back from the track, disappointing times

[keebler65]

i ran at the track for the first time last saturday. i had a good time but i was not happy with my times. it was a very cool dry day, about 50 degrees with a wind that blew in the direction that we were driving. i made about 9 runs, and this was my best:
60' 2.352
330 6.281
1/8 9.634
MPH 75.21
1000 12.451
1/4 14.821
MPH 95.71

so, my question is:
is my time low because my driving sucks, or is it because i'm not making enough HP?

i'm told the track is hear sea level.

i launched at 4k, and slowly released the clutch to avoid excessive tire spin, although it spun a lot in first, but not so much where it would bog going into second.

i have falken azenis that i run on @28psi, and my setup consists of CRX B16 w/ JRSC @6psi. its tuned with an SMC+ to 12.5:1 with a wideband. my plugs are gapped to .033mm and the timing is retarded .7 degrees per pound of boost. i have the stock cat (which may have as many as 170,000 miles on it) and an aftermarket cat back.

is there anything with this setup that should be changed? would a larger plug gap help? i was running about .038 but it was sputtering lightly sometimes at idle so i lowered the gap. take out the cat? any other suggestions? i'd really expect this setup to run much faster. hell i thought a B16 CRX ran mid to low 14's

thanks!

[JRCivic]

It appears that BOTH of your hypothesis are true: Your drag racing technique needs improvement AND your car seems to be down a tad on power.

A reasonably good 60' time on street tires should be in the 2.0X-2.1X range. This means that you will be able to reduce your current best 1/4 mile time by the difference of your current 60' time. So, a 14.5-14.6 would be more in line. Incidentally, your trap speeds would be indicitive of a mid 14-second pass... so if your technique improved, you would reach this goal. Now, unless your CRX is extremely heavy, you should be trapping speeds around 100 mph in the 1/4 mile... which means you are down a bit on power. Since you seem to feel the A/F is right on target, try to pull out some of the retard and see if the top end velocities pick up. Pull out just enough timing to stop the onset of ping or knock... too much creates unwanted heat and a loss of power.

Good luck.

[keebler65]

i'll have to try that then. i'm running 92 octane (thats as good as it gets here) and i've tried .6 deg per pound and didnt hear any detonation but i didnt go lower than .7 on the track since i cant hear with the helmet on [img]frown.gif[/img] however maybe i'll see if i can go lower than .6 degrees per pound without detonation. maybe my base timing is off. does anyone know if rpms matter when adjusting the distributor timing? because the manual says to idle at 750 or so rpms but i dont know if that is where it was at. the car was fully warm but it may have been idling higher than that when i was setting the timing. would this matter?

thanks for the replies [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]

[BoostedEX]

The best 60' I have cut so far on SP8000s street tires was a 2.20. Here's something to consider.... put about 2 gallons of race fuel (110 octane) in the car with about 2 gallons of your 92 octane fuel and bounce the back end of the car up and down to mix the fuel, turn your BTC down to zero and have fun [img]smile.gif[/img]

[vactor]

yeah, you suck [img]tongue.gif[/img] those 60' times are terrible. get some better tires and that should put you in the 2.0 or less 60' time and you will see a real drop in the ET's azenis are NOT drag tires. hell, i read an article a few months ago, may have been car and driver or whatever, and they had the same 60' times with azaenis (almost) as they did with the stock tires. drag tires are meant for drag racing, and if you are serious about drags, they need to be on your list.

[keebler65]

still though, with less than 200whp, i'm not seeing much wheel spin. its mostly just in first but i always hook before the shift to second. i agree that drag radials would give a better time, but it wouldnt put me in the 13sec category would it?

[gsrteggie]

Still with azeni's you should have better 60's. Although not a drag radial, they are still a sticky tire, thus why everyone loves them for autocross. You should be running 2.2's easy with those. I am not sure how much you would improve with drag radials (Like nitto's). You may want to look into your suspension setup, that may be holding you back.

[keebler65]

yeah i agree that getting the 60' down would help the time, however that has to do with tires and technique (which i currently lack [img]redface.gif[/img] ) but i still feel something is wrong mechanically with my setup. would it be better to increase the spark plug gap?

[217gsr]

I think your setup might be helped a little by increasing the gap. Mine is at .038 using BKR7E-11's. Although, I don't think you're gonna see a 0.5 sec increase from a gap increase. [img]redface.gif[/img]

I'd say the principal things that you need to work on is your drag technique. The mph that you are posting is pretty similar to a stock integra with i/h/e (I believe, it's been a while). How's your shifting? Are you shifting at redline? Are you shifting like granny? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[keebler65]

i shift at the redline, and i'm shifting fast with the exception of me having to double clutch the 2-3 shift to avoid grinds, however i'm very quick at that as well. i still think my setup should be beating a time of an N/A B16A even with moderate driving skills. i guess i'll move the gap and double check my base timing at the dizzy. btw my compression is good too...about 210 across the board. i'm really running out of ideas here. thanks for all of the replies though [img]graemlins/beer.gif[/img]