1st time down the strip

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chloros340

chloros340

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this is my first post.
I'm going to MIR this weekend for the Mopar Eastern Classic and was going to take it down the track for the first time. what would be the best way to launch the car?

It is a 73 duster 340 and has the origanal block bored 0.030 over stock crank. lightened and ballanced rods, keith black silvolite pistons ballanced .020over the deck, j heads ported and polished, Weiand X-CELerator intake, Purple shaft 284/.484 cam, holley 750 full length headers, 2.5" dual exhaust, an a833 overdrive, 8.25 rear with 355:1 gears, 235/60/14 on the rear and 215/60/14 onthe front, street radials.


 
Don't do a giant burn out, street radials get stickier with a little burnout than with a big one, keep the rear tires out of the water box. I'm not a huge fan of abusing 8.25 rears and with the overdrive trans you've got a pretty healthy 1st gear so I'd launch it kinda soft and maybe roll out a lil bit before mashing it just to keep it hooked. You're going to find yourself playing with a number of different launch procedures before finding what the car reacts best to, no matter what I gaurantee you'll have fun. . . also it helps if you don't stage with the rear tires on your first pass even tho it would be a better timeslip :-D
 
Thanks, I have launched on some back roads with no trafic and took it up to 6000 rpm befor hitting second a few times just practicing just like you described. it did pretty well. so thank you.
 
Well I did it. I took my car to MIR and went down the track. I couldn't hook up my reaction times were crappy and I lost a power steering belt. My best reaction time was
.597, 60' - 2.387, 1/8- 9.679 @72.20mph, 1/4- 15.225 @ 85.70mph.
I spun the tires off the line and going into 2nd. a shift light and slicks and a stronger rear is on my wish list for next time. and boy it was fun.
 
Sounds similar to my experience, I have a non overdrive 833 in my 1975 Duster. My 340 is similar to yours not dynoed but prolly 350-375HP. I have a 489 case with 3.91 gears and a sure grip. My best run was just walking it out and then getting on it, had a 2.132 60' time and 13.95 @ 102 mph. I too stunk up the reaction time worrying about the launch, was .630 which is lame. :( I think she's got a lot more if I can hook it up, going to upgrade the suspension and buy a set of slicks among some other things. You are right, boy it was fun !
 
A .597 reaction time is nothing to get upset about, especially being a 1st. timer, i no guys that race alot & hardly see better then a .599, but just remember, The reaction time has "nothing" to do with the ET (The timer doesn't start untill you break the beam).
 
Hahahaha - now you start chasing better ET's, and THAT is fun! Forget the reaction time, as JoeDust said, it doesn't affect your ET. You can work on that later. There's a lot of room for improvement in that 60' time. Which is actually good news. The 60' time has a huge impact on your ET.

Yes, better tires, and a stronger rear end are the right things to look at first. Don't forget to get 7290 u-joints if possible. Run a driveshaft loop and a steel bell housing and you should be in pretty good shape.

Have fun!
 
sounds like a fun combo. The .630 reaction time can be ok or not so good depending on how the timing equipment is set up. I have raced at 2 different drag strips and the way they read the reaction time was different. At one track a perfect reaction time was .000 at the other track a Perfect reaction time was .500. If you went .499 you red lit. On my first time down the track with my car back in 1993. I was running a 1967 Dodge Dart GT with a 340 that was rebuilt stock except for an Erson cam and Small port closed chamber heads off of my 273. Mine was an automatic. I had a peg leg rear axle with street tires. I did a burn out to get the 1 tire sticky. then a hard dry hop to spin the other tire. Once both tires were sticky I just pushed my foot to the floor as har as I could. The car got lucky and launched hard and didnt spin a tire at all. The best time I had was the first time down the track. I went 13.78. I cut a .501 light with a .500 being a perfect light. It wasnt skill or anything...I was so nervous and excited that I launched to early and thought I red lit. I now launch my street cars always when the last yellow is still lit. Once you get the traction problem handled, you will find yourself heading for the 13s in no time. The power is there just need to hook up.
 
Thanks for the pep talk guys. I had the car on the dyno in 2006 at carlilse. it pulled 252 hp at 5000 rpm and hadn't leveled off yet and 275 ft/lbs of torque to the ground on 7 cylinders. I had a bad plug #7. when i asked why they didn't take it to 6000 rpm like i asked they said it had peaked and was starting to drop off. i think the missfire had them a little scared. so i thinnk it should be close to 300 hp on all 8 cylinders. any way you look at it, its better than stock. at the track i hit the rev limiter on the third pass at 7000rpm scared the crap out of me.
 
I found me on you tube. I'm the slow one. you can here my wheels spining in the video

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge_9AwK8Krk"]YouTube - 10.190 2006 Dodge Charger RT[/ame]
 
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