Reading about the power gains with a turbo makes me wonder how effective a turbo car could be made to be as far as repeatability and how one could be footbraked consistently to use for bracket racing.
Any experiences or input??

just like some basics 101 on spooling, etc

I have seen a few, but not competitive in brackets
They tend to stay in a heads up class, bunch et mph freeks LOL

My brother does it weekly, and we've put a couple hundred runs on the car. Its nothing like an N/A car, no where near as consistent. The car is EXTREMELY engine temp sensitive, even with Water Meth Injection and on low boost small variance in temp will swing the ET .05-.1+

Most consistent way to launch is gonna be off a transbrake, the car will spool the turbo pretty quickly on the 2 step.

Frankly, its a great way to make power, but is not the best method for a bracket racer looking for consistency.

With the packages bracket racers are putting together these days I would say...um no.

at our track we use Autostage. when both cars have staged the lights come down within 2 secs of the second car staging. we also have to curtousy stage so we both have to be prestaged together before either car stages. if there's a turbo car in the next lane & i stage first, he has no show of being on boost before the lights come down. thats racing on a Pro tree of course, i'm sure they have better luck on a full tree.

Hey Don, not sure on consistancy but staging has become much easier with the advent of the bump box. Google it, it is a micro processor that controls the transbrake. I'm not looking for consistancy but I will deffinately be using a bump box. Spooling will be done in the prestage beam, and the bump box will be used to bump in from there. With the turbo sized right for your combination spool time will be quick. Jody

Mine used to be very temp sensitive and would be all over the map ET-wise. If you hot-lapped it, the thing would go quicker and quicker. If you had to wait an hour before the next round - it would slow down. That was with the factory PCM.

Now that I've switched computer control systems and use a launch limiter the thing is deadly consistent in comparison. I have timeslips for the past 3 outings at the track, at two different tracks - that show it to be repeatable within a hundredth for the entire night, including the usual ambient air temp drop when it finally cools off some. It never did that before. That's with a big intercooler that makes my intake the same temp all night that does it. Of course I realize that might not be a tight enough package for the "pros", but for my deal it's WAY better. I honestly haven't put it to use in true brackets yet. Somebody closed my racetracks! LOL

As for staging the thing - I mat it when staged and it will sit on the launch limiter for quite some time without any complaints. Of course I'm also not using all the convertor that way either - but it works for me. No problems at all staging or spooling. It makes full boost on the limiter immediately.

Well, after reading great reply's, I have come to the conclusion, foot braking with a turbo is gonna take more smarts than I got.
The older I get( and I am already old...Lol) my bones seem to have old school kinda set in them like arthritis.

You can make anything consistant. Just takes practice and you can't be trying for best et everytime you pull to the line.

p.s. FWIW the next build for this will be a twin turbo wedge foot brake car...if it's a tad lazy out of the gate, I won't really care.

For a bracket car you just want it consistent ..
if you pull into the lights at idle and leave at idle
and let the boost come in down track it should be
consistent

The key is to manage the boost. I use the MSD boost controller so I ramp teh boost in off the trans brake release. I'm still trying to make mine faster, and making the drag radials work has been a challenge on the stock suspension (testing cal-tracs tomorrow though).

If you wanted to foot brake, you could do it. It would require you to put a two step on the brake pedal, and have the boost controller set so you can control what the boost is doing.

Mine is non intercooled E85 also, and heat between rounds seems to have zero effect on repeat ability. I back to back to backed it at stanton with the little tires 8 weeks ago and it went 10.69, 10.69, 10.67 three in a row. Not too bad at all if you ask me....


Leaving from an idle isn't a great idea because depending on engine temp, the spool up time can vary greatly getting to the boost target.