Picking gears
Well,
you could do what I do;
run what I brung.
I get an MPH number, and translate that to a theoretical SuperStock ET.And then I be happy with knowing that if I spend say an awful lot of money on my suspension, I might get close to that ET. Since I don't care about ET, I'm just happy with 93 mph in the 1/8th.
But once you have an MPH number that won't change all that much . So then you can gear your car correctly, for the MPH.
If you do not run the optimum gear, then it won't matter much how far you are off, cuz you are always trading bottom end for top end. Baring tire-spin,the closer to optimum you get, the more average power you can put down during the run.
IMO it is more beneficial to get the 60ft sorted. There is about a half a second to be gained here, with perhaps another .2/.3 with the correct trap gear. But they kindof go hand in hand.And hand in hand with the TC stall.
It's easy to go crazy and suddenly have 4500 or 5500 or more ftlbs on the starting line, and the tires won't have anything to do with that,and so your 60 ft goes to 2.2 or more. I found this out with 4.88s and a 3.09 low and launching at peak torque.BFG DRs, in 325/50-15s, weren't having any of it. And once they let go, there was no saving it; they spun the whole 660'. The car was just not transferring weight. I had a lot of fun tho.......I hope you do too.
Just throwing chit out there.