Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Zetec Maintenance best way to start from a stop

so i pull up to a riced out civic at a stop light and i want to see if he has some balls behind his stickers, what's the best way to start from a stop? I've got the '96 automatic (i don't know if they made a manual) zetec engine. Do i leave it in overdrive and just put the pedal to the floor? Or put it in low gear then push it up or powerbrake or what?

I know you guys are laughing at me for asking a dumb question but i'm new at this racing/performance stuff with cars. The first and only car i have ever raced was my '88 festiva and (needless to say) i got my butt kicked every time (i didn't seriously think that i could outrun anybody with it).

Any suggestions?

pete

I don't have an ATX, but I'd recommend taking a friend and a stopwatch to a rarely traveled road and practicing different techniques. I've heard some of these guys say 80% throttle yields better results off the line than 100% and others say differently. It may be car-specific.

Practice, practice, practice...

Well I like to turn off the overdrive and then start out in first. You can go up to 42 in first. Then go to second and then to drive accordingly. I usually run with 100% throttle.

Depends on your set-up.

Stock:
80% until you start moving a little bit and then you can put it on the carpet.

For me, I have to start at about 60% and then roll-on full throttle because of the intake, exhaust and chip.

If I floor it right from the stop, my car bogs down pretty well...

how about who cares if your car is faster then his?

i have found full throttle is NOT the way to go...

i has a 96 gl zetec with atx too...kkm intake and exhaust mods too...i have found about half way to 70% throttle off the line is the best untill you get movin good then hammer it down...

flooring it off the line is no good...you will get rocked everytime...lol

good luck...

but seriously...who cares if his car is faster?

i like letting people think i am gonna race and then i just crusie away from the light...that pisses em off more then if you beat him...

I do that, too! It's so fun to put it in park or neutral and rev my stock 4-banger. I raced a tractor trailor the other day, first race I've won in a long time. Maybe when my order from CTA gets here! Oh well, maybe it'll get here in another month or two.

Oh yeah, don't go full throttle from a stop on a stock set-up, D Davis and RedHawk are right.

4000rpm neutral-drop! Just Kidding,I usually start in first gear w/ my ATX,apply about 75% throttle until i'm into the upper reaches of 1st gear than hammer it for the last 10 mph or so,then keep your foot in it and row it up to 2nd. and so on and so forth until that worthless governor kicks in. I don't know why but I can chirp my fronts like that from a stop as opposed to WOT when it feels like the E-brake is on.

Why does it do that and what can we do about it? Cam pulleys? underdrive? what? Maybe the injectors can't shoot enough juice that quick? I don't like it at all and I'd really like to fix it if possible. How about a chip? It sounds like redhawk has to start out even less with a chip than the stockboys.

Yeah, but its the intake that really causes the bogging more than the chip because the velocity of the intake air takes just a second to speed up. And the chip more than makes up for it above 2500rpm

That question of why 70% throttle works better than full is interesting and I hope somebody can come up with an in-depth answer for it. It can't be limitations on either total air or total fuel because it's a low RPM problem. It must be an error in mixture or something.

One thing is just that, at low RPM, the difference between 70% throttle and 100% isn't going to affect the airflow nearly as much as the difference it makes at high RPM. With the engine sucking it in slowly, a throttle open that wide just isn't going to constrict it very much.

Oh, for a BMW valvetronic...