v8440
03-22-2009, 07:13 AM
I went to the track again this last Friday, and I borrowed my buddy's drag radials. He runs them on his '05 rcsb. There's one critical difference between his truck and an '09...traction control. Before installing the tires I measured them, and his were 4" shorter than mine. That's great, right? After all, I need a little more gear.
Yeah. It's great until the computer senses the difference in rpm between the front and the rear tires. SLAM goes the throttle. Of course, I putting the ESP button in (partial) disable works. It turns out, it doesn't work quite well enough for the track. It works well enough for you to not notice anything wrong while driving to the track, but as most of you know, you can't fully disable traction control on a 2wd '09. Read the owner's manual carefully and pay attention to how things are worded and you'll see. I read it wrong the first time and thought I could disable it completely. Not so.
Long story short, I got a helluva launch, and then it pulled the throttle partway shut a bit before the 60 foot mark. It then felt like it opened it up again, but never really felt quite as strong through most of the pass as it does on the stock radials. Then, I got a nasty shock-a couple hundred feet before the finish line it let WAY off-the damn speed limiter! I wasn't actually going 106 of course, but the truck sure thought I was because of the tire height difference. It ran 93.something on that pass, which is way off the normal pace. ET was 14.10. In fact, the pass before that was on the stock tires, and it had just run 96.75 mph, a new best for that truck. I think it was because I had let it cool down for a long time before running it.
So, the moral of the story is, the 09's don't like differences in height between the front tires and the back tires.
Yeah. It's great until the computer senses the difference in rpm between the front and the rear tires. SLAM goes the throttle. Of course, I putting the ESP button in (partial) disable works. It turns out, it doesn't work quite well enough for the track. It works well enough for you to not notice anything wrong while driving to the track, but as most of you know, you can't fully disable traction control on a 2wd '09. Read the owner's manual carefully and pay attention to how things are worded and you'll see. I read it wrong the first time and thought I could disable it completely. Not so.
Long story short, I got a helluva launch, and then it pulled the throttle partway shut a bit before the 60 foot mark. It then felt like it opened it up again, but never really felt quite as strong through most of the pass as it does on the stock radials. Then, I got a nasty shock-a couple hundred feet before the finish line it let WAY off-the damn speed limiter! I wasn't actually going 106 of course, but the truck sure thought I was because of the tire height difference. It ran 93.something on that pass, which is way off the normal pace. ET was 14.10. In fact, the pass before that was on the stock tires, and it had just run 96.75 mph, a new best for that truck. I think it was because I had let it cool down for a long time before running it.
So, the moral of the story is, the 09's don't like differences in height between the front tires and the back tires.