When racing - any kind of racing it is inherently unsafe. It is funny to me when you ask "is this safe" - the answer is NO! drag racing is not safe and it is the art of building a car that produces enough power that you can guarantee that something will break just so you can make it stronger so the next weakest part will fail. Repeat. Just struck me as funny....
I'd upgrade the driveshaft when you do that 9" also, especially if you get it to dead hook. After that, I would fix it as it fails.
I 1.50 flat 60ft with a 8 inch and have done it for 3 years went 7.37@91 mph 1/8th mile. The rear is all stock ecept for a mini spool,and 4.30 gear ,i run 275 bf good rich drag radials
Wow, that's pretty impressive! What rpm do you launch at with your combination? 1.5 60ft time is very respectable.
a good clutch is the ticket in something like this...but they (the type I'm talking about) typically are not really streetable. This is where you get into "street car vs. race car". And then we have the issue of what each person considers "streetable"...I think streetable is somewhat quiet, somewhat smooth and these days anything that gets 15mpg or more. Some guys can put up with a clutch that is on or off and a motor with a rough idle. Hays makes an adjustable clutch. I believe RAM does too...and of course there are many others, but none of them are cheap. The advantage being that you can tailor the launch. If for example you have a hard locking clutch and you launch at 5000 RPM, there's a good chance of a bog and/or broken parts. If you're able to soften up the launch by adding in a little slippage (just a little but not too much) it'll launch cleaner, quicker, faster and with less parts breakage. If you're serious about racing with a stick shift, it's a good idea to CALL a good clutch guru. Either that or put an automatic in it which isn't nearly as cool in my book but a whole lot cheaper and easier on parts.
The king cobra clutch I have has enough slip in it to hopefully save a few parts here and there. I think it's probably what saved my rear end. I will try to increase the tire pressure and leave a little softer until I have a stout 9" and a more solid driveshaft.
My cousin has a stock 8.8 in his 93 mustang and launches at 5k on slicks and hasn't broke anything yet. With this being your dd I would not reccomend it though
If I were using the car daily I wud leave the 5K launches to somebody else. I don't think u will see to many of those w/ ur setup B4 something goes POW.
The king cobra clutch has been well known throughout the Mustang ranks to be the culprit of many, many a broken part. It's NOT a race clutch by any stretch of the imagination. It's a street clutch that has SOME slip but nothing compared to a good one. Once you've experienced what a good adjustable clutch is like, combined with a dogring or faceplated transmission, there is simply NO comparison to a "street" trans/clutch. The clutch is so important that pro racers actually will hire a full TEAM of people who are responsible for clutch maintenance. Those reasons are exactly why I mentioned there being a difference between a street car and a race car. We get to a point where we have to think about tearing up our daily driver and trying to bust balls to put it back together for School/work on Monday....or turn it into a real drag car that isn't as critical if something breaks. Not trying to be a jerk or anything but those are some things to really think about. I remember trying to race daily drivers. When something broke, had to call in sick, thumb a ride or whatever. And if you're lucky your designated driver (if you have to thumb a ride to school or work) will drive an older car and he'll understand why you're always workin on it. If you're unlucky, he'll be a chevy or GM owner and will rag you to death. Speaking from experience!!
Race your car until something breaks. Replace the broken part with something stronger and continue to race until something breaks. Replace it with a stronger part and continue racing..... repeat until you are tired of going fast or run out of money.
I have broken enough stuff back in the day. So I have reverted to a more reliable setup and race to be fast enough. I'm not too concerned about how fast is it capable of before it breaks, but rather haw fast can i go without breaking anything and being reliable enough to drive home. So far I've ditched the stroker short block and will be removing the nitours kit next time I have a reason to have enough tools out. I am hoping to put in a T5 soon and don't want to worry about it blowing up or having to put 1500 into a Gforce kit.
I prefer to let the tires be the weak link. Keep replacing broken parts until you get back to the tires.
That's what FWD car drivers do, they let the axles be the weak point. And Since they get free lifetime replacements from autozone they save a ton of money. By using the Preloading technique they take away stress from the tranny. And there are guys out there running in the 10/9s running OEMs five speeds and cheapo autozone axles.
Just go ahead and throw in that Auto... Cruise to work, sit in stop and go traffic...... Then kill em Sat at the track with consistency
