Torque Developments Street Class Drag success with Toyota MR2
The saying goes ‘Power is nothing without control.’ And that’s very, very true in the world of Street level drag racing.
Hence the satisfaction felt at TDi-plc from the recent success achieved at Santa Pod by Roy Ashby’s Street Class MR2 Turbo, which uses a 2.2-litre HKS stroker 3S-GTE which was built by the owner, with the specification and mapping carried out by ourselves. The end results are an ‘ample’ power output of 547.5 bhp @ 7530rpm, allied to 425.3 lb.ft @ 6000rpm as measured at the hubs on TDi-Plc’s Rototest dyno.
Unfortunately until the final round of the HKS Drag Series, the combination of massive power, huge grip and the rearward weight bias of the MR2 caused the car to literally ‘wheelie’ off the line during launch, like this:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDDRXhoEip4&feature=channel_page
Eye catching it may be, but it’s unsettling for the driver and hardly ideal for setting a scorching time, so clearly while the power was present, more control was badly needed.
Fortunately TDi-Plc’s Sam Borgman had a solution, which focused on fine tuning the front / rear weight balance on Roy’s car in a bid to keep the front glued to the tarmac during launch. The solution was proven during the practice for the event the Saturday before, with Roy ending up with 15 kilos of ballast fixed into the nose of the MR2 Turbo to find the perfect balance point.
With the Toyota’s weight balance optmised, Sam Borgman was able to progressively increase the MR2 Turbo’s launch control system to find the ideal trade off between wheel spin and ‘wheelie.’ Here’s what the runs looked like, post modification:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W1lcF5qQpY
The results were a scorching 10.1 second past – some 0.7 seconds quicker than Roy Ashby’s previous best – and an Overall win in the HKS Drag Series Street Class. Proof positive that when TDi-plc provides both the power and the control, the results can be spectacularly successful.
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