So I was cruisin along the other night, 2 or 3 a.m., and this '02 Eclipse Spyder hauls *** around me. So I followed him, palying a little game of cat and mouse for about 10 min or so. Finally, we got to a stop light, with a little less than a quarter mile stretch untill the next one. He gave me "the look", so when I saw green I punched it. I had him from 1st to 3rd, but after that he slowly began to pull away. My buddy in the car with me said had it been a longer race I would have had him in the higher end. As the topic title suggests, I'm a novice when it comes to racing. So my question is, should I have been able to cream that car if my shifting techinque was more refined? Or is it just a little bit faster than mine? Also, what RPM is it best to shift at during a race. FYI, my car is a '99 3.8II, everything stock, unless the previous owner did something I don't know about.

 

I doubt the previous owner did a cam swap or had a head job. j/k

 

I'd say given your a newbie at racing and you have a V-6 you did a pretty good job. Might want to get a few mods or most races will have the same outcome.

Here's some I did on my old 3.4 that will work on your 3.8
Underdrive Pullies
Ram Air K&N
Saybars: front and rear
Dual exhaust
Computer tune
Good set spark plug and wires

These should get you going. Of course theres plenty more it just depends on $$.

 

That year eclipse is extremely slow(my younger cousin owns one)..Never had a 3.8 but before I bought my v8's I had a 95 5spd bird years ago..It would have killed a 02 eclipse

 

Not bad for your first race.Some of the technique just takes experiance to figure out what works best for you and the car.

When i've ran people in the past with my 84 Z28 i'll usually shift through the gears myself(auto tranny at the time) and i would hold my shifts till about 51-5200rpm(redline is 5500).If you let the tranny do the shifting for you i find it dumps into the next gear a few hundred RPM earlier and slows you up abit.Cost me a win against a modded integra.Then the next attempt was ruined by somebody in their buick pulling into my lane without looking.