There is an armature event in my home town. I've never participated in one but I'm thinking about it. I know that the most important thing is to be consistent with your ETs and to have good RTs also. In order to get that, do I cool down the car in between races or do I just run it hot and use a much higher index. What do you guys do in this type of events?
cool it down as best as you can. you got the tstat and the fan mod so you should be good. also depends on how many cars there will be and how good the track is about getting spills cleaned up. ive waited up to an hour and a half between runs sometimes over a minute spill.
with high HP and High MPH.there are no minute spills especially if you are the next car down that lane. it sure increases the pucker factor wondering if its cleaned up good enough. And if the spill is syn.oil or anti freeze it takes a looooong time to clean especially if some knuckle head goes full track in stead of pulling out of the groove and stoping. Thats why track the usually have good prep ask or requier that you dont run anti freeze as coolant, and prefer dynosaur oil ove the synthetics
DA can affect your times too. It depends on what time of day the racing is, to be able to dial in an accurate time. After my practice runs we have lunch and the truck cools way down but the DA comes up about a 1000'. But with the cold motor I have run .2 tenths faster than in the morning and it is usually my fastest time of the day. You can change your dial in time at any time. Except when you enter the burnout box. They should flash up you time on the scoreboard before you start. Make sure it is the correct time before you start. Don't pay any attention to what the other guy is doing at the starting line. Especially if they have like a 2 second head start. Another thing with bracket racing is fender racing. If you are way out in front when your close to the line you might be running faster than your dial in time. Let off, but you still want to cross the line before him.
If I am bracket racing I try to keep the car at a consitant temperature,usually about 180*.This helps me keep the car consistant as it can swing as much as a full tenth in ET on tempurature alone.
Exactly. How quick you go is unimportant. It's consistency. So rather than run "cooled off," run based on the temp your engine normalizes at with your thermostat of choice, fans on and car running. For example, I can launch at 176 degrees all day long. It won't be record fast runs, but I have managed to run back to back runs within one thousandth of a second at least three times at the end of last season. Once I ran identical times back to back. That's even using nitrous, which most people don't like for fear of inconsistency. Control as many variables as possible, and let the E.T. be whatever it's going to be.
fyi - reaction times don't matter unless you're running a protree, which the majority of the time you won't be. sit at the line for 15 seconds if you want, the time doesn't start until you move. for bracket racing you'll get two t&t runs before you have to dial in. see what your car is running that day and use that as a guide for your numbers. try to keep things the same on each run as much as possible. so run it hot, cold, whatever as long as it's the same. consistancy wins brackets, not the fastest et.
reaction times dont matter for test an tune or time trails..it DOES matter for bracket racing a pro tree is where the 3 ambers light at the same instant a sportmans tree is where there is .5 second betwen bulbs
Transmission and rear diff oil temp will make a difference of about 2 HP. That's why most dynos will show a better 3rd pull than 1st pull, even if everything else is the same. Do a consistent burnout to heat that tranny up, and the remaining difference won't be big enough to ruin your consistency.
