Let's try and guess a 1/4 time

[Mike The Bavarian]

wouldn't he want to soften them so the car squats and can get traction better? I know diddly squat about drag racing. But when I helped my friends dad with his vet he was telling me something about have the rear soft and the front hard can he could hookup better.

you need more rebound control on your rear shocks, do you have konis? crank them up!

[Lunner]

What the hell did you do to it?!

Convertible. And I weigh about 190. 3150 sounds about right, maybe less? LTW wheels, aftermarket carpet, no ac, trunk weight loss, and aftermarket seats would drop it, but I didn't think it'd outweigh the weight of a tank of gas, subwoofer, etc.

Actually maybe 3,050 is closer. I should just weigh it...

[PxTx]

Spring rate in the rear may not be that bad. I have an air bag inside the coil springs in the back of my 65 Malibu to add stiffness. Front comes right up to aid in weight transfer. I pull 1.7 60' times.

You'll need to get better shocksin the back to help get the wheel hop under control. I am not that familiar with hot to tune traction in on an indi rear suspension and my Audi is quattro with selectable locking diffs. Anyone else want to share common tricks to maximum launch traction with an E30?

[Jean]

Lunner - it was nice to meet you there! I had my car weighted at valley motorwerks in rancho on their corner weight scales, so they are pretty accurate. Give Alex or Walter a call.

I am going to go back maybe not next wednesday but wednesday after next for round two. I should have my new shocks installed by then. Other option is to throw a set of stock springs that I have and see what happens.

I think key is to have almost no negative camber at the rear wheels if you are really into drag racing to put as much power down going straight as possible.

Re: tire pressures. I started at 40psi, then went down to 30 and it seemed like it helped a bit.

[nando]

wouldn't he want to soften them so the car squats and can get traction better? I know diddly squat about drag racing. But when I helped my friends dad with his vet he was telling me something about have the rear soft and the front hard can he could hookup better.

no. they already can't control the springs, softening them will make the wheel hop worse. Everyone thinks softening rebound somehow makes the car squat better, the only thing affecting that is spring rate.

[skatingzooyork]

I was .2 off, I was thinking 14.5; which if you dropped your tire pressure to 15psi, I bet you would have gotten close!

You should really consider getting a pair of cheap wheels and 2 drag radials! They are awesome and street legal. Just don't drive on them in the rain! lol

[Mystikal]

It's entirely unlikely that you will break 13s with that mph and street tires. It's possible with a pro driver, but in an E30 and a amateur...nah. nando is dead-on about your spring rates though, way way way too high to hook up well.

FWIW I ran a 14.3 @ 97mph in my old 328Ti winter beater (Bone stock M52, 3.73 diff, E36 trans, 205 all-seasons). Chirped 4th on each run, haha. I'd expect an M52 E30 to run close to the same.

[ed94r]

Yeah, even with a hurricane tail wind, there's slim chance that car will go 13's, no matter who drives.

I estimate the car will put down about 192 rwhp SAE. That should be the next guess contest...I'm in for closest guess on rwhp.

Ed

[Jean]

Jay, I am not going back there with fk452s, I'll mount my v710s and give it another shot ;)

Ed, haha. Going for 2 for 2? :)

[Kershaw]

the straight sixes have so much torque at idle, you might want to give it a run where you dont launch from a high rpm. just put it in first and start quickly but no clutch riding or dropping. just punch it AFTER its in gear.

2.13 is a respectable 60 foot. but i made a 2.15 on a bone stock e30is, launching it with the above method. although i was doing that because one of the rear subframe bushings was in half. lol. and yes i took it to the strip like that. haha.

you're trap speed will vary on your launch. bad launch, lower trap. i still think 13.8 @ 104 is where your ideal run will be.

a set of drag radials (if you want to fork over the cash for them) will help. but i did a 2.00s 60' in my rx8 (240hp/160lbs/ft) on 245/40s. so as long as you hook it up, i think a 1.9s 60' is possible.

i've noticed that .2 seconds at the 60 can account for at least half a second at the finish. and sometimes more. for example, in my rx8, a 2.00 60' is good for 14.3-14.5. a 2.1 is good for around 14.7. a 2.2 is usually a 15 second run. or 14.99999999.

if you're going back with v710s, you could always clutch drop at redline, spin tires for a fraction of a second and rocket off. they are nice grippy tires.

[Jean]

Yeah, I also had one run with 2.455 yet a 97.350 trap but 1/4 was 15.027 this was my first run when I tried to dump the clutch off the line at about 3k and it just spun like mad.

Not really looking forward to buying 3rd set of wheels/tires, but if I don't get into 13s on the next round I'll see about getting something for stock bottle caps or weaves just for fun. We'll see.

[ed94r]

you're trap speed will vary on your launch. bad launch, lower trap. i still think 13.8 @ 104 is where your ideal run will be.

There is no way the car is going to pick up 7 miles per hour with a quicker launch. You know this right? Especially since he detailed his bad run at a 15.xx at......you guessed it, 97mph.

To trap 104, he'd have to make at least 50 more rwhp than what he's making now. More like 70rwhp actually.

Ed

[Mystikal]

you're trap speed will vary on your launch. bad launch, lower trap. i still think 13.8 @ 104 is where your ideal run will be.

Not a chance. There's plenty of other data to prove this wrong, but I personally ran my Ti about 8 times that afternoon, and the mph moved by less than 1. ET by about 0.5, which was all reflected in 60'.

MPH shows power/weight/aero. Very little to do with launch.

[Mike The Bavarian]

no. they already can't control the springs, softening them will make the wheel hop worse. Everyone thinks softening rebound somehow makes the car squat better, the only thing affecting that is spring rate.

I forgot how stiff his springs where.

[Bimmerfreak87]

The v710's will help a lot. Get some vht for the 710's and your hole shot should be pretty good. :D The track is not prepped Wednesday night at Sac Raceway, but if you do test and tune on a Saturday at Sac Raceway you will pick up a couple tenths. The downfall to test and tune is it is like $40-50 instead of the $15-20 it costs on Wednesday nights, but you can run as many times as you want on Saturday. Lmk next time you go out there...