Hi. This is my first post. I am taking the SL to the track this weekend. And I have a few questions. First how much slower is the 4sd auto vs the 5 sp auto if at all??. Do you manually shift the 4 spd?? or just leave it in D and go???
I have been Drag Racing for about 15 years and this lil toy is the first FWD I've
ever owned. It will brake stall to about 2700rpm, but as you know it will SMOKE
the tires for 300ft if you do that. So any tips would be cool. Also does ANYONE
make a **** kit or valve body for the 4 spd auto??? This thing shifts like old people have sex 'SLOW AND SLOPPY"!!!! But I must say I LOVE this car and it is a lot of fun to drive.

Tony

 

I don't think anybody has tracked a 3.5SL yet so you'd be the first.

As far as track performance goes, the SL has less unsprung weight (rotating inertial mass) to spin up with the 17" wheel/tire combo vs the heavier 18"s on the SE. So that will help you. But the aforementioned wider 4spd auto gearing will hurt you. I think overall the SL will probably be about two-tenths slower than the SE.

The guys that have tracked their stock SE autos have been able to get mid to high-14's, but that's after practicing their launches a bit and going back to the track a few times. So for your first time out with this car (which has proven to be extremely tricky to launch) you'll mainly be learning and you'll probably run a bit slower than that.

As far as the tranny shifting goes, at least on the older generation cars there is something called a "drop resistor" that, when disconnected, will make the tranny shift much harder and firmer at full line pressure. Not sure if the 04+ cars are the same way or not, but it's something to look into.

 

In my SE I brake stalled around 1500 rpm (anything higher will lead to wheel spin) and then I give it gas for a second and then floor it. If you get it right and it hooks, the torque behind these cars will launch you good enough to hit the 60' in 2.1x (well in the SE anyways)