Pretty much as the title says.

A given car at a given weight with a given tire and first gear ratio sitting staged against the footbrake at say 3000 rpm. We react to the light and floor the pedal and the motor rpm immediately flashed to let's say 5500 Flash RPM.

At that instant....what is happening to the fluid in the converter and the tire reaction before it goes to the converters optimum slip? And is there a way to calculate/estimate how far the car travels before the full "hit" of the converter,,,or the maximum load transfer...gets to the wheels? And then how track conditions can be adjusted with launch RPM / Converter preload, etc?...other than with suspension mods.

I'm trying to get it in my head how far the car travels down the track and how that is effected by weight and traction....it would be obvious that if the tires unload/break traction there is no lag at that point.

To me this has always been the Voodoo of how a converter works, and how to optimize it.....and also how a higher flash speed often allows the car to hook or optimize the 60' where compared with a manual trans the full load transfer momentarily pulls the engine speed down....this you can see on the tach and feel in the car. I've always been a stick guy...so old habits and conceptual understandings die hard!

I'm hoping the converter guru's can understand what I'm trying to get my head around and chime in...it's just what happens in that first second that I always have trouble visualizing. I've looked on dozens of sites trying to find the 'A-ha!' moment

BTW...I havent had my coffee yet so forgive me if I'm not making sense.... LOL!