I Got A 95 Firebird To Drag Race In Street Class This Year.never Raced A Computer Car.are They Consistant?

 

Deadly consistent!!

Randy

 

This is truely going to be very dependant per car. I've seen 2 of the newer chevy trucks that was stupidly consistant-actually every bit as consistant as the race cars they were standing in for.

But i have seen far more VERY inconsistant. Alot of factors will play into it. first is that the slower you are the more time you are hung out on the track being subjected to changing wind speed/direction and ambient weather factors such as temp, and humidity. Since the computer is always taking readings, tranny temp will affect how quickly it reacts on gear changes, how much slip, how quickly it revs, etc...computers can be good and bad. A freind used to race his dakota and he found the only way to get it to repeat within .06 per pass was to leave it running from the time he got there until he was all done and just prayed he cut a light to get the upper hand.

first hand experience with my wifes old 2000 malibu, I literally picked up 1 full second between rounds...explain that. And there was zero tire spin!

 

That's correct as long as the weather and temp. of the engine stay the same.

 

I Hope It's Consistent Like My 78 Nova I Race In Mod.i Have A 435hp Edelbrock Motor In It With 2.73 Gears No Posi And Without A Shift Kit And Slipping Trany It Turns 9.00 In The 1/8.i Dial In A 9.00 It Turns A 9.003.

 

Glad you made it over here. Welcome to the board. 1/8 should be very consistent, 1/4 depends more on the reliability of the third gear shift point.

 

Ya know, "they say" having a good convertor and under gearing the car allowing the convertor to slip like crazy (pending it's a good convertor) will be more consistant. Might not be the fastest on the block, but consistant. I can totally relate your situation, buddies 4000lb 70 chevelle typicall runs 11.50's with his 4.11's and 29" tires, fragged the diff with 3 races left and threw in the old 2.73 diff with posi he had from years ago...only change. Naturally 60's slowed-but it did help his R/T since this thing was very consistant out of the box and actually mph better than ever...and only dropped .15 in the 1/8mi when we switched to that at the end of the year.

Can only imagine what tranny temps were (he has no guage) but the car literally turned into a 2 ton zerox machine!!!

 

If you keep a dedicated run log with the weather conditions you can be dead on 99% of the time.

Randy

 

It HELPS to keep a dedicated log book with all runs, track temps, air conditions, sun/cloudy conditions, wind speed/direction, but even at that without a well designed well running combination there is no way it'll be dead on 99% of the time. You can try to predict the best you can and get close most of the time, but in no way would I say it's 99% accurate. since car can hiccup, or lane goes away, miss a shift point by 1-200 rpm, etc...

I understand where your coming from though since I too keep a bible of every pass at every track every time the car makes a run, the only thing consistant is what the car is doing that day. I've raced in identical air conditions at the same track and had very different on track results since track can either be spot on or not close, but it does "help" when your throwing darts LOL!!

I laughed when the owner of the truck I drive stated "what's so hard about bracket racing? You cut a light and run the number!" I could not help but laugh and said if that's the case there would be no losers ever!! This is a very mentally taxing sport and unlike circle tracks you have less than (average) 13 seconds to figure it out at triple digit speeds And lets be real for the guys that dont do this everyday like some of us, your going 100+ mph and you have a 8 second door car or digger chasing you down at 140-150+mph and typicall your dont meet until the last 12" of the race track, you've got to try and figure out if staying matted and hopeing to be on your number or lift/tab brakes to barely get there first will get you the win light....hundredths and thousandths of a second is what your judging since you can either let him by or break out. VERY intimidating and finish line driving is the HARDEST part of bracket racing.

I used to take around .05 at the stripe from the other guy and was told by the hitters that's waaay to much stripe as I should be shooting for .01-.02. Now think about that...your judging hundreths of a second, and the funny part is after you do this awhile you can actually see it when your racing a car running close to your dial in, for the most part though when it gets that close your still stuck pokin and hop'n you get it right. When running really fast cars 7-8sec I dial it tight and run it out the back door and hope I guessed right and shifted right. cars that are only +/- 1 second I'll usually keep some in the bag in case I screw up at the tree i can still race.

and that is where it gets hard racing old timers since typically nobody dials honest in the bigger classes aat 1/4 mi tracks, they used to keep .03-.04 in the bag and srive the stripe, but with the addition of LEDS and lights getting tight on the tree I see many are only holding .01-.02 now and just drive with ya to the finish line.

 

I Have A 2100 Stall In It Too.i Did Keep A Log Of Temp, Humid,and Presser.it Did'nt Matter At All The Car Ran The Same Number.it's A Fun Car.it's Simple.it Is The First Drag Car I Have Had I Did'nt Have To Wrench On Every Week.i Drive It To The Track And Drive It Home And Do The Same Next Week.

 

Funny you should say that, at the start of the year I was running th truck at a non points event and out standing mod track champ was waiting for his rail to be built so I offered him to drive my car, I paid for everything and we'd split his purse-he just shows up and drives.

After a quick aquaintence with the car he made his first TT's then went onto to win no box and lost in the box/no box final with a crappy R/T. I got a kick out of him by the 4th or 5th round he said he may just cancell his order for th rail and buy my car. He loved how simple everything was-typical street car, start it up and race, no fancy switches, no between round ritual. Get in and go and collect your money I like the coolness of race car simplicty but I think too many guys over build and over think and make it hard on themselves which will affect mental concentration in the big picture since they have soo much to worry about once they get into the car or back to the pits.

KISS and just race, dont get any easier than that. I've always dreaded driving buddies cars that you have to have this drawn out BS routine of flipping these switches first, do something, then shut them off and turn on these...tooo much to think about, so i designed my car to hit the ignition and go..just like a street car...oh wait, it is LOL!!

 

Please turn off your caps lock. Thanks!

Consistency in a auto-trans stocker is all about launch. Whatever you do, have fun!