Some friends of mine give me mixed feelings on this subject. Some of them do a burn out to heat up the tires to get better traction on take-off. However, some of them skip the burn and go up to the line. Their times seemed to be pretty even so in my opinion I don't think a burnout would make a difference. Then again it could depend on the tire....

I think it helps a little bit if they are hot.But,stay out of the water box if you can.The water will sling all under the fender wells then drip back down on the tire while your at the line.And we all know what wet tires do.

you dont want to do a massave burn out with street tires.  just do a quick burn out to clean the tires off of any dirt or sand.  heat is not a good thing for street tires.  if they get too hot they will act as if they were cold and not give good traction.

get posi track too.  big diffrence!

woo!

I don't do a burn out with my tires.  From what I understand if you do a burn out with street radials they get all oily and thats a bad thing.  street radials are made from a different rubber than slicks.  I just do a little spin to clean all the rocks and stuff off the tires.

The best mod for your car if you are gonna drag is a a couple of spare wheels with Drag Radials or some sort of Drag tire mounted to them. Personaly I prefer Drag Radials cause I can change them off prior to heading to the strip and I don't have to worry about dinking with it at the track. Even cold I can pull a consistant 1.9 to 2.0 60ft. (I havent had the oportunity to heat em up yet due to a wheelhop issue.... which I think I will have fixed shortly :biggrin:)

Burnout wise... I won't beat the dead horse... with most tires it won't help you any... there are a few premium tires that will get sticky though. The new Potenza RE740 Gen IIs being one of them.

Do those of you who run street tires do burn outs before you race?  I was just wondering.  I'm going to the track this weekend to see how my gear changes and headers do.  I got wondering if I really need to do a burn out with my tires.  I hook up pretty good witth out doing them.  Thanks

if you want your tires to last don't do a burn out.  just chirp the tires a little bit to get them warm. street radials don't like alot of heat, when they get too hot they start chuncking(pieces flying off). MY suggestion would be to get a set of bf goodrich radial t/a tire.  they sell in summit from โ to ๪ a piece but they are worth the money.  i have them on the back of my car and they made a world of difference.

Yeah wet tires = bad thing. I was heading back to work after my lunch break and it just started a little drizzle. Well the back tires weren't wet so didn't have the traction they needed....back end swirved a little bit. Good thing I've been in that situation before otherwise I would have been in the ditch next to my house.

Burnouts on street tires (not street ETs or DOT drags, but regular street tires) is a no-no.  All it does is strain your rear (differential that is...) and burn your tread.

Burnouts are for slicks.  The reason lies with the purpose...slicks are rather hard and smooth on the outside, but inside the lining are compounds that make the tire sticky and softer.  To get those compounds to the surface the tires must be heated and expanded.  A slick isn't worn out when it falls apart, it is worn out when there is no more of this compound to coat the surface.  

All that is required for treads is a quick spin to clean off the rocks and dirt from the pits.  At most you need only spin them until they hint of smoking.  If you heat them up too much they will because "glassy," or greasy.  Don't believe me?  Go out to your local empty street and do a cold launch, no spinning at all.  You may get some wheelspin, but the tires will bite rather quickly.  Now, go do a nasty, smokey burnout, then try the same launch.  You will now notice your tires lose traction on launch, on peak power, on the 1-2 shift, on peak power, and so on.  If you're lucky you can keep the thing going straight on the shifts.

If you want to do burnouts, get slicks, and get a linelock.  Your tranny and your treads will thank you.

smokey tires, I run street tires most of the time and all I do is a small burn to clean up the tires. I disagree with you on slicks, slicks are much more stickey than a street tire(thus the good launch) ans will put more stress on your rear end than a street tire will. I have seen more stock  10 bolts smoked because of slicks.

Doug

so what do you think the BF goodrich drag radials will do to a stock rear with 3.73 and posi.

I am now using Firestone Firehawks and I love them!

Well.................I have always gone around the watering hole(hehe) and then like everone else has been saying, done a burn just enough to spin the tires a couple of turns.  This just shakes the gravel outta the thread,  and water off that may have gotten on the tires anyways. Then I move to the line and repeat the same exact precedure.  People may laugh at this little system, but when I used to drag(I don't anymore) it worked really well for me.

 It always seemed that when I just did one burn, that I was doing it in the same exact spot that everyone else did.  This made me just deal with the crap that they were dealing with-NOT GOOD.  I also always tryed to move my tire line to a different side than were others launched(left or right).  

 I'm sure people will argue that you get better traction by running with the same lines, but my time slips used to always tell a different story.

 Sometimes beginners would just leave so much rubber and debris on the line(I guess they thought it was neat-o to leave rubber for 1/8 mile) that even prepping your car for launch did no good.

 I remember the guys that would pour the bleach over the tires, lower pressure, and do all kinds of stuff to them to try to hook up.

Trial and error-for the night that you are running.  It will change for each night, as well as changing as the night goes on.

These are just my opinions, so please don't anybody tear into me.:)

I agree w/ the post Tyler made.  I'm running 13.1's on Kuhmo street tires and I always dry heat them.  Drive around the bleach box that the track workers spray down, line up w/ the groove, and powerbreak the car.  Before your first run you will most likely see smoke b/c the tires are much colder than they will be the rest of the night.  But as you tune, getting more runs in, you will notice they wont smoke near as much for the same burnout.  I've played with many different dry heating/burnout methods for the better part of last season, and this is what works best for me.

~Nick
LP Performance Motorsports