I'm taking my car out to the track on Saturday to see what kind of numbers it'll do.

I have a couple of questions:

My first question is what to do with the traction control button. Should I just hold it down until the DSC turns off?

I was also wondering what would be the best way to get a quick start without putting a lot of stress on the car?

Thanks!

 

When you drive a MINI, your DSC should always be OFF!!! Hold that button down!

You're drag racing. You will put stress on the car no matter what. Hold 3000 rpm and dump the clutch.

 

If you've got a lot of power I'd suggest against doing a burnout. Save your clutch. Mine didn't fare well last time I went.

 

Yeah, don't bother with a burnout, you'll just be doing unnecessary damage to our 'cardboard' clutches . Traction control all the way off, because it will limit boost. Rev decently high (as previously mentioned) and drop it, you might studder a little but then it's business time . Good luck!

 

I read that if you press the traction control button once (without holding it), it'll give you a little bit of traction control.. Would that be better than having it completely off?

I'm just worried about having too much wheel spin.

What are some of your 1/4 mile times in an R56?

 

Dude, you got the wrong car for drag racing. It will never ever be fast. It's got a weak clutch, and it's front wheel drive. It's just wrong.

For $6K you can buy a Fox body Mustang and the parts necessary to run in the 10's. Something that a streetable Mini will never do...

Or you cold buy a used 1000cc motorcycle and run in the 9's. Stock... (with some practice...) And feel like you are going fast even if you aren't...lol

 

I agree! Auto cross the mini and get something for the 1/4

 

I agree that drag racing a FWD cars is just down right silly, but he's probably already made up his mind to go.

 

I'm not trying to make it a drag car or anything, I just want to see what kind of numbers it'll do. It's all for fun!

A few of you have mentioned that our cars have weak clutches. How weak are we talking?

 

Correct. It's just for fun. You're not going to be a regular at the Friday night drags, right? Nothing wrong with that.

Do not feather or "ride" the clutch when you launch it. As mentioned, just bring it up to 3K and release the clutch quickly - otherwise, you'll burn it up. AND the surface you'll be on is super-tacky, so when you launch it you most-likely won't spin much, if at all. On regular pavement you'll spin quite a bit, but on this drag surface your tires will hook up pretty well.

 

If you have an iPhone or Blackberry, check out Dynolicious. It's tremendous fun to measure "skidpad" (360 degree G-forces charting) and drag (0-60, ¼ mile, etc) performance. It uses the devices' built-in accelerometers to gather data.

It'll even calculate horsepower and torque, if you know your car's weight. If you don't know your car's weight, for just playing around, just put in the official MINI wet weight, plus your own weight. You'll likely be off a hundred pounds in some direction, but it gives you some numbers to do to compare your successive runs vs yourself without having to be at a carefully calibrated drag strip.

Even without entering weight, it will still provide skidpad, 0-60 and quarter-mile times.

There are now some other apps which do this too; Dynolicious is simply the first and thus the one I bought. Check out Pocket Dyno; there are others in the app store too. Pretty sure there are Android equivalents too.

 

Thanks for all of the help everyone.

That app looks pretty cool, but I don't think I can justify spending that much on something that I'd probably only use every once in a while. I'll do a little research on it, maybe it's worth the money!

Do any of you know what I should expect as a time? I'm hoping for under 15 seconds.

 

15's.

 

I suck but it's fun trying:

 

Lol. You say front wheel drive cars aren't drag cars.... You're sorely mistaken. Look up T1 Racing or Chris Miller Racing.

While I agree Mini's aren't built for drag racing, your comment about FWD not being a good platform as a drag car is 100% false.

 

He wasn't saying impossible, he was just stating the obvious, MINIs are more fun on the twisties than a 1/4 mile. Yes it can go down the track but will it be as fun as it is potential of? No The OP isn't building a racecar and shouldn't be disappointed when he/she returns numbers in the 15s or possibly worse. No need to be sorely anything...

 

Lol, you need to go back to physics class man. RWD \ AWD is where it's at for drag. FWD is trying to put the cart before the horse.

 

Say… wouldn't a cart before a horse be a rear-vehicle drive system?

 

I think FWD would be a cart on top of a horse

 

Reminds me of this photo I came across yesterday...

 

Yes I have seen the FWD drag-strip Honda monsters with their ridiculously wide front tires and skinny rears. The physics are against FWD and it's very humorous watching them compete against traditional drag platforms. When you're raised in a NHRA loving family seeing ricers like that at the strip is laughable. FWD in a racing environment fare much better on a road course.

 

My best time was in the high 14's. Not bad considering my wheels span for the first few seconds lol.

 

dont dump your clutch!!! and try to ease the shifts to be nice and smooth not neccessarrily fast and rough and shift around 5k or so, stock cooper s hard top is said to be around a 14.6(clubmans are a little slower) according to road and track magazine. my friends practically stock r53 was running consistent 14.6-14.8 so we should have no problem in the r56 running similar times, the mazdaspeed 3's are all running into the low 13's and high 12's so i think we can do it too!!

 

Shifting at lower RPM's would help my time? I was shifting at redline.

 

after about 6k rpm the power drops off, look at any stock r56 dyno, and stock car dyno really. Ideal shift would be around 5500-6k rpm