I bought some drag radials & 01 CL-S wheels for the track. The tires are 225/45/17 BFG G-Force T/A's. They are super soft and should help with my traction problems.

My problem is that my car does not like any kind of aggressive launches. I have not tried any launches with the drag radials yet, but I did try some with the stock tires. On dry pavement I tried setting the e-brake all the way and dropping it from increments of 3k, 4k & 5k. All I got was violent wheelhop and some smoke.

I then found a lot with some water on it from the sprinkler systems. I rolled through it and tried to do a burnout like you would in the water box at the track. It spun more easily, but still the same violent wheelshop. I definitely have to engage the e-brake all the way, cuz it will roll way too much if I dont.

Any tips/suggestions? I'm goingto the track within a week or two hopefully, so I wanna make the most out of these tires.

 

you have a 6 speed manual and your setting your e-brake?? i thought with manual you can just drop clutch at whatever RPMs you want, granted it will not be the best for your clutch but it should be able to handle certain revs

 

lemme know when ur gonna go joe, lets wait for it too cool off a bit

 

Yeah, but if I dont set the e-brake it just rolls forward and thats not what you want to do at the track. I want to be able to sit on the dge of the water box & get some smoke out of the tires without any major wheelhop.

 

well u were practicing on the stockers, i'd imagine it would be alot different on the dr's

 

Well I had this expierence with my 02 Sentra Spec-V... Lots a torque for a little car gave me wheel hop even under pushing the car moderately in acceleration. As far as i learned on the "thevboard" was that the motor is moving too much....two MOST effective ways that i have heard of to avoid or lessen wheelhop are stiffer or performance motor mounts, and the little less effective way of upgrading the suspension... (ie new springs and shocks) Just thought I would share my expierence since i thought it would be relevent. Good luck

 

I know solid motor mounts would probably solve it, but who in their right mind would want that amount of harsness in a semi-luxury car?

 

u think installing your springs would help the launch joe??

 

Haha that's what i was thinking. On the VBoard many members were taking their motor mounts and filling them with... I cant seem to remember, something like 80 shore poly urethane or something of that nature, so they wont be as harsh as solid ones. But you might just want to try new springs and shocks to see if that helps, i know its not the cheepest way but hey why not try to limit wheel hop and improve handling at the same time! Maybe some other members can chime in to help out with the wheelhop issue for ya.

 

I guess the springs could help, but I dont plan on installing them till next spring. I dont feel like putting them on right before winter is all. What about spring isolators for the rears so it doesnt squat as much? Dont they make rubber things that go between the coils to limit movement?

 

I havent heard about those too much, logically it sound like it would work if they were stiff enough. In theory they would have to be very stiff, and for rubber type inserts i honestly dont think they would be too effective IMO. Worth a try if they are too expensive.

 

Stiffer motor mounts alone won't solve your probem. Neither will springs. And doing both of them will absolutely destroy the ride (and handling, unless you do the whole car). Not to mention, you'll have to change everything back when selling the car - no one will want it like that.

The problem is 1) its a FWD, terrible for dragging; 2) it was designed as a luxury/GT type of car, not a dragster (barely a "sporty" car with all the weight); 3) until you can find a way to control the wheel hop, you wasted your money on the tires - it'll run faster on the stock tires not bouncing around than on the drag tires spending as much time going up and down as forward.

Try not cowboying the clutch and spinning so much. It doesn't make any difference how sticky the tires are if they're not touching the pavement.

 

look at the PRO FWD class drag cars.....

look at allmotor's quarters...

look at the srt-4

 

Ok, lets get it straight that I dont intend on making my CL-S some type of drag car. I know it'll never be a great platform for racing, but I can at least try to get it to be sufficient. We'll see if it was a waste of money or not.

 

Scalbert's got something built for the wheel hop. You need to hold off until you see if what he's comes up with works. You risk breaking the drive shafts if you try launching hard with the DR's without dealing with the wheel hop first.

 

Is there a way to overried or fool the ecm/pcm to make the vacuum motor mounts stiffer? Or is it at full stiffness at wot?

 

I dont plan on trying to rip any 1.8 60's, so I dont think I'll have any drivetrain problems. If wheelhop is a big problem I'll just avoid the water box and run on the dr's without heating them up. It wont be 100% optimal, but better than hurting something. What about tire pressures? Does lower pressures help or hurt wheelphop, and again what about the spring isolators? I would think that if you limited the coil compression that it would prevent the wheels from bouncing up & down, doesn that make sense?

 

When i had my 2000 GTS (celica) i did it once and i did it without wheel hop.
I did use my e-Brake but i didn't rev it real high and just drop it, i mostly eased in to it with a lower rpm drop, then i gunned it....produced a lot of smoke, i couldn't see anything, this was in a parking lot in tampa where everyone was egging me on to do one.

 

I have also only once got it to do it smoothly. It was cold out and I was at a light. I didnt really know it was doing anything until I started to smell the smoke. Maybe a smooth but aggressive application of power, instead of a harsh clutch dump helps?

 

Trying lowering your tire pressure. Factory recommends 32psi, try launching with about 25 psi. This makes the tire a little softer, in general (not the rubber). As opposed to a totally inflated tire where the tire pressure inside makes it really stiff and just skips across the ground. Maybe that might solve your problem. And this might actually have a relation to your cold night launch. As your tire gets warm, the air inside expands making your tires stiffer from the pressure. On a cold night, maybe the air wouldn't have expanded as much. Try it out and see what happens.

 

Suspension will solve the wheel hop, lower your tire pressure and don't start your burn out until you have rolled the front wheels out of the water box. Have a friend line you up so that you are straight. When you start the burn out the car may want to go to the left or right, so it's better to be safe with someone lining you up. Pull the EBrake and let her rip. You also may want to slip a bit to help avoid the hop, but we are talking about a FWD Acura, so it's more or less the wrong car to be taking to the strip. You'll need a lot more then suspension to eliminate it completely, but it will be your most effective route. And don't go just springs, you need to control the rebound. Springs will lower your center of gravity, but if you leave the stock shocks, they will bounce on the new springs just like your stockers do.

On the track, you will need to drop at a much higher RPM then the street because the tracks are prepped with VHT that is essentially a layer of glue on the pavement. If you launch at street RPMs you will bog and waste your run. Also, I would invest in a race clutch if you haven't already. When you do your burn out, you are trying to heat the tires, not make the most smoke. If you want to do that, buy a Supra. You will know when they are ready because the squeeling will suddenly turn into a high screech.

You have a street car, so I doubt you will have the benifit of a long burnout that will lay down launch rubber, but in the pros, we actually will burn out past the start line. What this does is lays down strips of rubber of which the crew chief (or in your case, your friend that lined you up) will then line you back up over the rubber strips so you are launching on rubber to rubber rather then rebber to pavement. Also your friend should line you up to the first stage bulb and make sure you are once again straight as well. After that, it's all up to you.

I'm on one of the top Pro FWD teams in the nation, so if you have any questions, let me know.

Bo

 

I have a Celica now. They have stiffer mounts, much stiffer suspension, is a much lighter car at only 2500lbs and come stock with horrible tires. Combine all that and burnouts aren't that hard. It's a sporty little car vs. a medium sized luxo coupe. I can never imagine putting my GF's CL through the hell my Celica has no problem going through.

 

Well I know the procedures and the workings of the drag strip, but I appreciate the info.

I guess I'll just have to be one of the pioneers because it doesnt seem like too many people, if any at all have ran at the track with drag radials + 6 speed on here. And I have Tokico Illumina shocks (5 way adjustable), so I wont be bouncing all over the place with the stock struts.

 

I put money you'll need a new clutch in less then 10K with those DRs. I hope I'm wrong. If you have the suspension, install it first. No point in putting unwanted stress on the rest of the car as it hops around.

 

I just bought the dr's for the track, which will be a 2-3x a year outing with the Acura. I'll probably re-sell them after a couple events to be honest. I just want to know what the best1/4 time I can get without having to worry so much about shitty tires. I have no intention of making it a drag car, or taking it to the drag strip often. Thats what my Mustang is for, and its pretty good at it.

 

From my track experience with my 6 speed, if your tires have enough grip wheel hop will not be a problem. The last runs I did were with these POS Michelin pilot A/S's (which are nice road tires but suck at the track) I ran them at 23 PSI & didn't get an ounce of wheel hop. They did spin like a bitch & made me bog off the line, but the wheel hop wasn't there. The higher the tire pressure was the more wheel hop I'd get. I started with 28 & went down from there. With normal pressure on the street I get hop. As with allmotor & the others with turbo's have said, the biggest problem with the CLS is getting traction.

 

Here is my take on it. Without significant work which will hurt normal driving comfort, you need something (in conjunction with the slicks) to bolt on at the track. What really needs to be cured is the front to back motion of the wheel. More weight kept on the front and limiting the front to back motion should help to cure this or at least minimize it.

To do this would be two steps. The first would be use rear spring blocks to keep more weight on the front during the launch. I'd actually get the rear raised up some by installing the block with the rears removed and on a jack.

To limit the front to rear movement of the tires I'm just about done with some bolt on front radius rods (torque arms). These will bolt up to the lower suspension near the sway end link connection and then to the front tow hook. They are adjustable and can be installed in minutes at the track then remove prior to leaving.

You would be a good candidate to test them.

The other way costs more but seems to work decently. Install a turbo or the SC and do 2nd gear burn outs. It doesn’t seem to hop in 2nd gear pulls but you need the additional power to really get it spinning.

 

Thanks Scalbert, thats the kind of info I was looking for.

For the spring blocks (which I know nothing about btw), how difficult are they to install (I assume not hard) and where can I find them? Is it something that can be done at the track or should I do it prior? When you say to have the 'rears removed' you mean the rear wheels correct? Just want to make sure I'm reading it right. So basically jack up the rear of the car so the tires are off the ground & put the blocks in.


I always do a 2nd gear burnout with my mustang, but that has alot more tq than my CL-S, and with the live axle doesnt have any wheelhop problems. I had thought about it, but I'm sure it would cause undue stress on my clutch trying to get the wheels to spin with that amount of gearing, at my power level anyways.

Any links on the spring blocks?

 

I made my own spring blocks from polyurethane bar stock. But you can buy some generic ones at any auto parts store. They are used to compensate for load changes such as attaching a trailer, etc. And yes, just jack up the rear, pull the tires, install spring block and re-install tires. You could do this at home and drive to the track, just take it easy through turns and the ride will be affected. But there is no reason why it can't be temporary.

The idea is the limit the rearward weight transfer that you want with the Mustang. We don't want this with FWD so you try and keep the rear from squating during the launch which keeps more weight on the front.

Any interest in testing the fron torque arms?? They would be a bolt up affair with just a wrench and socket but should only be installed and run at the strip.

 

What I plan to do is go to the track this coming week and see how the car performs with just the drag radials mounted up. If it hooks up like I want it to and my ET is improved I will probably not do anything additional to it. If I find that wheelhop is a big problem I will first try the spring blocks and then go from there. The tq arms sound like a decent idea, but for me probably isnt needed. I really am just doing this out of curiosity, not out of a desire to make it a drag strip car, and it probably wont see the drag strip very often at all. Maybe some time in the future, I dunno.

What about subframe connectors? I know for my mustang it helped stiffen the chassis a ton, and I know that it helps with chassis flex for about any car. has anyone done anything like that, or just the typical swaybar swap? And would SFC's help handling/rigidity at all in the CL-S?

 

Yeah, thats true, my celica also had coil overs and nitto 555 tires.

 

I wonder why my transmission sucks....I'm just tryin' to do some burnouts"

also another indicator of why resale on the CL-S may be lower - people beating the crap out of them...then when they sell they say "adult driven and maintained" yep...

 

I have urethane filled motor mounts, urethane filled radius rod bushings, Comptech springs and Konis. My wheel hop is not nearly as violent as before but it will still hop on a really aggresive launch or in the wet. I've been wanting to try a set of spherical bearings to replace the radius rod bushings. Even with the urethane in them they are still very thick and soft pieces of rubber. THis seems to be where most of the slop is. The hop can be eliminated by adding a brace that pre-loads the suspension but I think you should be able to accomplish the same thing with the stock radius rods and spherical bearings. I wish I had a set. I'm installing new springs tommorow.

 

The other reason to line up on the rubber you've laid down is so your tires are on the same type of rubber. They will stick better. Rubber from a different brand/type of tire with a different compound may not stick as well with your tires. And there is lots of other car's rubber at the start line.

 

The radius arms are all you need for the wheel hop. TRY THEM!

 

The problem with that is there is no real simple way to make a streetable set for the CL. THe Civics and Integras that use the radius arm traction bars have a totally different lower arm. THe CL already has radius rods built right in. THey just bolt through big rubber pillows. I think the spherical bearing deal might work I'm just nervous about durability if one broke loose the front wheels could go every-whicha-way.

 

Streetable,.... are you racing on the street?

j/k

 

Wheel hop can find you. even on the street.

 

Steve,... hows the geometry on your set-up? Is the travel limited to straight line only? Any installed pis?

 

It is ground clearance that is the problem. I need to drill out the holes for the tow hook attachment brackets a bit better before hooking it up finally. With the last set of ICs nearing completion I should be able to allocate time soon to this hour process.

I've got to get it ready soon in time to go to the track.