opinions please

There is a reason engines are torn down and rebuilt between 1/4 mile runs. Unless I am mistaken the stock tranny is easily damaged in hard off the line launches. You can drastically affect the engine and drivetrain, that being said if your set up well and everything is workin the way it should be...you can punish this car reasonably well

Engines are only torn down on monster machines pushing over 600hp, usually in the 1000hp range. Your average tuner going down the dragstrip is no more hard on your car that flooring it at a green light, unless you do burnouts before hand. Of course it will wear out the drivetrain faster, but that's somewhat subjective as to how much it will reduce the parts' life. As long as you take car of your car doing tuneups and more frequent tranny fluid/oil changes I wouldn't worry too much. Just don't go doing burnouts on a regular basis, it's not good for our trannies.

Actually, the transmission isnt as affected as is the Differential. The differential is greatly affected by the spinning of your tires because in your stock transmission, your car puts most power to only one wheel- usually the one with the least amount of traction(sadly). When you buy an LSD, this eliminates the slipping of the differential and forces both axles to be propelled at the same, or nearly the same rate. I dont see how this is an opinion, depends how you really lauch your car.. if you neutral drop it, then its going to shock your whole driveline, probably the diff worst. If you just brake stand it, its going to do something similar, but this time it will just be putting an increasing amount of pressure on ALL of the components between the flywheel and the tire on the ground. Not a good idea to do both. Thats why manual cars are typically the best to drag with. Clutches are a bit easier (and less expensive) to fix then a whole automatic transmission. Get it?

Hello,

Well, it seems that everyone is almost on the same page.
We can all agree that doing burnouts with a stock differential can be a bad idea. Typically one wheel will spin faster then the other, creating heat, and burning up the clutches, and or grenading them sending fragments into your tranny and destroying it. Doing burnouts is not necessary on street tires, as the compound street tires are made of do not get sticky, as slicks, or DR's do. With that being said, using DR's or slicks is like a modification.... Using them puts more stress on the drivetrain because you have less slippage from the tires, allowing you to give a little more HP to your launch.

If you are slipping off the line with any setup, you are doing something wrong. I've seen many people spin off the line... Usually it's only one tire, which gives the same outcome as doing a one wheel burnout. Whether you have a stock diff with street tires, or a Quaife with slicks, you never want to spin your tires off the line.... Once in a while is no problem, but if you make a habit of it, you will break something.

When I enter a freeway, I'm WOT up to 70+MPH.....This isn't much different from the dragstrip, other then the launch. Yes launching at the races will put undue stress and strain on components, but if you wanna play, you gotta pay.

Preventative Maintainence will save a majority of breakdowns, when racing, PM becomes more of a job then just changing your oil..... I've changed plugs about 10 times, changed my tranny fluid at 25K, changed my SC oil at 25K, changed my coolant at 25K...... All things that GM recommends at 100K. All things that I intend on doing again this winter with less then 50K on the clock.

I've got about 300 timeslips with my car, and (knock on wood) have yet to break anything. I've been involved with PDXCGP for 3 years now, and (knock on wood) we've never had a car break at the track.

Sorry for the long post....... I just like racing.

Later now,
Clint

By the way those top fuel cars are rebuilt after every run because they melt the plugs half way down the strip and at that point are dieseling the rest of the run. did you realize that those top fuel cars only turn about 800 revolutions from burn out to finish line?

I realize that the tear downs are for top fuel drag cars..I was tryin to make a point..With this group of hall monitors, ya cant get away with anything