And of course Ramanan...

Try a 2nd gear hard launch and tell me if you get any wheel hop or just a cloud of tire smoke.

I had to get across the street and was in 2nd and decided to see what would occur on a hard launch in 2nd. There was a ton of smoke and two long black strips left on the pavement completely even. But the nice part was that there no wheel hop at all.

I understand partially why this could occur but wanted to verify this with others to eliminate remote possibilities.

 

hmmm.

When you say hard launch....... dump the clutch at 4500?

 

I was easily able to break them loose at 3k revs. But if you want to launch at 4500, go right ahead.

 

sounds dangerous at 4500

 

but would that make your car quicker or slower 0-60

 

If you don't bog off the line... it should make it quicker IF you are in VTEC once you stop spinning.

On street-tires it might be a good idea! Of course right now I don't want to try any type of 'launching'

 

Wow, Scalbert, sounds like you stumbles on to a nifty Idea for you SC'ed 6 folks.

 

Right now 1st gear is difficult and takes extremely delicate throttle control. You can't go anything much over 50% throttle without spinning and hopping.

If 2nd gear can be launched in, controlled and held well it should produce more repeatable times. But it might also reduce overall ETs. One shift is removed which would drop the times provided time is not lost due to the lack of gearing used (not using 1st). However, you will only accelerate as quickly as there is available traction. If 2nd is on the verge (or past it) of no grip it will accelerate as quickly as 1st has the potential too.

If some slip can be had off the line in 2nd but still controllable, I would suspect that better times could be had on street tires.

 

To the tires...

 

If 1st gear is almost unusable, it sounds like a supercharged 6spd might be a canidate for some gear ratio changes in the gear box

 

1st gear is on the brink of being useless in NA cars... a more aggressive NA car has the same traction problems in 1st as a S/C'd car!

 

1st gear on slightly moddified NA 6speed is pretty much useless unless you have warm temps and sticky tires.

 

The 1st time I went to the dragstrip with my mustang I couldnt use 1st gear at all. 60's were in the 2.5 range due to crappy all season tires and a very steep 1st gear combined with steeper than stock final drive gears. I ended up launching in 2nd the majority of the da and got some pretty respectable times. If you can keep it from bogging it will probably be just as fast, if not faster than using 1st and having to pussy-foot it out of the hole.

 

That is the nice part of having the roots style blower; the low end torque addition. It certainly does not bog right now when leaving in 2nd.