Track results. Not good

[CoolVanilla]

I know a lot of ya are waiting for these results, and I'm sorry for the delay. Sucks being sick.

The numbers:


Some facts:
Launch RPMS: These we varied all day long. As ls1 says, we didn't get the air pressure right in the tires until 1/2 thru the day (run 5 and later). I'll need ls1 to confirm this, but I believe the best time of the day was achieved with a launch of 1800RPMs or so. Anything more and the thing just spun and spun

Did you have traction? Was a problem the entire day. It wasn't the track's fault either. It seemed to be in great shape. Maybe the tires aren't sticky enough? They are BFG 275/40/17's; supposedly a very good drag radial...

Where is the car shifting at?5800 or 6100? 6100. We left it in D all day. Matt on one of his runs manually shifted at 5800, where the dyno showed *might* be a good idea. Didn't seem to make a noticeable difference.

Was it shifting at a different rpm before the B&G? No. It was shifting differently though. Post B&G shifts actually torque spike now. Again, another thing that, in theory, should have netted better times.

Was was the difference in air from the last time?
Jan 20, 2007
Ave Temp = 47deg
Ave Hum = 64%
Ave Pres = 30.09in
Dew Pt = 28deg

Oct 14. 2006
Ave Temp = 65deg
Ave Hum = 70%
Ave Pres = 29.84in
Dew Pt = 48deg

Did you loosen the suspension? You betcha. We turned those KWv2's all the way down. We did not do the sway trick. Maybe we should have

Did you pull fuse 17? No. We did have the GSM mod engaged, ESP off (unless noted), and the B&G Stage II with its advertised near eliminated torque management. Perhaps we should have pulled fuse 17 anyway.

What was the final air pressure? Hot the driver side read at 28, and the pass read at 24. I'll check them later today to see what the final, cold pressure is.

Did you drive to the track on the drag radials? No. We installed them on site.

Comments:
Yep. The best run of the day was a 13.4@ 104. One tenth better than the last time... you know, the last time when I did NOT have drag radials OR a high performance torque converter?

Here are gotls1's comments. She's been the MFO driver since day one and all official track results were achieved with her at the wheel.

1/2 the day was spent trying to get the tires tuned so that we could get a decent burn out and launch. This cut into time to really try and figure out the converter's sweet spot. I think with a few more runs I might have been able to do better than 1.91 on the 60'.

Once we did get the tires figured out, any time I launched without spinning (including the 3rd run where I eased it off the line), I noticed that at about 1/2 track or so I could hear the engine plateau and sometimes dip a little before picking back up towards the end of the track. I wasn't smart enough to look at what RPM this happened at. It may have happened when I spun off the line as well, but I don't remember it happening. I may have just written off the run though and not noticed. The time slips should tell the story.

Tranny popping out of gear during burnout = bad. Not remembering to turn off ESP once you get it restarted = worse.

The last comment there references run 6. Literally, it was the best burnout of the day and of course, the tranny went right into limp mode. She had to shut down, fire back up and luckily HAL decided it was OK for her to go.

MattRobertson also drove my car, and here are his thoughts. I warn you, they aint pretty:

It borders on criminal that you and I are effectively at the same ET's despite your having 15 horses on me. And drag radials. And a hot cam. The B&G took care of the cam's low end performance, I figure, so I also figure if you had a stock rear end your times would have gone down instead of moving sideways. Thus I blame the converter for the failure to improve. Think on this (and I am sure you have): What would your ET's have been with stock tires? Worse?

... or is the effective gear reduction a potential issue in and of itself with respect to HAL and his forcing ESP? And if that is the case, is a set of DR's an effective substitute for a 'verter, with zero install cost, zero impact on tranny longevity and zero cause for HAL's intervention?

And then there's the issue of HAL with respect to the fact that you can either have a full-performance car at the expense of the loss of ESP's safety net; and further that you can make the decision to dispense with the safety net... but if you forget to shut it off you can kiss performance goodbye if you need it at a sudden moment. I didn't shut it off cuz I didn't know, but M [gotls1] did and she forgot on one occasion herself... result a 15-second+ ET. What if you're coming onto a freeway on an uphill ramp and you need to step on it to get by a semi... ESP in such a circumstance has now become an outright danger.

I think at best I would say the jury is out on a 'verter [for me] until it is tried with full-size tires and at WOT with ESP on. And even if HAL keeps his nose out in that scenario, there's still an argument that says "just buy DR's".

My thoughts echo Matt's in terms of the effectiveness of the verter. It seems painfully clear that I've traded one problem for another. At the MFO5, my problem was the utter lack of performance at anything lower than 2900RPM. I would flat suck out of the hole, then kick ass the rest of the way.

So install a performance converter and throw on some DRs and problem solved right? Wrong; instead of sucking out of the hole, now I'm just fraking spinning. Then, when the DRs do decide to hook, Hal takes over mid run and says not so fast.

I know these results aint what many of you wanted to hear. Trust me when I say you aint alone. We foolishly thought yesterday might have seen sub 13 times... silly us.

On the way home I had time to think, and I came to one, final conclusion. I'm to the point now where it just doesn't make sense to keep messing with this thing until full programming ability makes itself known. Hal is one sick son of a bitch, and I'm tired of fighting him. Give me the software gun I need and I'll kill his arse. Until then, Hal has got me beat.

Please feel free to comment or question anything here. This is open for discussion. I'll be adding vids over the next hour or so, so keep your eyes open for that.

Run 1 video:


Run 2:


Run 6, Part 1 - Limp mode during burnout:


Run 6, Part 2 - With ESP on

[BrilliantBlackHemi]

Not what we were hoping. Ok, time for Morpheus to come out of the closet as open source. Yes I said it.

[aries4life]

I am sad.

[Slim]

Very open and honest review of your experiences!

Members like you benefit all of us in our quest to make the most out of our cars.

I wish you and others great luck in your attempts to overcome BigBrothers hold over us.

[Hemi31]

Stupid question.....how much air were in the DR's?We have run them as low as 12lbs out here in the cool weather to get traction .
Looking at your MPH's it seems that if you can get traction every run will be in the 13.0 or better range.

[RobAGD]

CV you will have a pm in a bit

-R

[My Hemi]

There is that old expression Damned if you do Damned if you dont fix one problem we get another....Good luck on your future attempts..... Keep us posted..we all will need the help down the road....with traction when adding more power....

[CoolVanilla]

Stupid question.....how much air were in the DR's?We have run them as low as 12lbs out here in the cool weather to get traction .
Looking at your MPH's it seems that if you can get traction every run will be in the 13.0 or better range.

Oh no question. But ls1 was the driver in both cases. I never release numbers where she isn't the driver. I've got her by probably 2.5x in weight (I'm in the 320lb range). I fully understand that wouldn't be a fair thing to do, so that is one major reason she has been and will continue to be the "official" driver.

[BMWDON]

Sorry to see it CV, I fully expected to see nothing but better times/runs after #1, this sounds like a real bummer...hope things get hashed out and everything gets better

[InferAl]

Sorry to hear things didn't work out as hoped. I wish you luck in getting things dialed in. We all apreciate the effort you put into it

[lafrad]

I have that exact same RPM Plateau. 3rd gear, and hits at about 4-4500 rpm.

I can watch my tach and see the RPM go DOWN as my A/F guage also goes DOWN. By the time the RPM's are climbing again, my engine is running 10.0:1, and I can feel the nose of the car lower due to reduced torque.

I can only think that this is torque management of some sort... SOMETHING is calling for less torque.

Is it the increased stall of high-stall converters paired with a HP/Torque curve that will push those converters even higher? Are we superheating trans fluid and a "protection mode" kicking in? Is there a Lockup clutch trying to engage?

I have no idea.

Did you see that RPM plateau before the converter? CV?

[MattRobertson]

Stupid question.....how much air were in the DR's?We have run them as low as 12lbs out here in the cool weather to get traction .

I don't know that number but we were getting left wheel spin and no right spin until I personally let still more air out of the left tire. At which point, IIRC, I got a pretty decent burnout... and then I turned ESP back on like I do in my car and got a 15-second-plus 1/4 mile. Subsequent runs hooked up just fine but the ET's were unimpressive for a car with 'NillaBean's pedigree and DR's to boot.

I hadn't realized the final mph on that run was ~ 74 mph (when I looked down at the cluster, first in perplexity and then disbelief, I saw the gauge pegged solid at 4800 rpm's and a continuously flashing ESP light). That is just ridiculous. You can't have that as a maximum speed on a passenger vehicle and hope to be driving safely on the road. Especially if you are used to making driving decisions in what you think is a high performance vehicle. This had better be a problem that happens only when DR's are mounted. CV you need to test WOT acceleration from 0 to the high speed of your choice on flat and ascending ground to make sure the converter has not caused a serious safety issue when coupled to the car's default behavior, which is ESP-ON.

[MadCharger]

Wow - definitely not what I was expecting. With 47* temps though, nothing short of slicks are gonna hook up properly (I would think). CV, those tires hooked up perfectly for me, at full pressure, when I used them in 65* temps. However, like you, I did feel that my converter was no longer giving me the same advantages it seemed to give when I first got it. I even commented that I thought HAL had reversed it's effects (which is why I'm patiently waiting for the Mopar performance TCM). Cold temps are usually good to these cars, but I saw my times get worse as the temps dipped into the 50 or below territory. It seems that 65-75 is where it's happiest.
Did you drive to the track with the DR's? I wonder if HAL gets confused when it sees the different gear ratio going on? Strange indeed..... :(

[lafrad]

we need the training wheels taken off the tranny.

The new Tranny shift program is WAY WAY WAY better than anything previously...
If we can take the protection peices out of there... it seems to do pretty good down the run.

[Ghostface Mag]

Sorry to hear.....