For manuals; is it better to do burnouts in 1st or 2nd gear at the drag strip?

[barry_ps3]

Looking to take my car to the drag strip so ive been practicing. When staging and doing the burnout, do I use 1st, or 2nd gear? How do I modulate throttle and brakes is I use 2nd?

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[Subydude]

The answer is the same no matter what transmission you have. Do your burnouts in 1st.

The second modulation/brakes question is one I'd suggest finding a very secluded parking lot and practicing.

 

[Hasan]

You would need to move your left foot over to the brake pedal quickly. Or you could use your right foot to keep pressure on the brake while modulating the throttle.

If you don't break traction, you are quite likely to break your clutch.

 

[NocturnalEmber]

Based on how you phrased the question I'm going to assume you might not be familiar with why those are done at a dragstrip (that's not meant to be insulting, just how it sounded to me.)

Unless you are on dedicated drag tires you are wasting both your time and your tread doing a burnout beforehand. Destroying street tires doing a burnout is not going to net you any real benefit; burnouts are typically done on purpose made drag slicks to quickly get the tires up to temp, something entirely wasted on street tires.

 

[vlad]

Based on how you phrased the question I'm going to assume you might not be familiar with why those are done at a dragstrip (that's not meant to be insulting, just how it sounded to me.)

Unless you are on dedicated drag tires you are wasting both your time and your tread doing a burnout beforehand. Destroying street tires doing a burnout is not going to net you any real benefit; burnouts are typically done on purpose made drag slicks to quickly get the tires up to temp, something entirely wasted on street tires.

On my '24 auto, completely stock at the time including tires, doing a short burnout dropped my 1/4 mile time and made the car more consistent run to run.

 

[NocturnalEmber]

On my '24 auto, completely stock at the time including tires, doing a short burnout dropped my 1/4 mile time and made the car more consistent run to run.

I believe that you may have gotten a lower time, but I doubt that the burnout contributed to it in a meaningful way.

Street tires are meant to operate over a wide range of temps and overheating them can actually cause less grip, that's just how they are designed. Is it possible you cleaned the tires off if it was a very quick one? Sure, but I wouldn't start believing burnouts on street tires are going to consistently land you noticeably different times.

You're shortening the life of a $1,400~ set of tires for a small potential negligible benefit.

 

[tuskenraider]

Cleaning the tires and getting them up to optimal temp, which would be on the driver to ultimately figure out, will certainly be a benefit. I can assure you running the top 200TW street tires will be happiest between 120-130 degrees.

I believe that you may have gotten a lower time, but I doubt that the burnout contributed to it in a meaningful way.

He just explained the benefit. Consistency, and a lower time..........kind of a good spot to be in at a drag strip.

 

[NocturnalEmber]

Cleaning the tires and getting them up to optimal temp, which would be on the driver to ultimately figure out, will certainly be a benefit. I can assure you running the top 200TW street tires will be happiest between 120-130 degrees.

He just explained the benefit. Consistency, and a lower time..........kind of a good spot to be in at a drag strip.

My post was under the guise of if the OP was asking the question the way they phrased it, they would likely be on the OEM Super sports which are going to behave quite differently than a set of purpose bought 200TW's. I personally still wouldn't do a burnout on a 200TW tire myself. Drag slicks? Sure. Anything else? I'd say the cost isn't worth the likely negligible benefit.

Can you do it? Yeah, but if you are that worried about 1/4 mile times I think you might be putting the cart before the horse in a way, so to speak.

 

[vlad]

I believe that you may have gotten a lower time, but I doubt that the burnout contributed to it in a meaningful way.

Street tires are meant to operate over a wide range of temps and overheating them can actually cause less grip, that's just how they are designed. Is it possible you cleaned the tires off if it was a very quick one? Sure, but I wouldn't start believing burnouts on street tires are going to consistently land you noticeably different times.

You're shortening the life of a $1,400~ set of tires for a small potential negligible benefit.

Are you speaking from experience? Or from "trust me bro"?

I thought the stock tires didn't need a burnout, so I didn't do it for the first few runs. I was getting quarter mile times of 12.9 to 13.3 that way. Once I started doing a short burnout before, I started running 12.4 consistently.

 

[tuskenraider]

My post was under the guise of if the OP was asking the question the way they phrased it, they would likely be on the OEM Super sports which are going to behave quite differently than a set of purpose bought 200TW's.

I agree. That's why I said it's up to the driver to figure out the optimum temp for the tire they are running, which is what anyone should do. I made note of the 200TW tire temps because I'm familiar with them(i.e. Bridgestone RE71-RS/RZ, Yokohoma A052, etc.)

 

[NocturnalEmber]

Are you speaking from experience? Or from "trust me bro"?

I thought the stock tires didn't need a burnout, so I didn't do it for the first few runs. I was getting quarter mile times of 12.9 to 13.3 that way. Once I started doing a short burnout before, I started running 12.4 consistently.

You likely did make better times with later attempts; My point is I don't think one can say with a high level of certainty that a burnout on oem tires is largely contributing to that. I'd be very skeptical claiming a delta of almost a whole second due to a burnout on street tires.

I'm not doubting you put down those times (the fastest motortrend managed was a 12.5 on a stock ZF8 speed) but I still stick by what I said originally. Unless you were in frigid temps, and even then, I wouldn't suggest OP put a set of oem tires through that for virtually no tangible benefit.

 

[vlad]

You likely did make better times with later attempts; My point is I don't think one can say with a high level of certainty that a burnout on oem tires is largely contributing to that. I'd be very skeptical claiming a delta of almost a whole second due to a burnout on street tires.

I'm not doubting you put down those times (the fastest motortrend managed was a 12.5 on a stock ZF8 speed) but I still stick by what I said originally. Unless you were in frigid temps, and even then, I wouldn't suggest OP put a set of oem tires through that for virtually no tangible benefit.

That’s a lot of words to say “I don’t actually know what I’m talking about.”

 

[tracer bullet]

You guys can both be right since there aren't a lot of numbers shared.

More heat in a tire, even a street tire, gives more grip - up to a point. Beyond that point, they do indeed lose grip. So you need to stay in the right range.

If that was as-is, after a short burnout, after a long burnout.... you'd need to find the details for that tire compound and have a temperature gun.

Cool day, overcast... burnout would help (if not done for a long time). Baking hot day, full sun, made a few runs... probably skip it unless you think you picked up a bunch of rocks on the way back from the last run and want to try to clean the tires.

It depends. Try it. If it works stick with it. Be prepared for it to not help as well.

 

[NocturnalEmber]

That’s a lot of words to say “I don’t actually know what I’m talking about.”

That's because I didn't say that.

The inability for you to comprehend the position of my point isn't my shortcoming here, it's yours.

I didn't doubt that you made the times you said, even though you have still yet to really provide the conditions upon which you made them. I guess that's on me though, assuming someone is capable of basic inferences.

To be blunt: My point of discussion here is that to someone in OP's situation, it would likely be very easy to over estimate at what point a burnout would cross into the territory of causing less grip and hurting times. If one is that concerned about 1/4 times on street tires I would think they would likely better be served by getting some non oems that will take and perform better in drag conditions. The key issue, though, is a lot of this is subjective unless you are documenting under controlled, verifiable conditions.

 

[NocturnalEmber]

You guys can both be right since there aren't a lot of numbers shared.

More heat in a tire, even a street tire, gives more grip - up to a point. Beyond that point, they do indeed lose grip. So you need to stay in the right range.

If that was as-is, after a short burnout, after a long burnout.... you'd need to find the details for that tire compound and have a temperature gun.

Cool day, overcast... burnout would help (if not done for a long time). Baking hot day, full sun, made a few runs... probably skip it unless you think you picked up a bunch of rocks on the way back from the last run and want to try to clean the tires.

It depends. Try it. If it works stick with it. Be prepared for it to not help as well.

Well put. I figured under the generalization, if OP was asking about what gear to do burnouts in, the best likely answer for them would be "none, just enjoy your runs." Worrying about what temp to keep tires at if you aren't sure what gear to do them in (no offense to OP, saying this from an educational standpoint) might be taking the fun out of it for them, they can do regular runs and probably form a solid baseline.

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