Ha, and you demolished them! Your trap speed is definitely impressive. I will say that my car definitely feels much faster than my friend's 02 6-speed with full cattman exhaust, TS ECU, SSIM, etc....not sure why. I think he ran around a 14.5 or so at the same track. lol

Here's my driving: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9WZyngdolo

 

Thanks! The part about the 60' times versus 1/4 mile times definitely held true for me too. Went from 2.21 to 2.14 which ended up dropping me from 14.26 to 14.01. I have contemplated powershifting, but I cannot rely on the Probe if I break the Maxima, lol. So I just shift as quickly as possible.

 

Yeah, I mean I have ridden in and messed with other 5.5 gens and I dunno..I guess each one is a little different and I got lucky with mine..

 

Is your speedo off??? Because it seems like your hitting some high mph at 6500rpm...like in 2nd I can hit 65mph taking it all the way til the limiter and about 90mph in 3rd at the limiter. It looked like you were doing about 70@6500 in 2nd and 95ish@6500rpm in 3rd...IDK, I'm probably just going crazy

Tell ya what...I'll trade you my Maxima for yours and you won't be losing anything because they are identical performance wise since you aren't going to mod yours and then I could put some headers, ssim, etc....on that one and go from there...LOL j/k

 

Do whatever you feel comfortable with of course, but there's no way you're gonna break the 6 speed in an NA car by no lift shifting it. They're pretty strong (I wouldn't no lift shift a car with more than 350-400lb-ft, but you're a far cry from that obviously).

 

VQ's ALWAYS feel preppy and quick. When a VQ - no matter what year - feels sluggish, it IS pulling timing.

Anyone who grounds their knock sensors to the battery will start experiencing normal timing after a few hundred miles.

It is always the timing. These engines DEPEND on timing to have *****. How rich you run is totally irrelevant.

My car weighted in at 2794 yesterday, sporting dry rotted 3 year old Michelin winter tires on stock 15" sawblades, runs PIG rich, and when I floor it in 2nd on broken pavement, it is all over the place, like borderline dangerous. Grounded knock sensor FTW.

If you want to enjoy your cars 100% of the time, you need 100% of your timing 100% of the time.

It's raining now but clearing tomorrow morning - the car will be 80 lbs lighter with a better CAI so I am hitting the track tomorrow night hoping for 106 mph traps. The knock sensor sits there, bolted to the negative pole of my battery. It looks kinda wierd.

Bootlegged 3.5 swaps

 

yup i agree with the power shifting...but dont ****** second to quick if u are on street tires... becuase u will spin right thru it...lol......

 

I rarely run on street tires now that I have slicks, but the couple of runs that I do on street tires, the 245/45s at about 25psi that are almost slick on tread usually stick pretty well... Was pulling 2.0s on them at the local 1/8th mile last time I ran but it does break loose pretty good if I no lift into 2nd.

I see alot of this "almost bald" excuse flying around this thread and I just don't think you people understand that the closer your tires are to bald (BEFORE you can see metal bands), the better traction you will get. Think, more contact patch. So those of you who ran on your bald tires, you got better traction than if they were brand new, so quit whining!

 

I'm glad that I can tune/adjust the sensitivity of my knock sensor on the UTEC instead of doing what you are with it. I'm not sure I would want to run without any way to detect detonation unless it's pinging loud... but I am running pretty aggressive timing, so that's a different situation I suppose. I just put high timing in a few cells and slowly turned up the sensitivity until it started detecting knock in that cell for each 1000 rpms. Maybe a little risky, but it was the best way to be 100% sure I could still detect real knock without pulling timing on engine noise.

My UTEC occasionally pulls timing on very hot days when it gets some detonation, I'm not sure I'd want my knock sensor grounded to my battery while it's detonating and I have no way of knowing lol...

 

Jime has done two full seasons of ET bracket racing with a grounded knock sensor and the engine keeps saying fxck me harder.

I have 700 invested into the car (105 mph traps) and I dont feel like tuning it just yet. I dont really floor it on hot days and I think the 94 octane we have around here is pretty good. Plus, my 95 ECU only runs 24 degrees of timing WOT. And it's pig rich.

 

yeah rich and 24 degrees with 94 octane makes for a pretty sure bet.

I've been exclusively running shell 93 b/c of all the info out there about the slightly higher octane they normally have for their 93. Although, I run mid-low 13s A/F and 26-27.5 timing... so I probably have alot more chance of detonation than you.

I'm mostly keeping the knock sensor intact for big nitrous. It would be nice to run as much timing as possible without knock but still detect it and pull timing if something goes wrong.

 

Of course. Mind you I have only had this car to the track twice, I am still getting comfortable with it, to say the least. It is far different from my Probe in both good ways and bad. I will likely powershift the car at some point to see how it changes things. I still want to take it back and make that magical 13 second pass in a stock car. Hell...then I can be in a class of my own! lol.


As for the part about bald-ish tires being better than new tires...this is true and it is not true. While there is more contact patch, there is less tread protruding off the base of the tire to flex and grip. Whether the advantage outweighs the disadvantage I don't know, just food for thought..

 

Running as much timing as possible is not always the best thing. Really you only want to run as much timing as you can, that still makes power. We got to the point in my other car that running more timing actually made less power and I had no knock count. (this was around 36 degrees of timing, so it was backed down to 33 and I went back to my best power numbers..) Again, just a thought, every car is different, just my experience, with these cars I would assume you would know better than I.

 

Um no. Sorry, contact patch isn't the only variable here. The rubber that creates the high coefficient of friction between the surface is now worn off, and more dense rubber closer to the cords will have a smaller coefficient of friction, lessening your grip. Can you honestly tell me that on the same day, on the same road you would be able to take off better with bald tires than with new tires of the same brand? No. Not happening. Slicks are so grippy because they have a very soft rubber compound. Not just because they have a large contact patch.

 

Expensive, but you can use J&S safeguard. Not sure how it works. Mardi went 11.56@122 on his stock VQ30, had a turbo on it for 50,000 and it never blew.

 

You are right. Jime went up to 40 but said low 30's was optimal. From my experience, most engines like 32-33 degrees of timing. Hell even my dad's 455 ran 32 degrees of timing as optimal.

I would run 32 and 12-12.5:1 if I had an EU & wideband. I almost got around it to last time out.

 

Fwiw, the results were posted finally for the 5/5 Street Car Shootout Series, and I qualified 5th, but left early, lol. Also because of an rain front moving in the DA went from 400 (which is normal for GIR) up to 2100 ft (which was the lowest it got all night), so there is definitely more in the car.

 

Sorry but in my personal experience and that of those I've seen around me, you are completely wrong.

I'm down to around 1/32 tread on my potenzas and am seeing better and better '60 foots the closer to the end of their life. I'm sure it will get worse before they are useless, but until then IMO you're just throwing bad excuses when you give the "bald tires" one.

 

Just FYI Jime runs 26 degrees of timing N/A... He ran as high as the low 30s but said he picked up no power going up from 26. Not sure who you're quoting with the low 30s thing, but it definately isn't Jime.

 

Great times!!! Looking forward to the modded times!

 

Haha..I have the crappy stock tires excuse..thus the different wheels/tires were used. But even so, having bald tires is that person's fault..meh.

My Probe showed gains up until around 32-33 degrees of timing..


Thanks! Dunno that there will be many mods done, but maybe a couple minor things..

 

You're right there...work on your 60 ft times!

 

So you're an N/A running 13.1 sec/1/4 miles? Stand alone ECU (UTEC)? What kind of AFR are you running @ these drag sessions?

 

Then either you're getting better at launching or every tire I've ever had has been different than yours. On my falken 912's, it would be impossible for me to break loose in 2nd gear when my tires were new. When they were worn, half throttle. Same with my potenzas and my falken 512's. Same with my yokohama AS 430's on my bimmer. All of them show worse traction in just about any situation. Dense rubber = no traction. Maybe I just get cheap tires that aren't manufactured well, but I'm not stupid. I guarantee you I could pull a better 60' on new falken 912's than on my worn 912's I went to the track with. Guarantee.

In fact, the worn tire "excuse" almost convinced me not to go to the track, because I had seen such a decline in traction as they neared the end of their life.

 

It's not a standalone as the stock ECU controls the engine in closed loop, but does work as a standalone for fuel/timing when it takes over in open loop. 13.5:1 3k-5700 and down to 13.0:1 5700-redline. Current best of 13.0 with a 1.85 '60 foot on slicks.

If your experience is different I understand, I just haven't noticed any difference in tire compound as the tread runs out. I can floor mine in 1st gear on the street without losing traction with my "bald" potenzas, according to you they should be spinning at 50% throttle in 2nd. Dunno.

 

Hell I spin flooring it at any point in first...but my goodyear rs-a's suck. I didnt spin at all on the other maxxis tires I had on there..the kind of tire makes a WORLD of difference..

 

Just out of curiosity, what kind of potenzas do you have? Honesly, I've never found a tire that will allow me to do WOT in first...I mean I've only purchased two sets of tires for my car and they were both falkens, and my new eagle RSA's that I got for free suck terribly, but still...I'm leaning toward getting a set of the BFGoodrich KDW-2's the next time around, so we'll see how that goes.

 

Instead of KDW-2's in the same price range, I'd reccomend Dunlop direzza star specs... they're currently hailed to be the best dry/wet traction street tire you can buy over the KDW-2s. Also check out General Exclaim UHPs for a much lower price range that will perform almost as well as the KDWs in dry/wet.

 

i've always loved the way the Generals looked

 

The dunlops sound good, but I wonder about treadlife? They're rated at 200 whereas the BFG's are 300, and cost about $20 less per tire...I guess I'll have to see what kind of deal I can get when I wear out these stupid RS-A's.

 

That is a great time!

I am going to have to get back to the track with the I35. We had some cheap Ingles gas in her the last time, but she was still running very strong. Since the I35 is my daily driver now, I have switched to running Shell only, and have noticed much improved top end.

I doubt the auto will run a 14.0, but it will be close, after I get some new tires. I'm thinking 14.1-14.2, with traps around 98.

I also think the 6 speed has the potential to run a high 13, given the right conditions.

Again, great time.

 

Thanks! Yeah Shell gas is pretty good stuff, though I think I had QT 91 in the car when I ran it. I didn't even think about it, lol...oops.

 

QT is good gas, but here it is 93 octane. Shell has definitely improved their formula. My Z was running QT 93, when it trapped 109.

 

Yeah I have been exclusively running Shell 93 lately. I've seen quite a bit of press saying that they consistently rate higher than 93 octane while other brands normally JUST meet the standard.

 

you really think it will run 14.1-14-2 with an auto I dunno. I have never been to the track but Im guessing a stock auto should be 14.9ish.... Stock tires of course.

Also wondering what a nice little 75 shot will do to our trannys lol

 

I ran the I35 earlier this year, with no traction and Ingles 93 gas, I spun through first gear, and still ran 14.615. I was there to run my Z, or I could have worked it down, even with bad traction.

With better rubber and gas, I don't see why a 14.1-14.2 won't be within reach.

 

Yeah..Shell and QT are Top Tier gasolines, which typically showed a higher than advertised Octane, the Shell 93 has octane ratings come out over 95 very often, and up to 97 I believe (I am thinking we both saw the same article, lol)..I run Shell most of the time, just didn't on this night..The QT 91 is still good gas, but next trip will be a tank of Shell 93..

I didn't go tonight again because the track was a cluster f&$% last week (got 1 pass in 4 hours) and this week they were implementing changes to make things run more smoothly so I am giving it a week to hear how the changes helped or didn't help.

 

Understandable. What mods do you have if any?

 

You can't really make any comparison between the Star Specs and the KDW-2s as far as traction is concerned according to the research I've done (which has been exhaustive). The KDW-2 gets pretty darn good results but the Z1 Star Spec is in a whole different class. It's considered by many to rival some of the less aggressive R compound (DOT race) tires out there in the dry, and generally demolishes everything in the wet. I haven't driven mine hard yet so I can't comment from personal experience. I'll have them out on the road course in another 2 months here though so I'll post up then.

Tread life is hard to judge because driving styles differ so wildly, and those treadwear ratings of 200, 300, whatever, are issued by the manufacturer and are proprietary, there is no oversight or outside agency that verifies them. So a 200 treadwear from company A is likely not the same as a 200 TWR from company B. It's probably safe to say that the Star Specs would not last as long as KDW2s though, the Star Spec is not known to have spectacular tread life, but decent. Price you pay when you get into higher and higher performance tires.

As for the general Exclaim UHPs, they are pretty good for the price, a nice mild mannered tire that has pretty good traction, but they don't even belong in the same sentence as extreme performance/near R compound tires like the RE01R and Star Spec where traction is concerned... but they do have an excellent amount of traction for the treadlife you get out of them (which is to say they last a long, long time. My buddy has them on his turbo max).

 

It's stock.