Your on the highway and a car pulls along side wanting to run. Your waiting for the challenger to punch it and youve slowed to about 60mph. Do you shift to 3rd and jump to 5k rpms or drop to 4th gear and get ahold of some primary boost and then let the secondary take over to use the entire powerband up to 140mph? This seems like a rational question in my mind.
*I raced a mod'd SS Camaro a while back and chose to punch it in 3rd, but always wondered what the outcome would have been had I went to 4th.

 

I've done that before.... I tried double clutch down to 3rd and then once double clutching down to 4th...... From my experiences going from 5th-3rd is way better at 60mph because it's right there in the power band, no lag, if it was from 5th-4th, then it'll land right before the 2nd turbo, which creates a tiny lag.......

If you want to go from 5th-4th, try that at around 75-80mph.... That'll land you in the 2nd turbo range.......

-Dan

 

Yeah but if your at 60mph, and you shift to 4th you hit ~3800rpms, that would allow you to hit 10psi for about a 1k rpms and then the changeover to 2ndary boost. Im just thinking about hitting Primary boost on a race from a roll. *oh and yes, I pulled the SS when we raced.

 

drop to 3rd....dont think about boost level, think about hp curve. You want to race in your powerband which is from 5500+

STEPHEN

 

Definately go for 3rd, you can take it up to about 100 before 4th is needed. 3800 RPM's in 4th will not pull nearly as hard as the 5000 or wherever you are in 3rd.

 

you hit full boost at 3800, but you don't hit your car's peak torque band and horsepower curve are. All that is over 4500. Same boost at higher rpm really means more power is running because it takes more flow to hold that given boost level while the engine is porting in air that much faster. Boost is like an average pressure measurement. If you have lower engine speed porting less units of air per unit time, it is easier to have 10 psi because less air is being taken from the intake piping. At higher engine speed, the engine is sucking out more air per unit time and 10 psi means that something ie the turbos are boosting more air to hold that same level of boost.
At 60 mph, you should go with 3rd gear. I shift out of 2nd at over 50 mph and 3rd usually rolls the tach over to 80+. If you have an extra 20 mph left on the gear, then its worth using up before up shifting. Anything more than that, consider downshifting if you are below the redline of a gear down.

BTW, what are your mods? I haven't raced an SS yet and I'm always willing to run if I know I can win.

 

petal to the floor, drop 3rd and say peace.

 

Thanks for the input.
*see sig below for mods.
I dont know about from a dead stop but on the highway he wasnt a big deal even modd'd.

 

Was it a newer SS? Not sure exactly what this guy had done to his, but it was fast as hell, and an automatic. I've got an intake, downpipe, hi flow cat, exhaust, and a semi-tuned pfc, and he killed me. Rich beat him tho..

 

Efini badges will always make you go faster! +10 hp.

-HeX

 

well those ss's are fast on the freeway, and they arnt that hard to mod, jus the other week i got beat by one, now mind u he was supercharged but thats not the point, they have great top end, race it from a stop and its a diff story

 

I got them because the black efinis look way better then the 'toilet bowls' that come on the car. -quit drinking HaterAde
*And it wasnt a newer SS.. it was probably a mid 90's LT1
the LS-1s are alot faster.