar, NHRA is really pushing out the grass roots racers from the playing field. If you can't run at least 9.99, NHRA doesn't care much for you.

NHRA didn't want to give out Wally trophys to the SPortsman or Jr Dragster racers last year. Apparently someone stated that the trophies were given out too freely to anyone. I don't know. Having to go 7 rounds in a 14 second and slower car is just as hard to win as a sub 11 second car. The Juniors is just as competative with MOV usually in the inches.

When our track was NHRA, every class that won got a Wally because the track demanded it from the NHRA.

Now that we're IHRA, the fees have come down some that relate to IHRA events compared to NHRA ones but track fees are the same.

 

I'm not sure how many people/racers realize it, but most tracks have the finish line beams set at 5 1/2" off the ground, so the nose of the car (or the point at the front of the car at this height, at the given moment) stops the clocks. I believe with our cars the clocks are normally stopped with the front spoiler, but if you're on the brakes hard when you go through the beams, It'll probably trip the beams with the front bumper (especially if you've got mushy front drag springs), and could be what IHI is experiencing. The staging beams in comparison are generally at 1 1/2" inches from the ground, so they are only influenced by the tires.

 

This past weekend we were time trial limited since it was ET finals for Div 5, I removed my exhaust and changed jetting since DA was -400 the first pass and did'nt have a clue what to dail. Finally was able to hit the brakes at the big end and not trip the beams. I was able to scrub off 9-11mph at the stripe and see the et difference too. Circumstances were the same the few rounds I had to hit the binders and I did'nt break out so I'm sure this was the problem. Have a better idea this weekend back at home for the big bucks bash.