Launching 101

[midnite racer x]

***********EDITED***********

Hey guys i did a write up about launching so i thought i'd post it...i hope its ok to post it here if not the mods can move it elsewhere. I'm looking for constructive critism but u guys always give that...thanx

Launching 101

By: Midnite Racer X


Launching correctly can make all the difference in gaining and better track times and speed. There seem to be three methods for launching a car. Two are the feather technique and the dump technique for manual transmissions, and the other one is brake boosting for automatics.

PREPPING FOR THE STAGING LANES

One of the most important things you can do while your in the staging lanes is check your tire pressures (usually I stop at a gas station on the way to the track and set my tires to about 25-30 psi in the front and the max psi for the rear tires. You’ll want to have lower pressure in the front than in the back for front wheel drive vehicles. Have a tire pressure gauge handy and recheck the pressures while you still have adequate time in line. Your first two runs should basically be testing to see if your front tires catch traction at the psi you’ve set.

BURNOUT

Now your ready for the staging lanes. Most tracks have somebody that wets the pavement for burnouts. At my particular track there is a lot of dirt so making sure my tires are clean is essential. Roll over where the pavement is wet but not past it…land right on it and pull up the e-brake and go into 1st gear with the clutch pedal down or for automatics apply your brakes and wait until your allowed to go. Once your ok’d to burn out through a quick rev up to about 3500-4000 rpm and let the clutch out. For automatics just let go of the brake really quickly. Try to hold around 4000-4500 rpm by tapping the gas pedal and remember that your e-brake should still be up. Within about 5-10 seconds of this burnout the tires should start to catch a little traction and you’ll start moving forward (unless your car is very very powerful, in that case your tires will be the only things moving and not the car). When you’ve moved forward about a couple of feet let off the gas and immediately press in the clutch and let the e-brake down or you’ll stall out in front of all those people watching you (very embarrassing). If at any point in the burnout u start to see your tires smoking wait about 2 seconds then disengage burnout. Trust me you’ll need some tires to get down the rest of the track. Or if your car starts turning too much to one side just stop the burnout.
.
MAKING SURE YOUR TIRES ARE CLEAN

The point of the burnout is not to impress everybody on the sidelines its to clean and heat your tires up. Now that your tires are heated make sure they’re clean…no don’t get out the car just pull up a couple more feet but not to close to the staging line, stop and rev up to 3000 rpm and drop clutch or let go of the brakes for auto’s (no e-brake). Get your tires to chirp or squeal. A slight chirp means the tires are in fact clean. If you don’t hear anything from the tires and your just spinning tires then they are not clean and since you paid good money to test your vehicle I’d back up and do quick burnout but without the e-brake. Hot, clean tires grip hot pavement. Also pay attention to how much tire spin and squeal there is because if there is too much you’ll want to launch with lower rpm’s.

LAUNCHING AT THE STAGING LIGHT

Finally we’re at the light. Please remember to fasten your safety belt, turn you’re A/C off, turn your music down or off, and make sure the e-brake is NOT engaged, close sunroof/moonroof, and close windows or leave cracked so you can hear your tires. Inch up to the line and stop. If the other car is already there then rev up to 2000-4000 rpm or so depending on your tires and what you learned during the cleaning session after your burnout. If the other car isn’t staging yet then just wait until they are so you don’t put too much heat underneath the hood holding rpm’s.
The light has started, your revved up and your focused…you are focused right? The first yellow is there, now the second (butterflies much?), and then third light GOOOO! Wait…what? Yes it is okay to go on the third or last staging light before the green. Don’t be scared to red light if anything try anticipate the third light so you can go as its turning on instead of as it is on. Drop clutch, feather the clutch, or for auto’s let go of the brake the main point is to keep your rpm’s as constant as possible until you feel your tires catch traction. At a 2500 rpm launch stock tires won’t usually catch traction so why do people give it more gas??? Hold your rpm’s and slightly feather the gas as your tires are catching traction. Try to anticipate the tires gripping and give it a lot of gas a split second before they catch. For those of you with performance street tires or slicks can launch a little higher and since your going to catch traction much sooner apply gas much earlier. The more you know your car the better. If the car bogs down launch a little higher next time but remember if your tires are spinning…then your not going anywhere. And if you launch to really high and do catch traction then you still may have passed the “meatiest” part of your powerband.

CONCLUSION

With this series of methods I’ve managed to pull a 2.435’s 60 ft. time in a 91 accord lx on stock tires with just an intake. After I upgraded to yokohama tires i was able to launch at about 3500-4000 without my tires making a sound or spinning much at all if any. The tires made my launches very predictable and consistent. So after a couple runs at the track launching at 3500-4200 i noticed i was losing 1/8th mile et's because i was launching past the meaty part. After i got off the mountain i was on because i bought new tires and lowered my launches to 2600-3000 i gained my et's back and lowered the 60ft a bit more.The key point through all of this is to hold your rpm’s and don’t apply more gas if your tires are spinning too much. If you think you can improve traction by reducing the tire pressure then definitely do so but don’t go below 15 psi because you still have to get home. 25 psi is good and should work out very well at the tracks and on the way home.

[vasponger]

cool! i hope to get to a track in the spring

[jdmaccordbo!916]

heheheh good ish yo.. alot of good points for ppl to read up on... :D

[TheFirstNutZo]

yeah very interesting since I've rolled AT as long as I've been into performance accords, I never really thought about it, this thread was perfectly timed for my new MT car :)

[jdmaccordbo!916]

heheheheh. so i was driving my gurls car around today, an i was hella messing with her head telling her i was going to do a burn out at every light we stoped at... i would start to resite the instructions outloud an she was getting hella scared like i was realy going to...heheheh it was hella funny, cause she had just been reading this thread you wrote...

[vasponger]

ahaha my ex used to drive me home from school, i told her i couldnt drive stick, so the first thing i do was peel out and hit 60 down the backroad in our neighborhood, she never let me drive her car again

[jdmaccordbo!916]

ya i wouldnt be surprised if she did not let me drive her car again either...she was pretty nervase.. but shit i would be to if i knew that she did not drive a stick before..(well ok i have, but not on the public streets untile then...lmao) sad i know but im self tought... i learned on (SAAB 93's 95's aeros an vigans..)
an at the same time (jaguar v12's xk8's xkR's s-types x-types an all the other cool cars jaguar has out.... ) hehehe an that job only lasted about 3 months...

[vasponger]

yeah i learned on a 4spd toyota truck, never got passed 2nd gear cause it was on the sand in NC OBX, and no lights, stop signs, streets....

[jaccord96]

damn my girl drives a geo...no fun there. but she plans to buy an integra(i tried to get her to go accord but shes a little person and wants a little car) so mabey....

[TheFirstNutZo]

have her get a 4th gen 2dr accord, those are almost as small as the integras. Integras aren't bad though... they are wicked quick.

[jdmaccordbo!916]

yo nutzo.. update on that accord i was telling you about.. i totaly miss understood the guy on the year... i talked to him today an he sadi it is a 93 accord two door... so i got my hopes up for no reason... i was realy hopen it was a two door 5th gen.... but hey its an accord right...

[vasponger]

i floored my auto accord, no reving or ebrake, in d3 and i peeled out. im so happy

[TheFirstNutZo]

yo nutzo.. update on that accord i was telling you about.. i totaly miss understood the guy on the year... i talked to him today an he sadi it is a 93 accord two door... so i got my hopes up for no reason... i was realy hopen it was a two door 5th gen.... but hey its an accord right...
its an accord and a 4th gen... it doesn't get any better than that offer him like 800-900. Put a H22 in there and you end up with a nice car for like 3500, plus some incidentals. 4th gens are way cooler than 5ths if they are done right, 5ths are too common.

[jdmaccordbo!916]

5ths are too common. ya that is starting to be way to true out this way.. when i first started working on mine, i only seen like maybe two or three others... an now i cant even go 1/2 mile without seeing about 6 or so fixed up... oh well

[TheFirstNutZo]

yep roll a 4th gen its cooler :)

[OOAccordVTECOO]

Ya u should get the 4th gen they are cool as hell when all done up, i was the only one around here when i started workin on my 5th gen and now there is way to many

[midnite racer x]

heheheheh. so i was driving my gurls car around today, an i was hella messing with her head telling her i was going to do a burn out at every light we stoped at... i would start to resite the instructions outloud an she was getting hella scared like i was realy going to...heheheh it was hella funny, cause she had just been reading this thread you wrote...


LOL u memorized it!?!? I'm touched ::crys::, oh and a good way to practice maintaining rpms right when u launch is to do it on the street. Rev to like 1400-1600 rpm, drop clutch and do ur damndest to hold whatever u dropped at until ur clutch catches...hella tricky and u shouldn't even chirp at that rpm so cops won't get worked up if they see u. I hadn't noticed the thread had gotten so long either.

oh and i'm wondering if i should add in the thing about automatics using the lower gear for more low-end torque when at a stop...what do u guys think? Cause i thought everybody knew it but i guess not.

[vasponger]

i was playing with my auto in the gears and i noticed it was hard to peel out in 1 and 2 but d3 and d4 it was easy, so i just start out in 3rd

[TheFirstNutZo]

i was playing with my auto in the gears and i noticed it was hard to peel out in 1 and 2 but d3 and d4 it was easy, so i just start out in 3rd
In my auto... if I rev it up in neutral and drop it down into 1 it screams like a bitch (burning rubber), just about no matter how low the rpm is.

If I put it down in 1, hold down the brake, and push the gas until about 1800-2000RPM and release the brake, it doesn't chirp or anything it accelerates really fast with no hesitation at all. Also, if you put it in 1 for sure there is less hesitation of going, since dpending on how far you push down the pedal in D3/D4, the auto transmission may just start you in 2 instead of 1, depends on whether you floor it or not.

[vasponger]

i can only freely move my stick from 1 to neutral, or from neutral to d3

[TheFirstNutZo]

i can only freely move my stick from 1 to neutral, or from neutral to d3
really? here's my configuration

P_
R_
N
D4
D3
2_
1_

(the ones with the _ are the ones that require me to press the button in on the side of the shifter)

SO if I rev it up in N I have to pull it a LONG way down to 1, but it slides in smoothly. My only problem with being in 1 is that when I pop it up to 2 around redline I always hit about 7k before it finally shifts, and I just haven't gotten it quite right yet when to tell it to go to 2 for it to go to 2.

[midnite racer x]

I was told by a very reliable source a year or two back that revving up an automatic in neutral then dropping it into gear can rip apart the tranny. The guy is one of my neighbors and he did it in his moms camry and dropped her tranny...literally. So thats y i was saying use the brake instead of revving neutral. I didn't even wanna mention the revving in neutral thing. I'm not sure what gear to use in the auto because everyone of them is different and the different gears make diff torque. Does anybody know for sure which gear in an auto should be used for racing?

[vasponger]

yeah the neutral thing is bad, im gonna go try the 1 and 2 gear but so far 3 works the best for me, it doenst downshift i dont like unlike gunnin it in 4th

[TheFirstNutZo]

yeah... if you rev it in neutral and drop into gear, the car slams and you gotta feel sorry for the transmission. Still fun as shit tho :)

[jdmaccordbo!916]

ya neautral dumps in an auto are going ot pay a toll on the trannie.. take it from me, im on number two in just under a year.. you gotta love warrantys though... lmao... lattly i just been going to a start from good ol d4 an once the car gets rollin, dump it into 1st... it spins the tires just about every time i do it.. an it always seems to get a good look on the other guys face when your car spins an pulls on him like that...hehehehe

[TheFirstNutZo]

well I've got a MT now, so I dun' give a crap no more :) I am going to get my registration taken care of today (hopefully)

[jdmaccordbo!916]

well pooo on you mister MT im just little ol auto over here...lol... good luck with the registration shit though...

[TheFirstNutZo]

ON THE NOTE OF WHICH.... I NOW have a CLEAN title. NO LIENS. NO NOTHING. I have registration, tags, all i need is a state inspection which I will get on monday if at all possible. I may fail it cuz there are a few issues with the car but I think if it goes to the right place it'll be OK. :)

[jdmaccordbo!916]

well if there is a few small issues, then why not take a little drive up an see patrick you know he has hella parts layin around...

[TheFirstNutZo]

yeah I think I'm going to go see him soon :)

[jdmaccordbo!916]

tell him i said what up when you see him.. an tell him he needs to make an apperince on here some time...

[TheFirstNutZo]

okay I will do that, I'm sure he'll be happy to have word from the outside world he's almost as far in the boonies as I am and from the looks of it his internet is crapping out on him.

[vasponger]

Suprise Va Meet At Pats House

[TheFirstNutZo]

yeah! that'd be really funny, he would probably either be dissapointed (cuz he is busy and can't partake) or psyched out. Since he lives on the James, if we have a meet at his place in the summer we could go swimming.

[vasponger]

err go right ahead hahaha i aint gettin in the james river

[jaccord96]

oh and i'm wondering if i should add in the thing about automatics using the lower gear for more low-end torque when at a stop...what do u guys think? Cause i thought everybody knew it but i guess not.

yup, also the correct e-brake launching for an auto....i always drove stick, dont know bout this auto launching thing. thanx

[TheFirstNutZo]

what wrong with the James? it doesn't get too nasty until richmond.

[takezo]

So where's Pat now?

[vasponger]

in the boonies in the middle of VA

[midnite racer x]

i see my thread is a "sticky" now...whats that mean?

[jdmaccordbo!916]

i have know idea at all.. i think it is a little lightbulb.. (maybe meaning good idea or something) i dunno im just guessing...lol

[jaccord96]

it means it will always stay at the top regardless of new posts..... im almost positive anyway

[jdmaccordbo!916]

um ya what he said....


i knew that...lmao.. realy i did... heheheheheh

[midnite racer x]

it means it will always stay at the top regardless of new posts..... im almost positive anyway


damn...that means i did good huh?

[jdmaccordbo!916]

ya id say so... i wish to have a post on the top of things one day... for now it will be my post counter... but it was a realy good rightup bro... you got my approvale

[midnite racer x]

i would like to do a shifting 101 but there are so many variants in shifting that i've picked up. I combined about 3 tech articles into my own and shift really fast now. Maybe even just as fast b4 i installed the short shifter. What other tech articles would u guys like covered? I'll see what i can do although i will do or document my custom turbo package from the day i get it till the day i install it

[jdmaccordbo!916]

give me a day or two an ill get back to you with an idea of what to right up on... :p

[midnite racer x]

its been more than 2 days jdm :o :p

[jdmaccordbo!916]

dangit.. im fresh out :D of ideas right now...lol.. um im still thinkin...

[Thunderbread]

*back to original topic*

Good info!!!

(catching up on my reading!!)

I'll be practicing that (like I don't test already at every light) in hopes of happy launching come spring/summer...

That tire pressure info should be mantra!!

Thanks and keep up the racing tech!!

*back off topic*

Yeah....where is Pat??

[cashmoney0596]

yeah try finding shit on shifting a 98-01 AT accord i just do the good ol d4 until about 60 cause if u push it to the floor and wait about a sec the RPM's shoot up like a bizotch and u just take off but once i hit about 60-70 i pull it down to d3 and ill hit about 3500(after i pull down to d3) and i just redline it at about 5500then shift and it take a min and it will shift at 6000 and the rpms pull me up 2 100mph before i got to throw to D4 i still dont do to well in 1/4 but i can hold my own (only stock) but u give me a mile and ill be ballin

[r33accord]

flooring it will automatically (haha hah.. get it? automatic.. ok bad joke) downshift...

and shifting through the tranny will surely lower its life. ive said this a lot b4.. honda trannys are super squishy and are made to last long, but not with abuse

[vasponger]

actually............ shifting up will not hurt it (it wont break just wear down slowly) the tranny, dropping it from d3 to 2nd is asking for trouble, tranny, engine mounts, actuall engine depending on how fast you are going thats just a horrible thing to do, basically the only reason to press the auto button to shift is for park and reverse and to drive. never to down shift!

[r33accord]

hehe, like i said.. shifting it will break it. lol!

[AllShowNoGo]

actually............ shifting up will not hurt it (it wont break just wear down slowly) the tranny, dropping it from d3 to 2nd is asking for trouble, tranny, engine mounts, actuall engine depending on how fast you are going thats just a horrible thing to do, basically the only reason to press the auto button to shift is for park and reverse and to drive. never to down shift!

ya i said something like that a while go

[vasponger]

hehe, like i said.. shifting it will break it. lol!

so stop shifting it mike and give me your tranny
:cool:

[r33accord]

so stop shifting it mike and give me your tranny
:cool:
its not the shifting thats killing mine.. its the pressure from the power and heat transfer. even with my upgraded cooling system and transmission coolers, ive been getting problems.
hah, that reminds me of an incident... ever see a radiator explode? mine did! lol... (not recently.. it was a few months back.. my ect went bad and so much pressure built up in the radiator, that it blew straight out the bottom tank and towards the fan. dude it was so scary i thought it was a terrorist attack... yes, bin laden was attacking me in a Jack n the Box drive thru

[AllShowNoGo]

hahaha..that sucks i fell stupid because i dont know what ect means

[vasponger]

is the tranny cooler working right? or is it still getting to hot even with it working. is it under normal driving conditions.


ohh and when MIKE and TRANNY is mentioned in the same post, youre allowed to look dumbfounded.

[97stockaccordex]

I assume that changing from my stock wheels to 18in Hankook Ventus HR will increase my launching capabilities. I still have stock suspension and brakes, but those are soon to come. Rims are 18 inch Motegi FF5 silver, they look good but would shine if I had some big red brakes behind them.

[Accord4me]

bigger wheel will blunt your acceleration and give you more legs to run faster on, it will also throw off your speedometer... but inshort small wheels = best launch on cars under 200 hp ish and larger wheels will make you run faster. so you might not beable to out accel him but you will out run his ass. and since you triced your speedo off you can go a bit higher than your speedlimiter alows, but you will not see it on your read out.

[jdmcord]

k i know how to launch now, but when im down the road or strip, when do i shift? do i shift whenever it gets to the redline on the rpm guage, or do i shift when it gets to the redline that it says when u read from engine specs? mine is like 5200 ish, i dunno?

[jdmakkord7]

you can almost feel when the hp curve goes down thats when i shift wich is about 7000 rpm. but i wouldnt go past redline bc if you dont have a vtec its no use becaus thats the only reason people redline is to keep the vtec on

[jdmcord]

oh, so i would shift like at 5200 rpm's? since im sohc and notec?lol

[Slick2001AccordEx]

Peak Hp is usualy 500 rpms past the redline, I could be wrong , but bringing your rpms about 500 past the red line also improves your acceleration, just because when you shift your rpms arnt going to drop as much.
it works for me,

[Five-speed]

When i start i uually bring it too 6 on rev and after that i usually shift around 5000-5700 i never go past redline it makes me nervous but if your racing automatics i usually stay in second until 5700

[Accord4me]

well the power curve on the F23A4 peaks and drops off after 5900 rpm, but mine can rev to 6500. past 6000 rpm its not making mutch power. Peak torque is made at 4700 rpm so between 4700 rpm and 5900 rpm is my prime power band, so for me it doesnt make mutch since to rev to the fuel cut off at 6,500rpm unless i want to drop my next gear right into the middle of my power band. most of our accord engines are making peak power between 4,500 and 5,500 rpm so mutch high than that and its just making noise

[Velocifero]

i take mine to about 8000 and shift. but my IAB sensor is out so it isnt really doing much good at the moment :D

[whitetank]

well the power curve on the F23A4 peaks and drops off after 5900 rpm, but mine can rev to 6500. past 6000 rpm its not making mutch power. Peak torque is made at 4700 rpm so between 4700 rpm and 5900 rpm is my prime power band, so for me it doesnt make mutch since to rev to the fuel cut off at 6,500rpm unless i want to drop my next gear right into the middle of my power band. most of our accord engines are making peak power between 4,500 and 5,500 rpm so mutch high than that and its just making noise


My car is the same. All my power is between 3000 and 5500rpm, It makes alot of noise when i go the the cut off. But there is alot of torque in the 2000rpm range. But i dont know... it is a auto anyways so i cant control the gears that good..... i can manually change gears by going from 1-2-3 on the gear shifter thing, but that stil does not help. OOOWWW well. lol hahaha

[Velocifero]

ima get a Hondata eventually and tune mine out, so the power is evenly distributed, not just at 5k when vtec kicks in.

[Accord4me]

accord vtec kicks in at 2500 rpm... unless u have an upgraded engine ore have chipped it, i want my Vtec to activate at 4700rpm cuz thats right at the begining of my power band, i would notice it alot more, all its doing right now is makes a deep throaty groan when i accel... at 2400 rpm its nothing then right at 2500 my SRI makes it soo loud when vtec high lift switches on...

[Velocifero]

accord vtec kicks in at 2500 rpm... unless u have an upgraded engine ore have chipped it, i want my Vtec to activate at 4700rpm cuz thats right at the begining of my power band, i would notice it alot more, all its doing right now is makes a deep throaty groan when i accel... at 2400 rpm its nothing then right at 2500 my SRI makes it soo loud when vtec high lift switches on...

i have an H22 man. it starts at 5k and redlines around 8k. i still yearn for more low end torque..

[jdmcord]

accord vtec kicks in at 2500 rpm...
whaaaaaaattt?!! wow, thats fucking low as hell!! why the hell would honda put vtec at such low rpm when the power band is not even there? man, this is bull shit, im gona go sleep now. bye

[AccordEx]

No. Accord VTEC, on F22B1 and F23As anyways, comes on when the ECU notices how much the gas pedal is pressed. For this to work, the engine has to be on normal operating temperaturs. It will not work if your engine is not warmed up.

These 2 engines do not have a certain RPM engagment point to those of H22 and B18 for example.

[Velocifero]

which style you do think is better?

[Velocifero]

which style you do think is better?
dang, ive been ignored for a minute huh

[AccordEx]

Style?
........
........

[Velocifero]

No. Accord VTEC, on F22B1 and F23As anyways, comes on when the ECU notices how much the gas pedal is pressed. For this to work, the engine has to be on normal operating temperaturs. It will not work if your engine is not warmed up.

These 2 engines do not have a certain RPM engagment point to those of H22 and B18 for example.
like how h22 vtec kicks in at a set rpm each time, and other ones u said are based on throttle position.

[AccordEx]

My style is whatever one I have. I got the F23 so I guess i'm stuck with the other style instead of the H22A's "VTEC at set RPM"

[hybrid_yellow]

hmmm i didnt know thier were different stlyes.....i thought they were all engaged at the same rpm but having said that it does depend on how much throttle your giving....i think ???

My celica gts hits "lift" (VVTL-I) at 6200 rpm and i shift at 8200....Every time all the time

[Velocifero]

hmmm i didnt know thier were different stlyes.....i thought they were all engaged at the same rpm but having said that it does depend on how much throttle your giving....i think ???

My celica gts hits "lift" (VVTL-I) at 6200 rpm and i shift at 8200....Every time all the time
well i could drive real slow in 1st and see if i notice any difference in power and sound. heh, that sounds crazy doesnt it.

[hybrid_yellow]

:hehe: I dont think i understand

[Velocifero]

hmmm i didnt know thier were different stlyes.....i thought they were all engaged at the same rpm but having said that it does depend on how much throttle your giving....i think ???

My celica gts hits "lift" (VVTL-I) at 6200 rpm and i shift at 8200....Every time all the time
it sounds like u were sayin, even tho mine always kicks at a set rpm, will it kick in even if im barely giving it gas aka throttle position. so ill just accellerate real slow in first until it hits 5k. my guess is, it will. ill find out somehow.

[hybrid_yellow]

I know whenever i miss gears in a race i dont hit LIFT.....and it sucks....:damnit:

[Velocifero]

I know whenever i miss gears in a race i dont hit LIFT.....and it sucks....:damnit:
ok so i did on my way home. i waited until my temperature gauge was in the middle of course.i was at a stop light and slooowly took off. i think it came on, but i didnt notice. so i put in 3rd, and continued on until about 40mph. i slapped that little bitch in 2nd and floored it. i pulled so hard my head hit the headrest. it was optimal conditions too, car just warmed up, and i was suckin in that 30 degree air. i love my car.. :inlove:

[Accord4me]

This site that i found should end every future "can i win" post... muyo u should sticky this site.... it has every make and modle and many trims 0-60 and 1/4 mile time....

behold the site that will cure it all

http://www.missouri.edu/~apcb20/times.html