GoRideSno

I went to Irwindale this evening w/ Mspeigel in tow. Irwindale is a 1/8 mi drag strip.
There was quite a bit of very positive interest in the car. One guy offered to buy it. Though I did hear another say "That's the ugliest car Porsche ever made"

I guess the car did pretty well considering it has an automatic, 2.2 gears, and larger wheels than stock. I made three runs. The times, in order, were 8.08, 8.075 and 8.047 at 89.29mph. I have never looked at 1/8th mi times but everyone said that 8.047 sec is fast. They made me wear a helmet after the first run. Someone told me to multiply the 1/8mi time by 1.56 to get the 1/4th mi time. I'll bet the multiplier is lower for the 928 as they are generally pretty slow off the line. I think I could have broken 8 sec pretty easily with a little practice.

8.047 X 1.56 = 12.55

Will my car run 12.55sec in the 1/4th mi? I hope to find out tomorrow night in Palmdale.

I am on the left.



Andy K

mspiegle

WOW! That guy in the muscle car got his *** handed to him. Notice he was quicker in the 0-60.. at that point, Andy was just flying past him.

I was in line to get my run in while Andy had just finsihed... i found this REALLY funny, but one of the personnel hunted my car down and demanded to know what times I was running. If you're under 8.5 I think, you have to wear a helmet... and since Andy clearly broke that, they wanted to make sure i had one too just in case my car was a monster as well but it isn't yet i need to get my smog done then we can start playing.

I personally did very crappy runs... i think my best was 9.7. I guess I could have done worse tho.. i mean, i just got this car like 6 days ago and it was my first time driving a 5spd. I spent too much time burning rubber at the starting line when i was supposed to be moving FORWARDS... Later on, i was properly educated on how to drag race by my veteran-racer step-dad, so I WILL do better next time. Also, My reaction time was 1.5/1.6 for both runs thanks to my horrible starts. If you subtract that from my times, I would have gotten 8.1 - 8.4. Now, I know just subtracting them isn't right, but the bad starts affected the first 3-4 seconds of the run... had i not messed up, i'm confident i would get 8.8 - 9.0 or better.

All in all, it was fun. There were alot of people amazed and curious about Andy's car.

I Hope to see some of you on saturday for the "944" meet. I have a funny feeling there will be alot of 928s as well =)

martin D

Congrats Andy , 89mph in the 1/8 is about 9 mph faster than a fast 928 in the 1/8, that should easily put you in the 12's in the 1/4 , the 1st Porsche engined 928 in the 12's on the strip ?

Guessing at a car + driver weight of 3700 lb & a 20% drive train loss that gives 357 RWHP & 447 bhp at the flywheel, putting these figures into the 1/4 would give you 12.7 @ 112 mph . Of course with your 2,20 gears in the 1/8 (had it just got into 3rd in the lights ?), the car is just starting to wind up so an even better ET should be on the cards, the x 1.56 could well be correct . You can play around with weights & things at SMOKEmUP a very useful auto maths calculator.

Good luck for tomorrow (today now ?)

mspiegle

You could sit at the lights for 5 mins after they have turned green before moving & you would still have a time of 9.7, that is the reaction time. Wheel spin will give you a slower time, but your mph will give your potential & bhp if you use the calculator at SMOKEmUP. Low 9.00's is what you should be getting as you said. practice makes perfect !

Lagavulin

Good job Andy!

And good job posting the time-slip as there's no disputing that.

This spring I plan on running my car at the strip too, so we'll have more numbers to look at. Hopefully by then I'll have a better idea on how to launch it 'correctly' and get a decent time without too much wheelspin.

Nathan Valles

MSPIEGLE, I feel your pain.

My first time at a drag strip (and only trip so far) I was so nervious I drove through the water, over shot the timing lights and had to be told to back up, then practically watched the other car start before I realized the light was green. When I got back to the pit my friends said the announcer was making fun of the "ROOKIE" over the PA system.

Here are a couple of tips I learned and that you father-in-law may have already passed on to you:

1: Avoid the water and burnouts. Unless you are running drag slicks it does more harm than good. Street tires launch better at regular temps while slicks launch better after a burnout. Sometimes it is even better to launch off center if you can, avoiding everyone elses rubber.

2: Put some extra air in the front tires, run them up to the max on the sidewall or maybe even 3psi over. Just be sure to bring them back down to regular psi when you are done. If you normally run at max psi in your tires then bring the rears down to about 30 psi or so when you get to the track.

3: Empty everything you can out of your car and glovebox before you go. If it isn't bolted in then take it out. The only loose thing in your car should be you and you should be buckled in.

4: Run the car to nearly empty on gas. You should only have about 2 or 3 gallons of gas in the car. (91 to 93 octane)

5: Avoid wheelspin. It looks cool but as you know it ruins ET's

6: HAVE FUN

CMW

Andy,

Speaking of your rear end... LOL... this might be a great chance to get hold of my 2.54 with LSD... if I get whats left of my car back.

Chris

stuartph

Well done andy thats one fast baby you have


stuart

GT uk

mspiegle

@Nathan Valles
Thanks for the tips. My step-dad told me to drive around the water for sure. Most of what he wanted me to do was load the driveline using the e-brake before shooting off, that way I don't put too much stress on the tranny due to gear slap. I had no extra weight in my car, except a 3/4 tank of gas =/

Fastest928

Cool....my first "drag" shredded the clutch after three runs...Susan will not let me go out and play with those boys anymore.....

marc

Jim bailey - 928 International

Good point Marc T........an inexperienced novice driver can easily slip the clutch too much and destroy a perfectly good clutch . The drag strip where hundreths of a second make a difference does require a different skill set . What was the reaction time and the best E T ? Our long time employee who pulls cars apart had never done a burn out so we had him take an old junker 928 and do a "drag racing start" in the parking lot ...he floored the gas and let the clutch out about 1/2 way and held it there . When he backed it up all you could smell was burning clutch material , tried it a second time and the clutch was gone .... It is worth noting that Andy gave his competition nearly a 1/2 second headstart and still won !! his run was at 10 PM at night rather low temperatures, poor traction , good power . The line to get a second run was about 1 1/2 hours earlier that night . No , I was not there but had one of my "informers" check it out .

jayc67

Having had a lot of experience drag racing various cars, be careful with this whole idea of "preloading the driveline" by holding the brake and running the rpm up a bit. In most cases with a street torque converter you will actually loose ET by doing that. In most cases with street autos, launch from just above idle is generally quicker, as well as easier on the car.

Chris Lockhart

GREAT JOB ANDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dang, Santa needs to bring me an S/C for Christmas. I have run my '89 GT a couple times at the local 1/8 mile track, and WISH that I could run low 8's. My best run so far is a 9.2 @ 77.8 mph with a 2.20 60 ft time. Most of the late model Mustangs with little or no mods, run between 9.8 and 10.0 at this track. The Camaros/WS-6 T/A's are between 8.75 and 9.3, so I would love to stomp on them with a S/C'ed 928 GT.

I didn't learn some of the tricks until later, and haven't run again using them. I unfortunately did put her through the water box and smoked the hell out of them, I didn't remove all of the excess weight (still had tool kit,spare, CD's, etc...) had about 3/4 tank of gas, and the driver is--- well, lets just say I didn't get my "Bigun" nickname from being small. I'd estimate that between car/w gas and driver, that we're talking 4100+ pounds at the starting line. This track uses .000 as a perfect R/T, and I whittled my times down to a best of .017 on my very last run, but unfortunately when I hit second, all I got was tire spin and blew the run. ( car ahead of me dropped a driveshaft and plenty o' trans fluid, and it was not cleaned up properly) I swear that I had an 8.99 run going on that one!!!!!

Now I need to save up about $3.5K and put a roots on this beast!!!!!!!Also could use the short throw shifter, as the throw from first to second is not the best, and I'm losing a tenth or so on the shift.

GoRideSno

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I ran the 1/4 in 12.4 sec tonight. Check out this thread.


Andy K