Going to the Track!

[SQrules]

This is my first time to take my bone stock '06 CSRT to the drag strip, so give some hints to a noob dragger.

ESP?
Autostick?
Launching?

The track I am going to is just 1/8 mile.

[davidtx]

I'm about to take my 2nd trip to the track tomorrow night, so I'll share my vast experience with you I also have an 06CSRT...

If yours won't auto-upshift when in autostick, you might consider getting the transmission TSB. With a predator, you can enable/disable the auto-upshift feature. My first trip was without the TSB. Without auto-upshift, I found it very difficult to manually upshift without hitting he rev limiter because of the delay after hitting the shifter. At any case, you want to reset the adaptives in the TCM, either by pulling fuse 11 or by using the predator. If you run in either auto-upshift or full auto, you want to be careful of wheel spin so you don't get a premature 1-2 upshift and bog.

Turn off your air conditioner, auto wipers, etc.
Turn off ESP. You'll find lots of opinions posted about different ways to disable it (there was a recent thread similar to this), but at least push the button so it doesn't disable the go-fast pedal on wheel spin.

BTW - if you have any success with your CSRT, you'll likely need a helmet. The track I went to would rent one. Search for another recent thread on acquiring a helmet - I like Moose's pawn shop strategy.

Have fun! I had a blast - first trip was at an infamously bad track in December, going to a track with a great rep tomorrow night if the weather holds. My son is back from Iraq and home on leave, so I'll let him try his hand - he'll probably beat me. It'll be fun to see how it does on a good track with auto-upshift enabled.

-david

[Outlaw Throttle Jockey]

Every track is different. Hopefully you get to do several runs. Experiment. Try with ESP on once and once with ESP disabled. If you have decent tires and track is somewhat maintained you should be able to hook up fine with the ESP disabled. Try just smashing the gas once and try rolling into the throttle once. You will eventually figure out what's best for that track and your car on that paticular night. The most important thing you can do is to not hot lap it (back to back runs). Give your car time to cool down. Hood up with ice on intake between runs is your best bet for being stock. Consider a fan mod that will let you run fans with the engine off in the futre if you plan on racing a lot. Most important have fun! Be sure to post your results.

[SQrules]

Thanks for the replies guys. I will let you know how I did.

[SRTIZZLE]

Originally Posted by SQrules

Thanks for the replies guys. I will let you know how I did.

Well, how did it go??

[SQrules]

Finally went tonight because it got rained out last weekend. And man did I have a blast!! At first I was very nervous because I wasn't sure how she was going to react, but after the first two runs I did pretty good. Remember this is an 1/8 mile track. My best time was 8.934 @ 81.39mph with 60' of 2.13 and that was with my cutouts open the whole time. My last run with them closed was very close 8.942 @ 81.95 with 60' 2.20, but I had a lot of spin at the begining. Both of these runs were with 1st ESP off. My first run with ESP on had the best 60' of 2.11 but I finished with a 9.00 due to a lot of hesitation in the shifting. I don't have the trans 1-2 upgrade yet. It's going into the shop Monday. Do you think I should get that upgraded?? My best R/T was a .1262 which was way better than my first run of .6017. I wasn't sure how fast the lights ran, because it looked a lot different from the stands compared to sitting in staging. I know most people list 1/4 mile times, so how does this compare. what do you think my 1/4 would be?

[Outlaw Throttle Jockey]

I think those times are right on par with a 1/4 mile time of low-mid 13's and 105-108 mph. Good job. The good runs will have a 60' time closer to 2 flat.