Originally posted by SiBlk00:
Okay, I have read this post from front to back and I can say that Demon is right, you have to have traction for that torque to even work for you, I have driven my friends contour to a best of 15.5, and it is very difficult to get traction in it, it might not be a torque monster, but it has enough to spin the tires at will, and the Honda crowd the most you will get out of a N/A Honda is about 150 lb ft, and that is generally at 6-7k rpm, not exactly easy on the drivetrain when launching, I broke my differential in the ever going quest for fast times with no torque, as any smart drag racer will tell you, the way to quick et's is getting off the line, why do you think people spend so much money in suspension tuning, wheelie bars, huge slicks, all in the name of traction and getting off the line, after that it is all about power.
Good point SiBlk00 .
I remember back when I was street racing ALOT (dont do it so much anymore) the Hondas were about the easiest car to get a jump on, the Si's especially, and even saw them getting beat thru the 1st couple of gears by EX Civis similairly modded. It wasnt because they were slower, they just required a much better driver due to the lack of torque.
Torque can make things easier,
up the the point of traction, after that, id say its worse. My friends 00 GT with bassani catt-ed x-pipe and cat back exhaust is almost impossible to go WOT in first, from any launch. I went to the parking lot for a while to get the launch down in that car to help him out on his first day at the track, I still think the fastest times can be had in that car by feathering some of 1st gear.
At the street races (very highly organized) my friend in his Civic Si was getting stomped left and right by another Civic Si simply because he had a few more "low-end" grunt mods and the other guy was a better driver. After being defeated 2 times by about 2 cars (most of that on the launch), I strapped myself behind my friends 8100 rpm screamer and rolled to the line against that same driver. At the line, I did what your supposed to do in a Si (and watched everyone in the crowd cringe)...I spooled it to 5500 rpm and waited. When the girls hands dropped, I dumped the clutch and ended up beating that guy by 1 and 1/2 car lengths. My friends car I knew would walk on the top end, the
small amount of torque just made it more difficult for an inexperienced person to launch.Though Im swapping in the sweet ol duratec, at this moment, my Focus zetec is one of the easiest cars to launch I have ever driven. Not too much torque, but still enough. At 135 ft lbs and about 2400 lbs, I simply rev to 2500-3000 and drop the clutch, tires spin to about 3000 and hook.
My point is, there is a such thing as too much (when the chassis is uncapable), not enough (when the chassis is capable), and just right.
