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Stevie S

1st Time 1/4

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Might be doing the 1/4 mile at Meremere this Sunday in the family station wagon 335i, depending on weather. Its my first time so would appreciated any tips.

Im auto  and should be mid 400 horse. I will also limit boost in 1st and second.

1. Should I turn traction control right off?

2. Start in 1st or 2nd?

3. Do I just slam the throttle ?

 

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you will have to try all these things , also , how good are your tyres? how quickly do they get grip etc .

trial and era ,

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You can preload too.  Hold brakes and start accelerating.  Sometimes helps autos.  Sometimes makes zero difference.

I took my old 2003 Mitsi Vr4 there once.  It ran the same times no matter what I did.  Over and over.  Got bored of that pretty quick.

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The Meremere track is slippery too, so you will have less traction than the road.

Stall the torque converter up slightly, brake on hard, with your left foot and accel slightly, 1000 to 1500rpm is probably as much as you can do, you'll spin the tires with anymore so getting the right launch is key.

Good luck! 

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1 hour ago, Michael. said:

The Meremere track is slippery too, so you will have less traction than the road.

 

Yeah its hopeless, I was spinning through 3rd and that was feathering the throttle with r888's. Was really surprised at how low traction was compared to on the streets.

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They've been spending a lot of time rubbering the track this year.
It was completely resurfaced fairly recently which won't help.

Of course, that may be incidental! I've not raced there. A friend ran 11.44s on a street bike last weekend though, so it can't be too bad.

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Colleague did a 12.6 in his 335i manual with similar mods.

 

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Not sure if your car has this but in the e39 I could turn the traction control half off, so it would apply the brakes but not cut the power when you had wheelspin. If you have a setting like that it is probably a good compromise,  

Depending on how serious you want to get a tyre pressure gauge might also be a good idea.

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Set the climate control to recirc, when you heat up your tyres...

 

Andrew: Remember that 928 that sucked the tyre smoke in, and he had to let it out the sunroof :lol:

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there used to be a blog (Caeser's Chariot?) from a US immigrant in Levin with a US market Nissan Maxima, he'd spent years whittling down it's 1/4 mile times.  It read as a jobbing racer learning as he went, on a family beer budget. Held some really good info for someone wondering about making drag racing work.  Haven't been able to find much using google, hopefully it's still there somewhere.  May be of use.

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I think he has a Subaru Legacy now.  I remember him from way back when I had a Maxima.

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Had a great day out.

My best time was 12.4

They sprayed the track so traction was pretty good.

20170326_162355.jpg

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What do they spray on the track?

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2 hours ago, zero said:

What do they spray on the track?

Grip juice. :D Actually, you'll find a lot of places and strips actually do call it that.

There's a few products available that work in different ways, but in the US (and probably here) they use something called VHT. It's sprayed on the area you'll be launching from, not the staging area, and when it gets hot, it's gets really sticky. It's very similar to a glue. It also means that your tyres will pick up and hold all sorts of crap when coming back from your run.

There's another product called Tracbite which you apply to your tyres, not the track. That's a bit better - it softens your tyres (so be careful) but after a while your tyres should return to as they were.

Best bet is to take a spare set of wheels to a drag strip and change them before driving home.

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Did the night drag wars the other month for the first time in the 335i

Only did like 4 passes as it got really busy down there, 4th attempt took 1/2hr to que :(

ZyrJXY.jpg

 

 

 

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Mate had a new c63  and ran 12 sec flat and another mate had a  tuned 4l Turbo s6 and did 11.8.

It was a corporate day so were just looping through. No wait it was awesome

 

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Geez you guys are getting good times. I used to run one of these. 2.5 ton  13.9 et.

64pontiac GP.jpg

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