highline

How do y'all go about launching your standard trans cars? Feather out the clutch with equal accelator pressure? Sounds retarded, I know, but I am looking for the best race launch possible. With an auto I used to step on the brake, press the accelator down to around 2500 rpm and let go of the brake...FYI, I am asking to settle a bet and we decided that the consensus answer here would be taken as fact...

shoeys08dkcandygt

feather/slip the clutch yes. to keep wheel spin at a minimal. so the car will hook immediately. but i know the true drag racers will chime in soon and tell you the best way to do it. but you are def on the right track with feathering/slipping the clutch.

2cokeman

Rev 2000 rpm and letter go!

highline

that won't kill the clutch, or anything else?

PLstang

Put her on the wood and let go of the trans brake when you see yellow! LOL

On a serious note when my car was a 6 speed I always prefered side stepping the clutch. Put her on the wood and let her go (of course I was running slicks at the time)!

What is better just depends on how the car is set up and how you drive.

iROK24/7

I don't think anyone is advocating that you just mindlessly DUMP the clutch.. it's more like winding your RPMs up to ~2500 and feathering the clutch to be just on the VERGE of having the tires breaking loose. I get my best launches when I barely hear a "chirp" in 1st gear as the car hooks up and goes... another thing that helps is to shift a bit EARLY from 1st to 2nd, DON'T wait for peak power @ 5500 RPM unless you've got a torque limiter because you'll miss the shift to 2nd... I shift to 2nd @ 4500 RPM & my car just ROCKETS away from that point with no trouble shifting into each higher gear @ 5500 RPM.

PLstang

I think that goes back to how the car is setup. What type of tires you're running, what gears, what type of power you're leaving with.

Because, yes, I was dumping the clutch. I was putting the excelerator on the floor, banging the rev limiter and just dump the clutch. Anything else and the car left with no power and nosed over. Even doing that the car dead hooked with no wheel spin at all.

Like I said, just depends on how the car is setup.

Joolander

well PL, with a post count of 30 and a 2009 mustang, I'm going out on a limb here and saying that the OP's car is stock or very close to stock

PLstang

Very valid point. However, I thought his question wasn't how should he launch his car, but whats the best way to launch a stick car (the whole settling a bet thing).

My point only being the best way depends on the car and the driver, let alone the track itself. There are too many factors to make any one way the best way. If you look at the myriad of answers so far it proves that.

I'm sure each guy that has posted gets the best results with what he's doing! He's probably tried other things and they didn't work as well.

AmericanSpeed

As PL said, it completely depends on the setup of the cars suspension, tires, engine modifications, and even type of clutch.

When my car was nearly stock (only CAI + tune, on stock tires), at the track I use to rev to about 2400 rpm, slip the clutch out about half way and hold and throttle about half way for around 20-30 feet. Then I'd roll into the throttle the rest of the way and let the clutch out completely. You really need to use the clutch to dictate the power you want to put to the wheels. This is hard on the clutch, but running on stock tires, I found it to be the most successful method which netted me a best 1.819 60' time. That was on the stock 235/55/17 pirelli all-season tires. Some people have trouble pulling a 1.81 on a DR tire.