Put a brand new pair of 10" MT ET Drag slicks on 10" wide rims and took the car to the track last weekend. I tried 17 pounds of air in the slicks. The car weighed 3,814 pounds with me in it that day and I weigh about 172 pounds. It was very cold that day.. about 40-42 degrees F. I was slipping all the way down to about the 1000 foot mark..scary ride and my 1/4 mile times and mph were as bad as when I was using BFG TA street tires, though my 60 foots where a bit better. On the first run the car went side ways every time I shifted and put my foot into it. Every run after that, it felt like the rear was drifting out to the right up to the 1000' mark and I had to back peddle to keep it in line..she always seemed to straightened out about the 1000' market, and only then was able to floor it the rest of the way.

This is the first time I have ever used slicks. What am I doing wrong? Did I have the wrong air pressure for this heavy car (MT recommends 16-20 pounds) or was it the cold track?

My 67 camaro weighs 3600 lbs I ran 28x11.5x15 Mickeys and ran 10 lbs. Tried more, tried less, that seemed to work the best. Did you heat them up enough?

New slicks, cold day, and too much air in my opinion.

Try lowering the air about 2 psi on every other run to find what the car wants. I started at 20 and went down as low as 10.
Last outting I had was low 40's and I had no traction off the line no matter what I did. Maybe I wasn't heating the tires enough,maybe too cold of a track ???

I run McCreary's , but same problem.

Good luck next time out.

It was very cold that day.. about 40-42 degrees F. I was slipping all the way down to about the 1000 foot mark..scary ride .... MT recommends 16-20 pounds) or was it the cold track?
You seemed to have followed MT's instruction on air pressure. I would say its the COLD track.

I've had this happen to me with D5 compound slicks. No matter how hot one gets the slicks, the track sucks out the heat, Physics at its best.

what worries me most is the lack of traction down the track, rather than the start. Also, I can't figure out MT's recommendations. Others tell me it is hogwash and I need to drop the air much lower. MT says I absolutely do not less air.

I am expecting solid 11 sec times at 120mph outta this think with an easy launch. It ran high 12's at 106-108 with the the single 4-barrel and street tires. The blower motor and street tires saw 13-15 sec times with 4 sec 60 foots launching off idle and trying to back peddle best I could with the manual trans. I spun the tires to half track, but still saw 115mph. This time with the blower motor and new slicks, I was stuck in the 13's (easy launch) with no top speed higher than 110. I don't expect good times right out as I am a drag racing neophyte, but not this bad. I am going slower after adding over 200 horsepower and slicks.

It was test and tune for street cars..lots of stock station wagons running right through the water box and tracking water to the start. However, one supercharged 05 Mustang showed me his time slip in the 10's that day.

Well it's good to see you are up and running again. What do you have for suspension? (shocks, traction bars, etc..). 17psi is much to high of air pressure for slicks (are they radial slicks?). If they are radial slicks then the air pressure may be ok. If they are bias ply slicks you need lower air pressure (IMO). Tires are a big part of traction, but they are not everything. If you are not getting any weight transfer even the best slicks in the world aren't going to work.

Do you get any rise from the front end? Camaro's are nose heavey, and adding a blower only makes them that much more nose heavy. The cold track didn't help and I am sure they didn't prep the track all that well for the event.

Royce,

I bought the slicks last Sprong but didn't make it to the trak until the last weekend before the track closed for the yera and it was freezing. I went anyway as I thought it would help me decide what changes I wanted to make to the car over the winter.

The suspension is all brand new.. stock Z28 springs front and rear (rear is very stiff), edelbrock IAS shocks, stock sway bars, Competition Engineering frame connectors and slapper bars.

The slicks are the standard MT ET Drag slicks, not the radial slicks.

I figured the less than optimal suspension would keep the car out of the 10's, but right now I am stuck in the 13's.

My first launch I babied it off the start but stull spun due to water at the started and netted my best time at 13.01, shutting down twice when the car got sideways after the shift. The next 4 runs, I improved my starts slightly, but my times started getting slower and slower as the day progressed working my way to high 13's. It felt like the car was spinning all the way to the 1,000' mark with the rear wanting to come around on the passenger side every run, then at the 1,000' mark it felt like the tires were grabbing and the car straightened right out every run. It was a weird feeling.

I check the air in both tires after the first sideways run and the air pressure was the same.

I am not worried about my starts right now. I am worried about the slicks spinning up to the 1000' mark! ..and the embarassment of having to tell people I am running in the 13's at a measely 110mph, regardless of my start!

Here is what MT says about slick pressure. I have 10 X 26" slicks;

ET DRAG® AND ET STREET™

VEHICLE WEIGHT TIRE SIZE AIR PRESSURE

OVER 3,000 POUNDS UNDER 30" DIA. 16 P.S.I. AND UP
OVER 3,000 POUNDS OVER 30" DIA. 10 P.S.I. AND UP

My car with my 172 pound body wieghs 3,814 in total.

It felt like the car was spinning all the way to the 1,000' mark with the rear wanting to come around on the passenger side every run, then at the 1,000' mark it felt like the tires were grabbing and the car straightened right out every run. It was a weird feeling.
As long as the car is sideways, it is spinning the slicks. You very well may have too much air pressure in the tires.

As tire speed increases, centrifugal forces take over and the slicks 'balloon' in shape, meaning the center of the tire grows larger in circumference and losing the wide contact patch of the tread width. Plus, the water on the wheel tracks and tires doesn't help any either.

As Royce suggested, more front end weight with the blower doesn't help planting the tires. You might benefit with another 100 lbs. in the trunk to eliminate the tire spin. You may need to offset the weight with a lighter front end.

One quick and easy thing to try is to disconnect or remove the front sway bar. This "can" help with weight transfer.

Were there many fast cars here? 11's and faster? I am willing to bet with the cold weather and water from treaded tires, didn't help. The rear end being stiff is not all bad "as long as the front end is rising". If the front suspension is working then the rear being stiff can actually help. The front being stiff along with the rear and then you have a problem, no weight transfer. If there were not many fast cars there I would guess they didn;t really prep the track, that is even more crucial with the cold weather.

How much heat did you get into the tires? Did you spin them until they smoked? or just enought to clean them? Did you do your burn out in the water box? If so that could be part of your problem. What I like to do is go around the box and back into it, roll out of it and then heat up the tires. You just need enough water to help them break loose. If you start spinning them in the water box you can sling water up into your fender wells, when you are sitting at the starting line water will drip back onto your tires, you will never hook like that. Depending on how much water you slung into your fender wells (if you did) this would help you get loose all the way down the track.

I am not sure I would be too down about it. Get out to a decent track (meaning decent weather and good track prep) without the front sway bar and see how it runs. Every car will want different things. You can't say a certain air pressure will do the job. This will depend on the track and the car. I am 99% sure those tire pressures are "starting points" You adjust from there to see what the car likes.

You may want to mark the tire at the valve stem to keep an eye on the tire spinning on the rim (unless you have them screwed). I doubt that is a concern right now since you are not hooking at all.

I have never run the shocks you mention so I don't know anything about them. If they are made for handling, then they will not work well for drag racing.

Is your battery in the trunk? How much fuel did you have in the tank? My 70 Camaro hooked a lot better with more fuel in the tank.

I know you don't really want a "drag" car, but if you don't take a few steps to get it to hook, you will never see a decent pass. Since the car was spinning pretty much the whole pass, that tells me you are not getting any weight on the rear wheels. You are making a lot of torque down low so traction is a must. With less power you never saw the "weak" links, now it is blowing the tires off when before you may have dead hooked.

The track was Englishtown, NJ.. a nice track, but not that day. It was a street test and tune day..few high HP cars.. and a lot of stock grocery getters so little track prep. There was one supercharged 2005 mustang that showed me his 10 second @ 135mph time slip, so I figured that I should at least be able to do better than 13's.

I drive through the water box (they won't give you the time to back in) and burn out in front of the water box in second gear until she starts to grap. I have a manual trans with no line lock, so it is difficult to get a long burn on the tires. Basically I can only clean them off. There was lots of water in front of the box and they kept stopping in the water and I would practically run the guys over trying to get in front of the water. There was a ton of water getting thrown up into the wheel wells. It made a mess.

I run a full tank of gas. Yes, those IAS shocks are made for handling. My rear is stiff, the front is not. The battery is still in the stock location. I know that blower and 2 carbs is real heavy in the front.

I did mark the tires and did notice one slipping on the rim about 1.5". I do not use screws and put dishwashing liquid in the tire to prevent leaks at the bead at the suggestion of someone here on this board, I recall.

I did not get the tires hot.. MT says you only wear out the tire and don't need to do more than clean them.

I need to try again in the Spring in nice weather.

I agree you don't need to smoke them until they light on fire, but the track was cold and there was a lot of water. For this reason I would have spun them until I saw smoke. Track prep and street tires probably made things much worse than normal. Did you look at the mustands suspension? Maybe it was a ladder bar or 4-link car. Maybe it normally ran better than that. Don't be down on yourself cause he ran decent. He probably hase 100 times more passes than you do in his car and it is all sorted out.

I wouldn't worry much about that outting. Maybe make a few adjustments and be ready for spring. After a few decent passes then you may want to change things.

My experience this summer with tire pressure started out as yours did using manufacures specs. Well i threw those out the door after the first pass, i am running 29.5x11.5x15 QTP's on 10 inch rims with vehicle weight of 3100 with me in it. With 16 lbs the car spun a little off the line then started to skate around down the track after 2nd gear. I didnt like that feeling to much so on some advise from some friends that told to run the same tire pressure i would in a normal slick i put it down to 10 lbs and the car hook hard and didnt skate at all down track. Since that day i have tried a little lower, no real improvement, i tried a little higher and it only took 2 lbs more pressure and the skating came back. So next year i would try some of the suspension advise that has been given and start around 11-12 lbs and go up and down from there. Just my 2 cents :)

kelemor: That is exactly the way I would describe it. I didn't launch hard, but didn't spin that much on the start, but definitely started skating badly all down the track after shifting into 2nd and 3rd if I put my foot into it too aggressively.

Looks like I need to ignore MT's instructions and drop the pressure. I have a much heavire car, so I will try 14 pounds, then 12 pounds.

Do you have screws in your slicks?

Nope no screws, but this year iam going to run a true slick and those i will be screwing. Hopefully i can find some used rims :)

The fella's have all given good advice on getting the best out of your launch and full throttle runs, so I wont add anything to it. Just take the advice given by them as a rule of thumb and you won't have a problem.

Question, did you have a spotter or someone watching to make sure you were consistent during burnout, 60' slippage etc?

Drag Fabricator is a member here that frequently visit's that track, you may want to hook up with him. From what I've learned from him, he's very good at guaging suspension, weight, short times etc from a car. Get with him.

My only advice is this: Use a systematic approach when dialing in a car in adverse conditions. It wont always be cold tracks, and definitely using the same approach wont always work from season to season - tempreture wise.

well, nobody said it directly but it seems the MT instructions on air pressure is not realistic. I will try again next spring when the weather is warm with lower air pressure. I do not want to change my suspension, and will see if playing with the tires will help my stock suspension get me into the eleven's.

I think several people keep missing the point that I wasn't worried about the 60 foots just yet, but the tires skating all over the place down the track right to the 1000' market. Nothing like a sideways car at 100mph. She would always straighten out at the 1000' mark and track straight right through the traps.

Hoosier 28 x 10 DO5's here. 12 lb 1.44 60 foot.