Tuning the Computer system

I learned that in my car the computer system is important for racing. Ford programmed my car to get good gas milage and not programmed for the most horsepower i can get out of my car it was also tuned for 87 octane gas not any racing gas. So i got a tuner and tuned my car. This tuner changed the timing in  my mustang with whatever mod I got I could tune my car to that mod. tuning can also change your air to fuel ratio, or gear ratio to get the right speed limit on the size tires you have or gears you have. having a tuner helps me squeeze every last horsepower i can get from my car. I tuned my car to take 93 octane gas. every 1 more octane in gas equals 3 more horsepower. so going from 87 to 93 was about 21 horsepower at the crank. These tuners help cause it helped me by 3 tenth of a second in my 1000 foot track. Thats 4 tenth of a second in the quarter mile. these can be helpful for automatics to help shift points and firmness. when i ordered my tuner i got my first bold on mod. A cold air intake with a high flow reusable filter. I could feel a difference i knew this can wake up a car just by a little bit. It'll sound, very little more aggressive and also be more aggressive. but be careful if your tuning it you can seriously mess your car up if it isn't tuned right. Tuning mine i heard pinging from the engine for a while i use sea foam and the wonders help and the pinging went away and I've never heard the pinging after i used maybe 3 bottles of sea foam. tuning could mess you ECU up your computer system. And if you mess it up to bad you might have to get it re-flashed by your dealership for around 200 dollars. dyne tunes really help much more. but be careful who you chose to tune your vehicle sometimes cars blow on dyne jets or blow while driving it hard from a tune. i use a hand held tuner which i know how to work with and i use my tunes from Bama on a SCT tuner.

building the rearend

A drag car is nothing without a read end no stock rear end can handle a pair of slicks for to long most people get away with it but one day there rear end will break. i did my research and taught myself what i needed to get for a pair of slicks and a very strong rear end. I heard f150 differentials could handle lots of power and were way stronger than stock gt differentials. so i found one with 4.10 gears bolted on off a f150 so i had the differential but i needed solid more strong axles so i dumped the 28 spline axles and switched to moser 31 spline axles. 31 spline is just more splines to grip and less stress on those splines on the axles so it would almost be impossible to break. think off it like this 28 people trying to lift 500 pounds compared to 31 people trying to lift 500 pounds puts less stress on each person with is what these splines are doing for these axles. having 4.10 gears is a need for wider more sticky tires. so i got some 11.5 inch wide slicks. if you have a mustang i highly suggest the 4.10 over 3.73 or 3.90 or whatever if not 4.10 gears id go 4.30 gears its not gonna hurt that much especially if i have almost full bolt ons and still get 26 mpg. so go all the way!

Racing

This weekend i went to the races to test out my new throttle body from going from a stock 65 mm throttle body and plenum to a 75 mm throttle body and plenum i went from a 10.72 @ 93mph to 10.65 @94mph. this helped me by .07 seconds in 1000 foot and .18 seconds in 1/4 mile. so the test of a throttle body was a success over all and help my times to be faster. My 60 foot went from a 1.75 to a 1.71. all my times went all down and my speed went up on everything. That night i raced 5 races. Won 4 lost 1. My first race was against a dodge hemi. She ran around 11.1 and I ran a 10.7 it was the closest race of all of my races that night. The next race was against a Boss this boss ran in the 11's in the 1/4 mile. so he ran a 9.8 in the 1000 foot i ran a 10.7 i was beating him off the line due to my slicks and me being able to launch at higher rpm's I also had better 60 foot time than he did but after that he took off and beat me. My next race was against a other boss this time I beat this one seems he didn't have a good start but a win is a win running a 10.65. The next race was against a GTO with bigger cams i head the big loops from the engine it was making so I thought it was for sure. We raced and I ended up beating him running a 10.69. My lost race was against a v6 2010 blue mustang with 125 shot of NOS. This was my last race of the night and won beating him over a second. running a 10.7 and him running a 11.9. After these races I was satisfied with the night and left. Now since i have NOS and can't use it because i don't wanna blow my 2valve engine I'm gonna work on trading it for long tube headers to have a full basic bolt on mustang without forced induction or head or cam work.   This is a video of Me vs the GTO

 This is a video of Me vs the boss the one I lose

Basics of Drag Racing

In drag racing is pretty simple it doesn't always count who's car is faster but who has the best reaction time off the line, who drives better. It factors a lot of things, if you want a faster time down the track hardly get on stage this will help your time because since your hardly on the sensor when you take off you'll have some moment and more speed right when you get off the sensor, which is right when the timer starts. If you want to finish first scoot up to the front of the sensors. this will give you a little bit of a lead. Another key to drag racing is the better driver. If you have street tires your focusing on good traction and good shifts where you don't spin out to much because wheels spinning equals slower times.  traction is key to better times. Also if you have street tires  there is no need for burnouts street tires are all you need is a small burnout to clear tires and warm them up just a bit. For people who have drag slicks running 8 or less PSI in them. Well you have no worries for traction after burnouts on a track if you don't get traction it might be time to get some wider slicks. Slicks are very sticky after burnouts with the soft rubber compound they have. Ive heard of many people bogging with slicks. I never have once before yet but with slicks and a built rearend I've launched so many times at 6000 rpm's and had perfect take offs from street tires to slicks i went from a 2.0 60 foot time to 1.72 and 60 foot shows how much traction you are getting and usually show how good your longer times are gonna be if you have a slow 60 foot then you 1/4 mile time is gonna be slower. Down the track you need to know where your peak of horsepower is at and power shift as fast as you can right at these spots. With good reaction times you can beat cars faster than yours by 1 to 7 tenths faster.

The Driver Matters

My name is Daniel and this is my first blog I've created. This is about what I've learned about racing, and the car I race with. before i raced i knew nothing about cars but as i started racing i wanted to know more and more about cars and how they work and how to make them better and I've learned the restricting areas on these cars to its top performance and what good advantages i have on them my first car and the one i have today a 2003 mustang GT. I bought it when I was 14 years old at an action. Not thinking id ever race one day I bought this car because I always loved mustangs. As i grew more mature i wanted to know more about cars and it grew in my interests.  till one day i found out about racing and well   didn't do so good in my first season at the track.       If you Watch top Gear it is clear that The Stig is the
First off i couldn't shift right or at the right places.    Best driver on the show. When racing in a slower
 Second off i didn't understand about i need             against a faster car he still wins. This is a great
 traction at take off. Of course i didn't under-           example of the "Good Driver Mod"
stand i need a fast reaction time to win. but that
 offseason i did a lot i worked and learned what i needed to do. I learned the good driver mod. No car can go its full potential without a good driver so i learned a good technic of shifting which is called power shifting. i learned that not letting go of the gas and pushing the clutch and slamming it in gear as fast as i can made the car faster by many tenths. This wasn't an easy one, i had to practice a lot to get this down and i became quiet fast my friend said "ha ha you shift faster than anybody else I've seen". I seemed to get this down after about half a year of practicing on the off season of racing. Most times I'd miss the gear and grind the synchros in the transmission but never anymore. But this could give me and advantage of shifting faster less time off the gas and more on it. And less time spent shifting off the gas instead foot left on the gas shifting faster. Especially faster than granny shifting which is letting off the gas and pressing the clutch then change gears. This takes so much time and its wasting time that could be spent up in the higher rpms where the most horsepower is at. This is another advantage of speed shifting. Speed shifting helps the rpms to stay up high where the peak of horsepower is at in a car. See, when you speed shift you stay on the gas and when you go out of that gear and slam it in the next as fast as you can you should only over rev only at tops of 250 rpms sometimes you shouldn't even notice it over rev this is good because that shows how fast you are shifting. Now you may think thats impossible but its not it only requires quickness and this will help your car be faster by many tenth of a second in a quarter mile. Most aftermarket short throw shifters can help you shift faster due to a shorter way to travel to get it in the next gear. Drag race cars shifters are all different one i saw had 4 levers he said first gear i pull this one back 2nd gear he'd pull the next lever back and third he'd pull the next lever back this can help shifting faster mostly probably because of the force of the car pulling you back you probably couldn't reach an put it in 3rd gear like a street car. Most people get aftermarket clutches to get easier grip from one gear to the next instead of grinding the synchros also because though they reached the max horsepower the clutch could handle and it would just get burnt out so they install better stronger clutched that are stiffer. My thought on automatics street cars lose that advantage of losses, 20-15% of the horsepower through the drivetrain. Manuals only lose about 10-15%. And that is a good advantage so if you want to drag race with a car a manual will make you go much faster than an automatic. As you learn to power shift you may wear down the synchros in the process of learn and also power shifting accelerates the wearing down process so you may need to do transmission rebuild like i have done this consists of replacing clutch, replace synchros for every gear, replace shift fork pad, sometimes you'll bend a shift for and need a new one of those, and if you get the bearings off without breaking them then you won't have to buy new bearings. i did synchros, and new clutch, new shift fork pad, also my shift for pin that held the fork in place fell off inside the transmission and we had to find it and put the pin back into place.