There is a 70% chance of rain tomorrow so I thought it prudent to not travel 200kms each way on the drag pack. Track opens at 9am so I'll have lots of time to change them over and cool the car down.
2019 Challenger Widebooty HellKitty (she's giving me the meatsweats...)
- Thread starter motorheadmike
- Start date
- Status
There is a 70% chance of rain tomorrow so I thought it prudent to not travel 200kms each way on the drag pack. Track opens at 9am so I'll have lots of time to change them over and cool the car down.
While we all wait for a certain car to finally see paint I figured I could distract you with something completely unrelated to G-bodies - but totally related to our collective desire for speed.
After driving 200kms (160 miles) to the track - which was rental and a lane was properly prep'd as they would have for an event - I took an hour or so to unload and set the car up for what was to become one of the most frustrating days of racing in my life (still better than sitting at home). Driving a high powered, heavy, stick car is HARD. Way harder than I gave mind to. Doing burnouts was hard. Launching the car was hard. Shifting gears with blurred vision was hard. Stopping was hard.
I seriously underestimated the whole process and am impressed that I manged to pull off an 11.8@122mph while learning how to do a burnout, launch and shift the car at the limit for the first time ever (I arrived with just 2300kms on the odometer (over 1000 of those are highway miles). I am definitely the limiting factor in getting this car to perform up to "expectations", and I am certain there are some sitting here reading this with prejudice thinking: Hurr durr... overrated car - my G-body is faster/quicker/better. I get it, its a polarizing car and there is very little middle ground on the subject.
Time slips for general consumption:
Here's the supporting datalog snapshot for the 11.8 pass:
It is very obvious where the time is being lost compared to an automatic car in the launch (bogging) and between shifts (hit the rev limiter on the 3-4 because I was having too much fun on what I knew was a good pass). But, the joy of hitting the shifts at redline in supercharged manual transmission car is something I have never experience before. That will never get old.
Oh, and here's why I swapped all four wheels at the track versus driving in on the drag pack. It became torrential, with standing water on the highway, and I was hydroplaning all over the place on the wide tires.
After driving 200kms (160 miles) to the track - which was rental and a lane was properly prep'd as they would have for an event - I took an hour or so to unload and set the car up for what was to become one of the most frustrating days of racing in my life (still better than sitting at home). Driving a high powered, heavy, stick car is HARD. Way harder than I gave mind to. Doing burnouts was hard. Launching the car was hard. Shifting gears with blurred vision was hard. Stopping was hard.
I seriously underestimated the whole process and am impressed that I manged to pull off an 11.8@122mph while learning how to do a burnout, launch and shift the car at the limit for the first time ever (I arrived with just 2300kms on the odometer (over 1000 of those are highway miles). I am definitely the limiting factor in getting this car to perform up to "expectations", and I am certain there are some sitting here reading this with prejudice thinking: Hurr durr... overrated car - my G-body is faster/quicker/better. I get it, its a polarizing car and there is very little middle ground on the subject.
Time slips for general consumption:
Here's the supporting datalog snapshot for the 11.8 pass:
It is very obvious where the time is being lost compared to an automatic car in the launch (bogging) and between shifts (hit the rev limiter on the 3-4 because I was having too much fun on what I knew was a good pass). But, the joy of hitting the shifts at redline in supercharged manual transmission car is something I have never experience before. That will never get old.
Oh, and here's why I swapped all four wheels at the track versus driving in on the drag pack. It became torrential, with standing water on the highway, and I was hydroplaning all over the place on the wide tires.
Those virtual timeslips are cool! My problem has been not getting enough heat in the tires, hence a line lock is on order.
This car has one and it's pretty user friendly (except when you stall the car, restart it and have to reset all of the settings) - I'd just never tried it before showing up yesterday. Good thing I love performing under pressure.
And next chance you get you'll do it all over again. Now you got some old school drag experience. An auto trans can be quick but getting that rhythm & timing down you'll be able to show you're just as quick or faster. There's more talent in banging gears while pushing the extra pedal than just smacking a stick from 1 to D.
Does that log show time on the bottom too? You ice down the intercooler? Looks like the car must have a tank to keep IATs under 100.
Edit: forgot to point out your 86% throttle opening. This CTSV I'm monkeying around with only goes 84-85% open at WOT too.
Edit: forgot to point out your 86% throttle opening. This CTSV I'm monkeying around with only goes 84-85% open at WOT too.
Last edited:
Time, yeah I can do the subtraction to show how much time is lost between sh*ts... I mean shifts. No ice was used, just the race cool down function - you want to look at the Air Charge Temp etc as it is 130*F to 200*F different data depending where you look. Yeah, the throttle angle is just like GM. I was chatting with my brother about this today.
AccelPosnD is the pedal/my foot, ThrPosn (etc) is what is mapped/commanded by the PCM relative to programming; and if you look closely it mirrors the spark curve almost exactly coming off the line. This is either traction control or torque management, or both.
Last edited:
Do they make a two step for these cars yet, or is it in the factory setup?
I never could manage a drag time worth a damn for my 2+2 until I got one from the recommendation of a pretty hard core t56 4th gen on spray guy. I literally would not try to drag a manual car again if I didn't have one. Being able to flat foot the throttle and just worry about actuating the clutch release time and keep the throttle pinned during shifts and just stab the clutch makes it SO much better. Plus blowing balls of fire out of the exhaust on shifts is pretty awesome, tehehe.
It might void that war-an-tee however...
A normal human has too much crap to worry about to launch a full weight blower stick car and not have it fail. I tried, and failed for like a year and a half. I went from like 15% missed shifts and bogging or blowing the tires most of the time the other 50% (and running mid 13's as a result) to running high 11's after 3-5 passes with the two step. I went from like 30% successful pass to probably 90% with the addition of the two step.
I still think the car would be better in a different color than appliance white (every hellkitty post needs a LITTLE jab about that) but it looks pretty good with the spacers on the front (I assume they are on!)
I never could manage a drag time worth a damn for my 2+2 until I got one from the recommendation of a pretty hard core t56 4th gen on spray guy. I literally would not try to drag a manual car again if I didn't have one. Being able to flat foot the throttle and just worry about actuating the clutch release time and keep the throttle pinned during shifts and just stab the clutch makes it SO much better. Plus blowing balls of fire out of the exhaust on shifts is pretty awesome, tehehe.
It might void that war-an-tee however...
A normal human has too much crap to worry about to launch a full weight blower stick car and not have it fail. I tried, and failed for like a year and a half. I went from like 15% missed shifts and bogging or blowing the tires most of the time the other 50% (and running mid 13's as a result) to running high 11's after 3-5 passes with the two step. I went from like 30% successful pass to probably 90% with the addition of the two step.
I still think the car would be better in a different color than appliance white (every hellkitty post needs a LITTLE jab about that) but it looks pretty good with the spacers on the front (I assume they are on!)
- Status
