nrgy

I thought I'd post this question here since all the experienced draggers seem to post in here, but this question is in regards to my C63. After making 3 passes at the strip for basically my first time, I kept getting consistent 2.3 60' times, which resulted in 1/4 mi ETs of 13.1-13.4. I know I can improve on this, and was hoping to prep my techniques and the car for next spring.

The first thing I should mention is I didn't really do much preperation to the car before I ran, mainly because I wanted to see what the car could run in it's everyday form. Thus, I ran with about 41 psi on all four corners. If I had lowered the psi in the rears to 25-30 psi, would this really be enough to achieve sub 2 second 60' times with 265/30/19 street tires? (Bridgestone RE050A PP)

Also, how much is the lack of a LSD hurting me with my launch? I think I've read on here that for drag racing a LSD wouldn't really help much. Is this true?

I plan to upgrade the suspension to coilovers in the near future. What settings would help improve my 60' times. And would these settings sacrifice overall handling too much?

Fr33kn63

I would definetly deflate the rears to 25 psi. Even with street tires. I dont think the C class has suspension settings but on the E class we always make the suspension soft to allow for max weight transfer. Fors the C class other then decreasing pressure or putting some drag radials I am not sure there is much else you can do other then take as much weight out of the car as possible. Like get rid of the spare and anything loose in the car. Maybe remove the rear seats if you can.

slavik

lower rear tires to 21 psi and keep the fronts up to 44psi, take the revs up to 1200-1500 and roll into the throttle taking about a half second, go wot as you feel the car grip...top of first gear... and get some ps2's

jmf003

There are some good tips in the drag racing sticky, https://mbworld.org/forums/w211-amg/236339-drag-racing-how.html

I use the roll-into-the-throttle technique pioneered by someone else. Wish I could give credit where it belongs.

In a nutshell:

- ESP off
- Short burnout (no need to heat up street tires; just remove any accumulated crud)
- Some guys put the ESP back on after the burnout but I leave it off.
- Left foot on brake, right foot off throttle
- On the last yellow light, release the brake and roll into the throttle, taking 1 second (more or less; depends on track prep) to hit WOT

With just a little practice you should be able to run sub-2s on street tires. I'm still very much a rank amateur and am able to run 1.75 to 1.85 pretty much all the time.

Good luck!

slavik

i get 1.9's all day on street tires...so its defintely possible....

prodigymb

hey,
when i went to the track i met a guy with a c63 and he ran 2 12.7s with 1/9x 60' and a 13.1 with a 2.19 60'. my suggestion is do a light burn out not in the wet box (go around it if possible) and just roll into throttle. also deflate the tires to 25-30psi

nrgy

Thanks for the info guys. So it sounds like simply lowering the pressure in my rears should make a dramatic difference. I did read up on the drag sticky and tried all the techniques mentioned (ie. ESP Sport, off-throttle, feather to full) but couldn't stop spinning. Of course I still need practice with my technique, but hopefully lowering the pressure should allow me to hook up better.

I was also wondering if an LSD would help at all with launches?

And yeah, the C63 doesn't have airmatic suspension, but I was looking at lowering the car with coilovers. If I were to set the suspension up for drag racing, would I want the car to sit a bit lower in the rear? For example, drop the front by 20mm, and drop the rear 30mm? I'm not up to speed on this weight transfer concept

Thanks again!

jmf003

My personal experience is that lowering the air pressure on my street tires didn't make any difference. However YMMV, as the saying goes.

General consensus seems to be that an LSD doesn't help at the drag strip. I did have an LSD installed on my car but didn't have a lot of track time before the installation, so I don't have firm before-and-after numbers. If you're looking for lower ETs, you'll definitely get more bang for the buck spending your money on drag radials instead of an LSD.

The general consensus for drag racing seems to be that you want the suspension soft on all four corners and high in the rear to help the weight transfer from the front axle to the rear. So lowering the rear end would be heading in the wrong direction for improving your drag racing times (but in the right direction for lowering your lap times on a road course).

Good luck!