RR

I finally got around to using my car for more than terrorizing the odd Taurus or Contour and headed down to the Ennis drag strip on Friday night (Texas Motorplex). They have a Friday night series where you "pays your money" (20 bucks) and "takes your chances".

Why do this? Well, mainly cause I was curious as to how the car (and driver) runs. I've only done a few 0-60 runs, timed by logging data off the CAN bus. They indicated really lame performance and I was worried that there might be a problem beyond my slow shifting.

I managed to run the gas down to about an 1/8 of a tank. Left the spare in the car. The car and I weighed in at 3740 pounds. BTW, I've got the short shifter (20%) and the Garrett chip. Just under 5K miles with original oil fill (never added any yet).

After a half hour fixing the staging lights, I did my first run. The competition is a Mustang, but the driver has no helmet (required if you run better than 13.99) and an automatic. At the lights, we're both really lame at starting (both reaction times of 1.29). Hmmm....this car goes pretty well. The stang is toast in my mirror. I really notice a lot of lift of the front end (MTM springs are next on my list).
1st run times = 60' 2.101
330' 6.070
1/8 9.460
1/4 14.723 stang = 17.091 (ha ha)
MPH 94.98

Now I'm cocky. Next up, late model vette. Unfortunately I get worse and this guy does carry a helmet. Plus, his reaction is much better and I bog down a bit on the launch
SLow S4 Vette
2nd run R/T 1.114 .587
60' 2.309 2.186
330' 6.390 5.841
1/8 9.709 8.692
1/4 14.865 13.155
MPH 98.71 110.83

Third run. I try and get next to an Eclipse, end up next to the Cobra Mustang. Oops. I thought this run was my fastest, but I guess the long bounce off the 1st gear rev limiter hurt me quite a bit.
me real fast stang
R/T 1.030 .882
60' 2.205 1.888
330' 6.308 5.346
1/8 9.670 8.105
1/4 14.887 12.282
MPH 92.81 ?? 121.88

A few questions (although I doubt I'll do this again anytime soon).

1) Should I shift to 4th on a 1/4 mile run? I think I did the shift on the second run, but losing the 1/2 second or so on the shift would seem to cancel the short gain in being more torque'y.

2) To me, these times seem reasonable. Consensus for a chip-only S4 looks to be about 1 second faster than I was hitting. Since I'm not great at this and was only doing 3-4K launches, one second slower than the optimum seems about right. So, in answering my main question, would you agree that the car is probably running as it should?

BTW, this was fun! And I really do not believe it was that hard on the car. Unlike the two wheel bad boys, I just drove up to line and went....without all that tire spinning burnout stuff. Sometimes it's nice to be (4WD) different!

RR

KevinH

if it is safe to assume you can subtract your reaction time from the overall time the end result of your chip is pretty good. Your in the high 13 second range with a 3700lb car and driver. Not bad for four doors.

BobPa

Reaction time does not figure in to the ET equation, so you cannot subtract your reaction time to arrive at your actual ET. By the way, these times are worse than my stock times (14.0 @ 97). Your MPH at the end of the quarter is a good indicator of horsepower, and yours is little or no better than stock. Welcome to the club, I noticed the same almost non-existent performance improvement when chipping, which is why I sent it back.

dosturbos

It sounds like your pretty close to the money, the soft launches and imperfect shifts could more than account for the drop in times you are seeing over published marques. The trick on the lights is to leave on the very last yellow. By the time your brain signals your foot to "go", your in the .5s, try it next time.


I plan on taking my car to Ennis soon as well, there is usually is a large ricer gathering out there on weekend nights, all changing front tires(boy does that seem backwards) and playing thier stereos loud... Its fun to go out there and speak softly and carry a big stick!

Let me know the next time your going and we can team up on them!

-Jon

LCP

BTW, I've never been in a chipped S4 where the performance increase wasn't night and day, even at higher speeds/high RPM's.

RR

Yep. Reaction time is subtracted from all the other times.

RR

It may have been the one time that I used 4th gear where my speed was 98.71

This might indicate that I thought I was done before the finish and let up too soon.

RR

Flyboy

the feel of driving a chipped vs non-chipped car? You're the first person on this forum that I've read about taking a chip out.<p>2001 S4
D Status
6 spd/Sport Interior
Santorin Blue
Silver Alcantara

CMM

Your main problem, as was mine, is your 60-ft time. Anything above 2.0 secs is pretty bad when it comes to the drag strip. For every .10 seconds you strip off of your 60 ft., it equates to about .13 off of your overall 1/4 mile time.

My biggest problem has been the launch - how many RPM's, how much slip, etc. Also, I did shift into 4th each time, and I don't think it affects overall 1/4 time much at all.

Bill D

I'm also an Ennis attendee

Here are a few thoughts:

Your 60' times are not very good. Consider that FWD Honda drag cars can pull 1.5 60' times. Skyline drag cars pull 1.1's! You should be able to manage 1.7-1.8's ... that's the benefit of AWD ... This is just launch technique, and launching an AWD car at the track is a learned technique... I can only say practice, practice, practice .... the stock S4 clutch won't take all that practice though ... I've learned first-hand ... I won't take the S4 to the track until a good clutch comes out

The other thing is surely shifting, another area that just takes practice ...

Your car should be able to run mid 13's ... that's the truth ... getting it there is a whole other story ... It's amazing how big a difference the right clutch and a good driver can make ... and drag racing on the street is a lot different than racing at the track, if for no other reason than the traction difference ...

In all honesty I don't like racing my AWD cars at the drag strip ... all that traction is horribly abusive on the drivetrain ...