Wow, you got some responses. What did you have posted here the first time?
Well, given your current post, I'll leave this. It's copied from what I posted on OhioSupras. Some of it may be Supra specific, but I guarantee you can glean some info from it.
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Be warned, this post may offend.
Feel free to skip the rant section and go directly to the how to.
Concepts:
When you launch your car from a stop there are two main things going on. Transfer of weight from the front to the rear and then hooking. If you want a better launch, you need to optimize both of these.
Manual Transmission specific section:
Working the Clutch:
There simply is no excuse for the “bog” or “sit and spin” if you’ve driven your manual car for more than a month.
Every single day you can get tons of practice launching. Every single stop light, every single stop sign. I’m not telling you to stage like you’re at the track and try and burn rubber like a madman. I am telling you to figure out what your clutch setup likes. You can launch hard and still be perfectly legal on the street. You drive your car, so get to know how it drives.
Most of the time, launching at the track is just like regular driving. The speed that you release the clutch pedal during normal driving, is the same speed you release it while launching at the track. Thinking you have to rev and then just dump the clutch is why people sit and spin or bog. Bring your revs up high, and release the clutch the same speed as if you were easing away from a stop light. This works with most clutch setups. But like I said earlier, get to know how your car launches. You should know how to work your clutch for good launches before you ever goto the track.
Boost from the line:
Boosted Manual cars have a big disadvantage at the track. No boost from the line. This is easy to cure. It’s called a two-step, or rev limiter. You step on the gas and the two-step will artificially limit your revs at a lower level (you usually set this at your launch rpm. You should know your launch rpm because you have practiced and know what works). This loads the engine and you will get boost. Launch and shut off the two step. There you go, manual car with boost from the line. It can mean the difference between starting out with over a hundred or more horsepower from a turbo that’s actually spooled up.
If you are serious about dragging with a manual, you need to get a rev limiter/two step.
You can get it running with the MSD PN 6215, Dis-4. It will also require 2 of the PN 8912 Adapters. Theres another one that works but I cant remeber it right now. I'll put the info in when I remeber it.
Here's what a 2step sounds/looks like if you have never heard/seen one. It basicly just sounds like hitting the rev limiter like normal. This is duane building boost at the line and whuppin a mk4. http://media.putfile.com/11supra
Power shifting
WARNING – This can fuck up your tranny with a quickness. But if you just need that extra 0.1-0.3 you can do it.
Power shifting is when you keep your foot planted on the gas and barely, barely, barely, touch the clutch pedal just to release the clutch, then jam it into the next gear with your foot already off the clutch pedal. It is very fast and will keep your turbo spooled. But it’s rough as shit on the transmission.
I personally don’t recommend it because to me a grenaded tranny isn’t worth a time difference that could be attributed to standard deviation anyways.
Automatic transmission specific section
Stall, Stall, Stall. Get a high stall torque converter. This is standard practice for EVERYONE IN THE WORLD but us it seems like. I can count on one hand the auto guys on this forum that have a stall. That’s sad as hell. For 200 bucks people cant be bothered to get something that can potential drop their quarter mile time by almost a full second.
There are more places that can do our stalls, but this is all I can remember right now.
http://www.phoenixhardparts.com
http://www.hughesperformance.com/
http://www.soundperformance.com
http://www.levelten.com
http://www.ipttrans.com/toyotaauto.shtml
Phoenix Hard Parts and Hughes can rework your stocker to a high stall unit for ~200 bucks. The performance vs price for a stall is better than nitrous.
Just go get a stinking stall already. Launching with tons of boost from the line is heaven. Laugh at all your manual friends as you leave them in the dust.
Suspension set up:
Sway bar / End links:
I keep saying this but people aren’t listening. When at the track, disconnect the front sway bars. This goes back to the original concept that I talked about earlier. Transfer of weight to the rear of the vehicle. With the front sway bar disconnected it allows freer movement of the front suspension. Lets weight shift occur easier. Disconnecting the front sway bar is de facto standard in pretty much most auto enthusiast groups aside from the moron import crowd.
Don’t drive to the track with them disconnected though. That wont be fun. Also before you do this at the track, disconnect them once or twice and drive around your neighborhood to get a feel for what its like with them off. You don’t want to get squirrelly down the track your first time with them off. Know how it drives.
With adjustable end links it’s makes unattaching the front bar a breeze. Just disconnect the lower tie on the tie bar. It also allows you to adjust your rear sway bar to fine tune your launch. There are one or two places that sell them I think. Or you can just make your own. I made my own as seen below:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/oipaloi/mytierods.jpg
Camber:
If you dropped your car, you now more than likely have negative camber. When you launch an IRS car, the camber moves to the negative. If you are already there, launching just makes your tires have a small little contact patch. This is a big reason why you dropped folks launch so shitty. Yeah your JDM dorifto million degrees of negative camber crap looks cool (to you), but it sucks for launching. Dial in a degree or two of positive camber before you go to the track. When you launch you ideally want zero camber, a flat contact patch. So if you are just a degree or two positive before you launch, when it squats you zero out. Perfect.
Where do you adjust it? Right here. See how easy it was to find it?
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/oipaloi/camber.jpg
When adjusting the camber you also have to adjust the toe in to go along with it. Here's how to adjust both.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/oipaloi/camber1_Page_04.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/oipaloi/camber1_Page_05.jpg
Trailing arms:
These are actually one of the very few weak links on our cars. The trailing arms bend pretty easily. Bent trailing arms = wheel hop. Not good. Three places sell replacement trailing arms. Carbonfiber FX, Suprasport, and A1 Racing. Or you can just take them to your local muffler shop and have the dude there weld on additional bracing for like 20 bucks. The A1 Racing trailing arms are great because they are adjustable. Preload and launch tuning baby.
Make sure that your trailing arms are squared away before you goto the track.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/oipaloi/tractionbars.jpg
http://www.suprasport.com
http://www.carbonfibrefx.com
http://www.a1racing.com
Shocks/springs/coilovers
This is really something you just need to adjust and test for yourself. For some people hard front soft rear works better for them, for others vice versa. There are just too many different combos to tell you exactly what to do. I will tell you not to go full hard all around. It goes back to the original concept. You want weight to be able to shift to the back, then you want to hook.
Try starting out with the front abit harder than the rear. Then work from there. If you mess with the ride height, make sure you adjust the camber.
Rims and Tires
Sorry, but those low profile 17s,18,19s just aint gonna cut it.
The second part of the concept is hooking. Without decent tires, the best suspension in the world won’t mean crap. If you are serious about dragging, you need to go back to 16s or ideally 15s. You just cant get good drag tires in 17+.
Spend the 300 bucks on some nice fat quality drag radials or slicks. Only run them at the track. If this means buying an extra set of rims, then so be it. Some 235 slicks will hook better than some 315 street tires. So just drop the coin.
Nice big sidewalls are what you want. This allows the tire to flex and hook. Check the drag racing section to see what kind of success people are having with certain brands and certain compounds. If in doubt, go stickier.
If you have to run on street tires, don’t do a burn out. Street tires don’t work like drag tires. Getting them hot makes them slick. Just a quick spin to get the dirt off is all you need. Also, DRIVE AROUND the burnout box. You’re not doing a burnout anyways. By driving through it you’re just sloshing water into the staging area and making your tires even slicker.
http://www.discounttire.com
http://www.tirerack.com
http://www.discounttiredirect.com
Tire pressure
This will vary by the tire, so it’s abit of experimenting with this one. First off over inflate the front tires 8-12 psi. Over inflated = less contact patch = less rolling resistance.
Now to find the sweet spot with the rears. Have them inflated to their full pressure. Right off the bat you can probably drop them 5psi. Now go take two runs and then drop them 5 more psi. Rinse and repeat until you get really good 60ft times.
With manual cars your rear pressure will be lower than on auto cars because the shock to the drive train is more. So you auto guys wont need to drop your psi as much.
Gearing:
This is what should be another de facto upgrade. Everyone but our community does this off the bat. If you show me someone that says short gears are unusable with any decent amount of horsepower, ill show you someone that doesn’t know a properly set up suspension from their own asshole. I have heard too many people say to stay away from the 4.3s because they are just spin fests. If someone tells you that, dont listen to any of their advice again; they just let you know they don't know shit.
The domestic 1/8 mile guys run gears in the 6.x range with more horsepower than anyone on this whole board makes. Yet they have no problem hooking. It’s called proper setup and good tires.
Here are our choices: 3.7, 3.9, 4.1, 4.3. If you want to go faster in the 1/4 mile, you need a higher number. If you have a 3.7 try going up to a 3.9, if that’s not enough try the 4.1, etc. etc.
The main point of concern is if you are a manual. You might have issues where you are redlining 200 ft out. Not enough time to shift, but coasting will just kill your times. In this situation you might want to step back a gear. OR get some taller side walled tires. A simple taller tire change can cure those shifting blues.
Going from 3.7 to 4.3 is a tremendous difference and your times will reflect it.
Weight:
Every 100 pounds lost = 0.1 faster in the quarter mile. With our portly cars, that’s means you can potentially go much, much quicker by shedding some weight. It also explains why your car with the mad tight system with four 15in subwoofers is so slow. Take that shit out if you’re going to go to the track.
All weight loss is not good weight loss though. If you only remove weight from the rear of the car, you wont be able to hook. You do need weight over the tires to make them hook.
When removing weight, try to keep it even or take more weight off the front. Our cars are nose heavy anyways, so try and work up there. If you can move things to the back, do so; such as the battery.
Also remember that every 1 pound of rotational mass = 10 pounds of static mass. If you go from the stock 28 pound drive shaft to a 15 pound one piece steel one, it’s like you removed 130 pounds from the car’s frame. This is another reason why you shouldn’t try and drag with those heavy ass 18s of yours. Get you some nice light rims.
Cheap trick-- If going to the track by yourself, take out your driver's side seat completely. Put the passenger's in it's place. Instant 80 pound weight loss.
