Went to Island Dragway this past Sunday, November 14, 2021 for my final drag race TnT of this year. It was also the Daily-Driver Grocery-Getter e3vent, an Impala club event, regular Test-n-Tune, and a racing for Santa's type Toys-for-Tots fundraiser. They opened an hour earlier than usual (9am gates 10 am racing) but due to water seeping up into the track on the top-end, it took them till almost 11:30 to get the first pair of cars off. There was an insane amount of cars there. Good for business, but really a lot of down time. Lots of oil downs and whatnot too, so the track and starting line was cold temperature which made for some tricky launch conditions. Someone hit the timing system very early on, and that caused a delay too. There was a weird issue with the tree during my 1st run, as it put on the bottom bulbs before ever lighting the top bulbs (no I was not deep staged). Also, later on, someone started a fire in one of the trash barrels so they had to have the fire department come and handle that situation. It was just a very long drawn out day, and they only allowed everyone to get 3 passes, unless you were in one of the bracket racing groups. My buddy John was there with his low 11 second Trans Am, and Jerry was there with his 2nd gen too! Jerry was consistent as always and I think it was the first time I got to see his bird on the track. My buddy John was lined up next to me in the left lane for our 2nd pass, and he dialed up his clutch adjustment too far and it caused him to stall on the line. This was a super big blessing in disguise because when he opened the hood to adjust the clutch valve, he noticed some milkshake colored oil/fluid in the clear hoses that connect his valve cover to his vacuum pump. He had known a head gasket was just starting to leak coolant outside the engine, but it must have just started leaking into the engine during his first pass. If he had not stalled on the line and had made the pass next to me with a blown head gasket, who knows how bad the situation could have been.
Look at how far back the line stretched!
Anyways. the drag bags seemed to work great. I did not hit the bump stops and from what it felt like in the driver's seat, the car did not squat all that much. I ran 8psi in the driver's side bag, and 10.4 psi in the passenger side bag all day. Front tires were 50 psi and the rear tires I kept at 18.5 psi all day. Had the rear shocks set at 3.5/5 driver's side and 4/5 on the passenger side. I put in the 150 jets and had a full nitrous bottle which I used the bottle heater to keep it at a steady 1,000 psi. I programmed the nitrous to only spray between 2400-6500 rpms. Weather was cold, but not all that windy. It was a negative200-negative300 D.A. all day, which was great, but the track temp was just dead cold because of the lack of cars being able to continually make passes amongst the very frequent down-time. Look at the clock/time differences on my timeslips, its 3 hours between pass 1and2, and 1.5 hours between pass 2and3.
Pass 1:
Did a 5.5 second burnout. Wanted to try launching from a slightly high idle, so I launched at 1036 rpms. The nitrous was programmed to come on at 2400 rpms, and I had it set up for a slow progressive ramp.. it was a 2 second long ramp from 75hp-150hp. The car slipped the tire a touch on the n/a footbrake launch and then held the tire during the nitrous ramp. Nitrous clicked off at the high-rpm limit of both shifts (as well as the top of 3rd gear still 150+ feet from the finish line). I shifted 1-2 at 6546 and 2-3 shift at 6541 rpms, and crossed the line at 6524 rpms. The car is very unhappy during the last few hundred feet, and I know I am not accelerating, I am either staying steady speed or possibly decelerating.
Video:
- I have no in car video from this pass as my memory car footage loop records, and the overall time at the track was sooo incredibly long, that the loop recording wrote-over my first pass.. which just so happened to be my quickest pass to date!
Fortunately, Joey D was in the stands spectating and he took a video, so here is the link to it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iFo44TEAGE
Timeslip:
Datalog:
Pass 2:
I was glad that the progressive 150 shot worked, and had a choice to make. Do I shorten up the progressive's ramp, or do I go out there and see if it will take a fixed 150 shot instead. Hearing the track's announcement that all cars would only get 3 runs total, I thought, well, lets put the fixed 150 shot in it and see if it takes it. My buddy John was next to me and I had hoped he was going to get his 10.99 n/a timeslip (He has been 11.02, and that is a stick shift car). I did a 5.5 second burnout, but for some reason it felt like only 1 tire was getting worked, and it has done this before, but only rarely. Foot brake launched from 1089 rpms and it barely rolled out at all before hitting 2400 rpms and getting on the nitrous, which caused it to completely knock the tires loose. So I pedaled it, got back in it and on the nitrous and tagged the rev limiter a bit before making the 1-2 shift at 6586 rpms. Second gear held fine but I was on the limiter again a bit before shifting 2-3 at 6681 rpms. I crossed the stripe while still spraying at 6614 rpms, which is weird because it should have clicked off at 6500 rpms? Was bummed out for John who I was expecting to make a side-by-side pass with me and both of us get a 10 second timeslip together.
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAfBopNeSbI
Timeslip:
Datalog:
Pass 3:
Put a progressive nitrous tune in it, but shortened the ramp to be 1.2 seconds. So it sprays from 75shot-to-150 shot in 1.2 seconds. 7 second burnout, both tires. Tried to launch from a higher rpm footbrake like I am used to doing, and I footbrake launched at 1701 rpms. I did feel the tire slip just a little bit at the hit, BUT it turns out I actually did not got WOT right away either, so the even though I passed my 2400 rpm On-activation for the nitrous, it did not click on until I went past 80% TPS on-activation. This can be seen in the datalog traces below, but at the time, I did not even realize it later until I looked at the datalog. The 1.2 second progressive ramp was fine. And after a touch of the rev limiter I shifted 1-2 at 6652 rpms, shifted 2-3 at 6588 rpms.... and as usual, as I approached the finish line it clicked the nitrous off, kept my timing retard in it, and dropped rpms, which eventually had me cross the line at 6458 rpms. You can see that it did this for about 1.3 seconds on the datalog (top right corner) and hear it in the video.
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Giul-sSgZhU
Timeslip:
Datalog:
So
