Hey guys, even though i worked at a strip, i never got to spend time in the pits seeing how the experienced guys set up their street cars for making passes. i know that knowing how to set it up CAN be worth a good amount of ET, i was wondering if the seasoned veteran racers among us could share some basic setup procedure for someone's first day out at the track. We hear tidbits here and there, but i'd really like a sticky for this board, from racers for racers.

please share your knowledge on tire pressure for street tires or Drag radials, and other basic setup procedures for nailing those passes in our street cars!

If we could even take it as far as plug reading that would be great, but first off maybe some basic stuff?

I need this myself, hoping to break 14.4's and go for the low 14's on tuesday and i need every trick in the book!

 

www.staginglight.com/guide/index.html

 

Thanks mod, read a few pages and there's definately some good info there! Great info for bracket racing mainly. Thanks alot!


Now could someone give me recomendations on finding the ideal tire pressure? like where to start for a common thirdgen size, 245/50/16's.

What about some info on reading slips? I know there's a relation between 60 ft's, and mph but i don't know what it is.

 

For street tires, use the factory recommended tire pressure or slightly higher going up 1/2 pound at a time. For race tires, each car wants a different pressure depending on how the car is set up. You'll have to find out what works best for your car on your own.

For more racing information, check out my own pages.

http://www.hardtail.com/techtips.html

 

Tires, no matter what type-street radials, drag radial, bias ply are all going to work best experiementing with YOUR car, too many variables between all our junk to say this is the answer and walk away.

Street tires-our street class guys have all had great luck dropping the stock tires to 18-20psi and doing a big burnout. Some here that have tried that say they just go up in a ball of smoke doing a burnout that way, so track prep, tire compound, temp of the track itself will all factor in to what will work with your set up.

bias ply-I'm at 10psi other's get by with 14-16psi, all depends on the factors mentined above.

drag radials-18-30psi same factors apply from above-lots of variables to say this way is the only way, you just have to play with it.

No matter what though, you try to run the most psi you can and still dead hook. more psi in the back tire=better top end stability in your car. We run 5psi in the S10 and it gets "interesting" at the stripe with the back end swaying back and forth.

So depending on tires, go out and just start with some psi in the range listed above and go from there. If you spin-u can feel it-ddrop it a few psi and try it again. If it gets better but still spins, drop 1-2 more psi and see what that does, etc.......

you just want to tune initally for best/consistant 60' so you can actually race. your 60' is the most important # on your time slip period, you drop/gain in your 60' from round to round, it's going to affect your time all the way down the track. If your set up right you should NEVER EVER see your 60' vary more than .01 in a full days race. so if your running a 1.50 60' it should never go to a 1.51 or a 1.49 because that .01 variance will often lead to a .02-.03 variance at the finish line.

 

When I used to run street tires, I would benefit best with 25-30 psi and...

1. drive around the water box
2. short burnout: just enough to clean the tires off

Doing that I would spin the least, but my 60' always varied dramatically due to wheel spin

 

Okay so the average general consensus is like 22-30 psi, but that's not set in stone, good tip!

does anybody have info on the sway bar trick? where people unbolt the front sway bar to increase front to rear weight transfer, is there anything to that?

here's a more another question, i hear of 90/10 drag shocks, i assume that the 90/10 part is telling you about the bound and rebound strengths, but what's the science on these things? how do they differ from regular shocks?