This was my very first time racing at a drag strip today, and I just wanted to post my times to see what the community has to say about what I was doing wrong and how I can improve. I spent hours searching how to do the perfect launch so my launch basically consisted of me sitting at the stage light, revving to 3500, and feathering the clutch when it was time to go. I didn't really care much about reaction time, I just wanted to get the best quarter mile times as I possibly could. I shifted at about the rev limiter (not where the red line is as my tach is way off, my rev limiter last time I hit it was just before 7500 on my tach so I shifted at maybe 7300-7400). I pretty much got about 16.7 consistently except on my very first run which was close enough at 16.8. I raced my two friends only for this race as I was too embarassed of my 200sx to go against anyone else. I thought this car was suppose to be like 17-18 second quarter miles. Although I'm not impressed at all with my numbers, I was happy that I went racing and was able to win against my friend's CRX.
Here are my timeslips:
If anyone has any tips on how I can improve, please share them with me. And also, the best way to launch a FWD manual car. Also, I'm sort of curious if these numbers are much too low for my car and if I should be expecting much better numbers? Please note that this way my first time at the drag track doing completely legal drag racing. I know my 60' times are shitty, and my reaction times are worse (although this I don't care about really). I don't mind people being blatant saying I suck ass as a driver or not, but at least take into consideration that this was my first time and that I'm a complete noob. Some improvements I know that I can make are better tires definently, as I noticed I had some wheelspin launching at 3500. I currently have 14" Federals that have crappy traction dry and worse when wet. If it turns out that these are actually some decent quarter mile times (probably not) then I might even consider spending some cash on a Hotshot Header, UR pulley, and a Fidanza flywheel. Thanks again everyone in advance.
Also, please don't dog on my friends for either driving Hondas or cause of their times; this was their first time at the strip as well. They greatly respect my beatup Nissan and always offer words of confidence, meaning they'll have even more respect for all of you as well
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Also if anyone reads the GA16DE forums, my timing was set at 10 degrees cause I couldn't get it to 15 degrees properly. I'm sort of curious now how much the advance in timing could affect my times. I'm all for another .1 sec faster quarter mile time but thats sortof asking for a lot
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