My First Burnout

Cougar Community Classic Cougar Community Discussion
1

Never tried before. After a second round of adjusting the idle of my carb, this time with a vacuum gauge in the mix (18.5 at idle), everything seemed as good as its gonna get, so I was thinking maybe it was time to have a little fun.

First I drove around for a good half hour or so, city driving, lots of stop and go, but some of it in an industrial area where there are some open stretches of road and no people or police likely to be around. So I did a few heavy accelerations just to make sure everything seemed ok. It sure did!

So then I went to a spot right by my garage where I would walk past on my walk home. Stopped the car, still in drive, and then took my foot off the brake and floored it and kept it floored. Rather than just the occasional tire chirp I get when I go a little harder from a stop, this was a nice full on screech. I could feel it, like a milder form of driving on ice. Control was super easy. I went on for what seemed like a good 75’ give or take before the wheel finally connected. Notice I say wheel, open diff and all. :-/

So I drive to the garage, park the car, for the first time ever I get her into the garage without requiring any back and forth to squeeze in the tiny garage door in the tiny alley. Everything was like, magical.

So I walk home, go down that street to count how many paces the line of rubber takes up. It was exactly ZERO. No rubber at all! I could see what I’m guessing is the trail my tire left, but it didn’t leave any rubber, it just sorta cleaned the street up or something, left almost the opposite of a black strip.

I’m guessing I did something wrong. I’m guessing the thing I did wrong was to not warm the tire up first, by running her up with the front brakes holding the car in place. Is that it?

Well it was still fun as hell, and nice to see that she can get up and go. But I wish, in a silly and childish way maybe, that there was some evidence of it all, and I could see how long of a distance it actually was.

Help school a noob. What do I do differently next time to leave some rubber on the road? Next time may very well not be until springtime. Stupid winter.

2

If you heard a “nice full on screech”, then the tire is spinning. You’ve already done what you wanted. Not leaving a mark in the street could be a combination of multiple factors: road temperature, materials that the road was made out of, age and type of tires, temperature of the tire tread or all of the above.

Before my rear tires cost in the neighborhood of $360 a tire… I used to power brake mine just enough to get the convertor into it’s stall and then stand on it. It would ignite BOTH rears and leave a nice signature “S”. My best performances would be in a certain parking lot… right after it was sealcoated each year. The fact that it happened to be a church parking lot had nothing to do with it. :whistle:

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The one on the main road before turning into your neighborhood? :stuck_out_tongue: John

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Yeah making noise is cool and makes you feel goood! Right up till you spend a few hundred bucks apiece for the tires. I am going to be putting goodyear polyglass on mine. I will make it chirp or burn at least once maybe to set it in my mind then after that probably not so much! Just knowing it will is good enough for me on this car. maybe on the next one it will be all rodded up.

5

Yeah I have no plans to burn through tires. Not even a little. I’d just like to leave a mark, just to do it.

The road is a generic asphalt road as far as I know. The temperature of the road would be on the low side, it’s been in the 40’s here a lot lately, even getting near freezing. The outside temp was probably 45 degrees at the time.

6

I too enjoy a good healthy posi burnout launch from time to time, but the tires I have on my car don’t seem to leave behind much evidence either, which I find disappointing. We’ve got a lot of used tire shops around here, and I got these tires from one of these places. Since my Cougar is only an occasional driver, a pair of 50% tread used tires last me a good long time - and at 100 bucks (including mounting and balancing) a PAIR, I don’t worry too much about roasting them once in awhile. (I’m a cheapskate.)

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Nah, not THAT one. It was in my old neighborhood. I left my hoodlum ways in that town when I moved… that… and now the tires are just too damn expensive.