time slips from track, need help badly.

[hotwhip9]

Well to start off the car is a 1998 z28 a4, air intake, ported mass air, loudmouth cat back, 285 40 17 sz50 ep's, eibach pro kit.

Ok, so the drive to the track doesn't help at all being over 60 miles to get there. Track i went to rockingham in north carolina.

Talk about traction problems!!!
I had , at all, the slowest the tires would stop spinning was around 50 mph. I did 7 runs, most one right after the other, waited 15 minutes between a few of them. I forgot to drop the tire pressure in the rear, so it was at 40 psi. I tried dropping it when i remember too, but it was too late they already did last runs.

I know i have to get the lower control arm relocation brackets.

Well here's the slips from the 7 runs, any suggestions on what to do? I know some of you guys helped me out last time i had my slips up here. Runs 4-7 were one right after the other.
run 1,
60: 2.446
1/8th: 9.637 @80.36
1000: 12.258
1/4: 14.474 @101.45

run 2:
60: 2.834
1/8th: 10.349 @78.86
1000:13.012
1/4:15.264 @99.91 This run i fish tailed so bad i almost hit the wall!!

run 3:
60: 2.267
1/8th: 9.057 @82.53
1000: 11.636
1/4: 13.837 @102.04

run 4:
60: 2.578
1/8th: 9.912 @79.58
1000: 12.556
1/4: 14.787 @ 100.76 this run i did drive shifted into od

run 5:
60: 2.429
1/8th: 9.646@80.34
1000: 12.272
1/4: 14.490 @101.35 this run was 2nd into drive

run 6:
60: 2.293
1/8th: 8.986@83.25
1000: 11.553
1/4: 13.738 @102.69 BEST TIME

run 7:
60: 2.670
1/8th: 9.995@80.19
1000: 12.621
1/4: 14.840 @101.31

[Dave M]

with the exception of runs 3 and 6, your 60' times are horrible, and even those two aren't great. Lowering tire pressure may have helped, but you need a lot more than that to get those times down. It's time to start talking about suspension work. Lowering doesn't help with launching either since there's less opportunity for weight transfer. Start with beefed up lower control arms and relocation brackets. Did you put on an adjustable panhard rod when you lowered? If not, might want to do that too. A new torque arm may be in your future as well.

What rpm were you launching at? What was the weather/temp like?

If you're revving the crap out of it at launch or just mashing your foot down, you're going to have traction problems no matter what. Learn to feather the throttle until your hooked up. With the minor bolt ons you have, you should be able to control wheelspin better than what you did. Fix the suspension, lower tire pressure, and work on the launch and you should see low 13's easily, if not better.

[hotwhip9]

weather was around 74 or so with 100% humidity. Rpms wouldn't hold at more than 1300 without it slipping from the staging area. I held them at about 1100 or so.

[Dave M]

next time, I'd try it just from idle until you get a handle on controlling wheel spin out of the hole. Don't worry about reaction time or anything... sit there for 5 seconds if you have to to make sure you have in your head what you want to do once you hit the gas. Your timer doesn't start until you start rolling.

Knowing what you run launching from idle also lets you see what effect altering the launch rpm has. Once you get it down going from idle, increase you launch rpm by a 200 or so. Practice at that rpm for a few runs so you can see what effect it had on 60' time an ET. Keep moving the launch rpm up until you can no longer control the wheel spin. learn to feel when they start to slip, and gently ease off the throttle until you regain traction, then get back in it. You have to watch that the tranny doesn't upshift when you let off the throttle though.... this is where shifting manually comes in handy.

You're not really going to know what the car can do until you can reign in that wheelspin. You'll be going through a lot of tires that way too.

[N20LT4Bird]

13.7 isnt too far off of what should be expected from that car. If it was a 13.5, id say you should be pretty happy. Obviously traction is an issue - I would get a set of drag radials and a set of control arm relocation brackets. The lowering of the car changes the dynamics of the suspension in the rear and it wont hook for anything unless you readjust those control arms to the correct angle.

[Injuneer]

Running 40psi the whole night basically made it a waste of time. Why would you even run 40psi the street? From 10 years of experience with these cars, that makes no sense at all.

Look at your best ET. If you simply lowered the 60-ft time to 2.000, you would lower the ET on that pass to about 13.3..... exactly where you should be. Stop spinning and the MPH will come up a bit too. A little spinning off the line won't hurt your MPH, but spinning for 1/2 the track hurts everything.

If the humidty was 100%, is it possible you went in the evening, when the sun had gone down and the temperature was dropping rapidly? That's what produces 100% humidity and the causes the moisture in the air to condense on the track, forming an oily slime that makes it impossible to hook. If you get in a situation like that, try to follow behind a bunch of "slick" tire cars, because they will have removed some of the moisture and replaced it with rubber.

***Use correct tire pressure
***LCA relocation brackets
***Go when the track is "dry"

[hotwhip9]

yes i did go in the evening, that's when its open. I found some lca relocation brackets and i am going to order them, what about bushings for a new lca, polyuerathane or poly/rubber?