Somedude wrote:^^^^^hey hey hey look everybody I am a driver who doesn't know how to drive stick yet I have a car with manual transmission and I am going to smoke the guy who has track experience who has an Automatic transmission car with about the same amount of power.
Well, theoretically he's right. So long as a driver has about a week or so experience with a manual, he will beat an equally modded car on the drag strip.
ProRally Codriver wrote:You don't have to be a brain surgeon to dragrace. After 1 event you've got enough 'track experience' that everything else is just motor and traction. Go to the track sometime and count the real racecars with autos. It doesn't take long to count to zero.
That depends. Most sub ten second cars opt to go auto, as it gets very hard to be anywhere near the fficiency of an auto shifter at that power level. Hence why cars like the fastest drag Supras out there opt for an auto tranny, and a good amount of tim the TH400, a three speed auto made by GM at that. With lower power level the power you don't lose through a torque converter can be applied with practicality, at higher power, the small amount off loss through the auto is entirely worth it for its efficiency.
As far as drag racing not being rocket science, you're right. However driver ability can account for big differences in times. IF you don't have a good launhing texhnique you're toast to a similar car. Whoever said somehting about reaction time, it doesn't really matter if you're talking about the 1320, the RT factors in to who gets to the end first, but not which car runs a faster 1/4 mile, so that doesn't realy come into play. I know I've seen damn near identical cars run very different times due to the driver mod. If you take two higher powered cars with slicks on them, ti's going to be easier to get them to hook up and launch out the 60 foot like nothing. Not saying it would be EASY, but easier. Now if you take those same two cars on street tires, you obviously can't dump the clutch high in the RPMS without losing a lot of traction. The practice of slipping the clutch through the right MPH until your RPMS match to grab the gear and take off takes more than a smile. If you have a turbo, sc, or nitrous car, different techniques apply across the board as well. Hence why even guys with crazy fast cars that have plenty of expereince driving them will use professional drivers if anything big is at stake (i.e. money races or the show pinks).
Now I figure you like to rally, and I will say this, while all the things I said above are true, you can still be a halfway decent driver and hang not too far behind a great driver. But in rallying/auto-xing you HAVE to have skills, or you'll get smoked. I think the conflict here is drag racing and autocrossing come from two majorly different schools of thought, and due to the fact that the difference in driver ability will be WAY more evident on a road course than on the 1320, course drivers tend to pick apart drag drivers for simply going straight down a track. That being said... I wish I could heel toe downshift better
Anyhow, as for the original topic of the thread, the 5spd should stomp the auto. Having owned both cars, I can tell you that stock for stock the 5spd will work the auto, and the gap should be even bigger with the SC as it will add more power to the 5spd than the auto by virtue of the fact that less of the extra power will be lost trough the drivetrain. It's not actually adding more power, just losing less, the same principle is applied when you add a 100 shot of nitrous to a 2,800 pound car vs a 3,300 pound car, it's going to move the lighter car better. All of this is why after I owned a 5spd, I cna't see myself ever driving an auto again, at least in the sake of a car, if I had an suv or truck (i.e. lightning) it would be different.
I say if the only mods are the blower, having never driven either one boosted, the 5spd should toss down a 1/4 mile trap in the high 90's and the auto would get low 90's, 1/4 mile time would ultimately depend on just how well it's driven and would be too hard to pinpoint, hence why FWD cars are often compared by trap speed and usually would rather roll race than dig, especially against a RWD or AWD car.
-chris
by shocar4 » Wed Jul 26, 2006 7:57 am 
I guess we'll just have to wait for Tobasco to change that...
