I'm seeing more cars with Transbrakes with the ability to launch in 2nd gear and am curious about what the benefits are and what additional setup is required to take advantage of it. All feedback is welcome.

Thanks in advance!

All I know about it is this. My car is a tenth quicker with a powerglide from a 727. I don't know if the change is apples to apples with a small block. Your car is stupid fast and looks to be street driven. I don't think it would 60 any better in 2nd. I think dead on consistency is more the goal leaving in second. My .02.

On stupid fast cars that yank the wheels - consistency and ease in driving. Friends car only lost a tenth using second gear launch - but he says it is so much easier to leave the line and get down the track. It's a mid 8's car.

I'll eventually get one of these valvebodies from CRT so I can launch in 2nd gear. It's a cheap alternative to a powerglide, which is what my car really needs. I have way too much SLR for a 572" motor on nitrous. Leaving in 2nd gear would really help get the car off the line without incinerating the tires.

Just put a full on race case glide in it and go 8.60's! I don't know if you have a clean neutral but it's cool to click it into neutral at the stripe instead of decelerating against the engine. Harder on your already taxed brakes though.

Believe me, I would in a heartbeat if I had the money. There's a complete brand new ATI powerglide for a BB Mopar for sale here locally for 4 grand.
My family comes first, so I'll just have to work with what I have already.

When you have an 11 sec. car, everything is like $900 to make it go 10's. When you have a low 9 or high 8 sec. car, everything is 4K to get it to go faster! After you spend the money and get the trans. you still have to deal with the converter, flexplate, trans. X member, starter, driveshaft and shifter, none of which are cheap. Stupid money...

Oh I know this very well. I've helped friends w/ their stupid fast cars and seen what it costs to do it. I'm perfectly happy that my car is now a real 8 sec car, but now I'm taking a step back from it due to the costs involved. My footbrake bracket car should be track ready this spring. ('69 road runner, 446" Indy headed wedge, 727, Dana 60, etc.)

A good friend of mine told me that 500 horsepower in a Mopar will cost $5000 and every hundred horsepower after that will be another $5000. He was pretty close to right on.

I have one of John's brakes that will work in second in my small block street/strip Dart. The only reason I bought it is because my local track isn't normally good and I run radials most of the time. I had the car there this fall and it spun every time I tried the brake in low, leaving at 2500 in second it went 1.51 60'. Foot braking it went 1.40.

While my car isn't as fast as others, we do quite a few small town "Street Drag" events that have popped up.

After much experimentation, we found 2nd gear launches coupled with 100 lbs. mounted directly over the rear bumper works well with Drag Radials and Cal-Tracs.

A dusty, asphalt street is quite the challenge, especially when most are 330 ft. or less due to event insurance. The launch is critical!

I have a friend that is a small tire 28” nitrous car

We struggled with 1st gear launch with the 727 2.45 first gear launch off the brake at 3,500 for almost ½ this season

Once we started 2nd gear launch the violence went away
We just about cut the SLR in half
Cope 2nd gear t-brake launch valve body

The downside to this on this type of car is that wheelies and wheel stands started…………so power management and suspension adjustment became mandatory…pronto

This is why I asked about 727 ratio a while back my builder wants to know so ee can leave in second gear ..i asked about going to the glad he said skip it t400 better all day 3speed..told me we may change gear in my 727 but we will test first see how it works out..

That's an unbelievable jump in performance! What were the ET differences between the two short times? I originally thought that these VB's would be better for BB's.

Dave, my small block is 434" with a 4.125" crank. The car ran 6.49 on the pass I left in second gear. It felt very different, like the car just sat down in the rear and stayed there for a couple seconds. On the 1.40 60' foot brake pass the fuel pump locked up and the car died at about 500' or so. Looking at the incremental's to 330' it would've been a low 6.30 pass if it didn't pick up any more in the back half.

The foot brake pass was leaving in first, sorry if I wasn't clear in my previous post.

I went 1.27 with CRTs 2nd gear leave t-brake .
I also did a 300 + foot wheelie that didn't want to come down until I lifted .
Leaving in 1st on my car just hasn't worked so we went to the 2nd gear and we have been pretty happy with it .
I will say that the couple passes we made on nut using the 2nd gear it was a dog in the 60ft so it took me some time to decide to use 2nd when spraying.
Pretty sure we can go a low 1.20 or high teen once we get more of a handle on the chassis .
Pic is 2nd gear leave .

This pic is after doing a bunch of chassis changes

Thanks for the replies. I wouldn’t put mine in the stupid fast category but it sure gets out of hand trying to launch in first gear

I’m wondering if a looser converter helps when launching with a lower SLR?

Justinp61 - did you try launching any higher than 2500 rpm? If so did your 60’ improve?

I like the first pic better! There's just something about a car clawing for the sky that is so bada$$!

No, next spring I plan on more testing.