First time to the drag strip

[98intrigue]

Dang, you almost had that 10! Looks like a good showing of Vipers as well. When’s the next mod going on?

I’ll be heading back to Bradenton real soon for my quest to deep 10s.

[ky13]

Congrats!!

[Dr.Ron]

Update:

So I decided to take the car out to the track for the second time, 1 year and 2 months later. The car spend most of that time in storage since I was moving around for work. I'm glad to be back home, just paid the VOA renew dues and looking forward to actually participating in an event or two this year. Same mods and same tires listed in the first post. The only difference this time is it was January in Orlando with great weather. Temps in the low 60's, DA -50.

First Pass: 11.3 @ 128 with a 1.9 sixty. Launched at 4k rpms and bogged a little. I felt pretty good about this run but the end of 1st did sneak up on me fast and I bounced off the rev limiter.

Second Pass: 11.1 @ 129 with a 1.9 sixty. Launched at 4.5k. Okay now I'm pretty excited and realize if I can just learn how to launch the car better I could dip into the 10s. Based on the clutch smoke people tell me I leave behind I think I'm just letting the clutch out to slow so I decide to let it out a little faster on run 3.

Third Pass: 1.7 sixty. The launch felt great and I knew this was setting up to be a really good run. When it's time to shift into 2nd I press the clutch and I just dont feel the car go into second, it's just not there so I don't let the clutch out and give up on the run. It took me a while to find third after skipping second.

Fourth Pass: I passed up the line on the burnout and go to put the car in reverse and it was very difficult and took me a while to get the car into reverse. Sure enough pretty much the same result as the 3rd pass so I let off and didn't finish the run.

I let the car sit for a while and took my time airing up the tires. I decide to head home and when I'm pulling out of the track I redline 1st and the 1/2 shift goes in perfect and everything was normal driving home.

All in all it was a fun night and got to meet a few of the other local viper owners that came out (awesome group), some pics below.

I'm plan to have everything inspected, clutch fluid flushed and swap in an aftermarket clutch before I visit the track again.

PS: Thank you slowhatch for the detailed advice!

Nice! It sounds like either you overheated the clutch or your transmission needs to be rebuilt. These transmissions apparently don't like to be run hard at the drag strip. Ask me how I know.

Report back what the outcome is.

Ron

[Vipes]

Nice improvement! How did the other Vipers do?

Thx all, everybody else was doing well. 12.1-12.5 trapping 117-118 all on regular street tires with similar mods as me, headers/exhaust.

Dang, you almost had that 10! Looks like a good showing of Vipers as well. When’s the next mod going on?

I’ll be heading back to Bradenton real soon for my quest to deep 10s.

Nice, hopefully you get some video of your runs! That shop is really busy, should hopefully be shipping the car off in 3 weeks. I dunno what the break in period is for the clutch I bought but hopefully I can run again before the humidity rolls in.

Ron sorry to hear, that's the first time I've heard anybody say that. You have me a little concerned now. Did you grind a gear or was that just after normal runs at the track.....on drag radials?

[Dr.Ron]

Thx all, everybody else was doing well. 12.1-12.5 trapping 117-118 all on regular street tires with similar mods as me, headers/exhaust.



Nice, hopefully you get some video of your runs! That shop is really busy, should hopefully be shipping the car off in 3 weeks. I dunno what the break in period is for the clutch I bought but hopefully I can run again before the humidity rolls in.

Ron sorry to hear, that's the first time I've heard anybody say that. You have me a little concerned now. Did you grind a gear or was that just after normal runs at the track.....on drag radials?

It was on street tires, making it even worse. I am a seasoned drag strip guy (check my sig and the C6Z06 "Fast Lists" on the Corvette Forum). It would not go into 3rd gear on 2 passes after a couple of runs and that was it! Repaired under warranty. No more drag racing this car for me. My Z06's took it like a champ, never an issue...ever!

The transmission shop told me some of the parts in the tranny are PLASTIC! I told Dodge I would pay to upgrade to carbon parts and they said "No, it will void your warranty!"

Ron

[Vipes]

Wow that's really disappointing to hear about our trans. I just drove the car this afternoon and everything is still good, hopefully I just overheated the clutch or maybe boiled the fluid but I'll post back what the shop finds after putting in the new clutch.

-Troy

[Steve M]

Wow that's really disappointing to hear about our trans. I just drove the car this afternoon and everything is still good, hopefully I just overheated the clutch or maybe boiled the fluid but I'll post back what the shop finds after putting in the new clutch.

-Troy

This is likely your issue...the TR-6060 certainly isn't bullet proof, but it also isn't made of glass. Clutch issues could lead to transmission issues if you start forcing it into gears.

Which clutch?

[Vipes]

I ending up going with the Nth triple carbon, everybody I talk to so far seems to like it.

[Steve M]

I ending up going with the Nth triple carbon, everybody I talk to so far seems to like it.

I've found it tricky to launch, but overall it's been good. Smoothest aftermarket clutch I've owned by a long shot. I'm assuming the shop installing it has installed one before...if not, make sure they follow the instructions they provide. It's slightly more involved than most, but not bad.

[Matt Dillon]

It was on street tires, making it even worse. I am a seasoned drag strip guy (check my sig and the C6Z06 "Fast Lists" on the Corvette Forum). It would not go into 3rd gear on 2 passes after a couple of runs and that was it! Repaired under warranty. No more drag racing this car for me. My Z06's took it like a champ, never an issue...ever!

The transmission shop told me some of the parts in the tranny are PLASTIC! I told Dodge I would pay to upgrade to carbon parts and they said "No, it will void your warranty!"

Ron

That's Exactly WHY I'm so scared to even put a friggin' tune or headers on mine, it SUCKS! SMDH

[Dr.Ron]

I thought I'd mention that as I stated above I didn't drag race the car again. I did a handful of HPDE days though. Those don't really put any strain on the transmission or the clutch, at least not nearly like drag racing. Anyway, the tranny took another crap! 3rd time. Again rebuilt under warranty and they wouldn't allow me to upgrade any parts. So I had the car fixed and traded her in for a 2018 C7Z06.
I belive my Viper was in the shop around 11 times for warranty repairs, 3 of which were 2-2.5 weeks for the transmission. Oh well. I'm glad I had the pleasure of owning a Viper though.

Ron

[sadil]

Let’s be clear when we talk about transmissions. The viper and corvette both use TR-6060. Got a lot of people launching the car hard and running fine aside from smoking their clutch. The plastic pieces inside the transmission are the shift fork guides. All TR6060s come with those and bronze is an option to upgrade to. If you failed 3 brand new TR6060 with stock HP, with all due respect, you should look to yourself being the issue lol not the transmission. I have noticed that the TR6060 in the viper is less about brute force and more about timing with finesse..

[Dr.Ron]

I hear you. They were not new transmissions. They were rebuilt, only replacing what was necessary. The earlier Z06's had the T56 by the way. I believe in 2008 they moved to the T6060, but as I mentioned, I am on my 5th Corvette. I used to drag race a lot with the 1st 4. Not tooting my own horn, but again my 1/4 mile Z06 times on the fast lists are all top 10, with my stock on drag radials C6Z time being 2nd by .0X, so I know what i'm doing. And I have the best 60' stock times. But getting those ET's you cannot be gentle on the shifts, and I wasn't. Those trannys NEVER gave me a problem after several hundred cumulative passes over 10 years!
In the Viper I made maybe 6-7 TOTAL passes.

[ViperNC]

I thought I'd mention that as I stated above I didn't drag race the car again. I did a handful of HPDE days though. Those don't really put any strain on the transmission or the clutch, at least not nearly like drag racing. Anyway, the tranny took another crap! 3rd time. Again rebuilt under warranty and they wouldn't allow me to upgrade any parts. So I had the car fixed and traded her in for a 2018 C7Z06.
I belive my Viper was in the shop around 11 times for warranty repairs, 3 of which were 2-2.5 weeks for the transmission. Oh well. I'm glad I had the pleasure of owning a Viper though.

Ron

Sucks you had that experience. I'm curious what you noticed happening during your HPDE with the Viper before the transmission problems became evident. I'm assuming you were using proper heel/toe techniques and shifting cleanly to be kind to your drivetrain.

[Dr.Ron]

I had an auto blip, so downshifts were perfect every time.
I noticed on the track that I was having trouble shifting into 3rd gear sometimes on high rpm but deliberate shifts. It just got worse from there.

[Jack B]

That sounds like the clutch was not releasing.

I had an auto blip, so downshifts were perfect every time.
I noticed on the track that I was having trouble shifting into 3rd gear sometimes on high rpm but deliberate shifts. It just got worse from there.

[98intrigue]

I have Ron's back, as I've had 5 transmissions replaced/rebuilt in the 5 Gen Vs that I've owned. Not tooting my own horn either, but I've been driving a manual transmission for 15 years. Lots of miles and stress put on previous cars and even a couple Gen 3 Vipers... never an issue. The TR6060 in the Gen V has been troublesome for me and many others. My most recent failure happened out of warranty, so now I have a Level7 trans from RPM Transmissions. Hopefully, that's the last!

[txA&M08]

I have Ron's back, as I've had 5 transmissions replaced/rebuilt in the 5 Gen Vs that I've owned. Not tooting my own horn either, but I've been driving a manual transmission for 15 years. Lots of miles and stress put on previous cars and even a couple Gen 3 Vipers... never an issue. The TR6060 in the Gen V has been troublesome for me and many others. My most recent failure happened out of warranty, so now I have a Level7 trans from RPM Transmissions. Hopefully, that's the last!

Well I've been driving a manual transmission for *17* years and haven't broken one yet. You young guys have no finesse!

[Whiskey]

Well I've been driving a manual transmission for *17* years and haven't broken one yet. You young guys have no finesse!

Maybe you are not shifting like you stole it. Doing it grandpa style double clutching like you should. :-). J/K. Lol

[darbgnik]

Maybe you are not shifting like you stole it. Doing it grandpa style double clutching like you should. :-). J/K. Lol

You're lucky that 100 shot of NOS didn't blow the welds on the intake!

[Whiskey]

You're lucky that 300 shot of NOS didn't blow the welds on plastic the intake!

Fixed it.