[ljg335i]

Last night I went to the drag strip (Raceway Park) for the first time in my life as a 'competitor'. Along with me, I brought my 1/4 93oct-filled SG 335i which over the last 4 months has picked up about 11300 smile inducing miles. Luckily, I had a helmet because I thought, even I, the rookie, could break 14sec in such a beast. Conditions were pretty good at 77deg and 29.37 baromoter with 0 relative humidity (according to the time slip, highly doubtful.)

Well, as the lanes started emptying, my time soon came. I picked the left lane and inched my way to the staging area, went around the water box and rolled up to the starting gate. Intimidatingly to my left was a slightly modded C6 Vette which I thought would murder me. However, the outcome wasnt as bad as I expected.

I turned all traction off, popped it into DS and watched the lights come down. I power braked ever so slightly and took off on the last yellow. The launch was great with an RT of .389, as witnessed by my 60' of 2.01 on stock RFTs (on that note, the whole car is stock). More interestingly so was the fact that I was ahead of the Vette, beating him to 330' and just behind him at the 1/8, but it went downhill from there (to be expected, to say the least).

I crossed the line a few lengths behind the Vette and couldn't wait to see how I did. Coming back around, I almost missed the ticket booth (rookie mistake), but eventually got there and found out the news!

13.56@102.1 - not bad I thought...

Oh and the vette - he ran 13.06 at 110 with 2.11 60ft.

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Back to the gates it was, only this time we were confronted with a much longer wait, due to pro-stock racing going on at the same time. Eventually, I got back up there and decided to use paddles to keep me from red-line and bring up my trap. Ended up with an RT of .086 and a 2.08 60' and crossed the line at 13.65 @ 102.5, shifting from 1st a little early at 6k, and 64-6500 for the 2-3 and 3-4. Not the improvement I would've like, but not too bad. That run got the temps up to over 250, which is probably the 2nd time I've seen it (that is until the final run).

For the last run, I literally had about 5 minutes to cool down, ended up getting anxious on the power braking side and spun through 2nd gear, running a .132 RT, 2.37 60' and 14.3@101.8

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All in all, I had a great time and was pretty happy with the cars performance, although expected a little better on the trap side. Also, there were a couple other 335s, one with procede (also his 1st time) ran a 13.55@105 (manual), and a new manual montego blue coupe w/temps, ran 14.4, baselining before his procede install.

The show stopper was a modded 997TT which ran an 11.2 and a nice M5 which ran 12.6. The 3er was faster than a lot of the cars though. Faster times than all of the Jeep SRT-8s, faster than a modded Trailblazer SS, faster than the GTOs, not to mention all of the turbo civic riceballs.

edit: Forgot to add that we raced an e46 M3 coupe on the way home (don't leave comments saying racing is bad, i know) and we started to pull on him around 3-4 shift, he specifically came into the parking lot I was going to just to say how fast new bimmers are and that the m3 has nothing on the 335 (he had just test driven one the other day). food for thought...

[1clean335i]

nice times i need to take my car to the track

[Bimmer335i07]

How much did it cost to do the runs?

[JmanE55]

Good times.

[ljg335i]

Originally Posted by Bimmer335i07

How much did it cost to do the runs?

Cost $28 (wednesday test&tune) +$5 for a permanent number

[ljg335i]

Originally Posted by 1clean335i

nice times i need to take my car to the track

Thanks...yeah, you definitely should - it was a lot of fun, lots of cool people too!

[sflgator]

Definitely nice times...about as good as can be expected from a stock 335i (other than the trap speed a 1-2mph low). Great job and glad you had a lot of fun...it was a blast my first time last month as well, so I know how you feel being a "rookie."

btw -- the next time you go, try just pushing the DTC button one quick time to turn DTC on ("DTC Activated, DSC Limited") and use the Paddles from M1 (so you control your shift points)...you might be surprised to find even a tad better times and trap speeds.

[ljg335i]

Originally Posted by sflgator

Definitely nice times...about as good as can be expected from a stock 335i (other than the trap speed a 1-2mph low). Great job and glad you had a lot of fun...it was a blast my first time last month as well, so I know how you feel being a "rookie."

Yeah I was hoping I could get the traps to around 104, not sure what was holding it back. Will try again soon though.

[sflgator]

Originally Posted by ljg335i

Yeah I was hoping I could get the traps to around 104, not sure what was holding it back. Will try again soon though.

The track conditions and/or weather. btw -- it's almost impossible to have 0% R.H...even Death Valley, CA has typical R.H. ~ 30%-55%. The R.H. at your track last night was probably ~ 50%+.

[ljg335i]

Thats funny you say that, because I was wondering how that could be the case. I guess they just weren't tracking it because I just looked and it is 0 on all the slips, which doesn't happen in hot/humid NJ summers. That's probably the case. I'm not sure how much the mid-high 70s helped either

[SW335]

Those are Great times. Nicely written too.

[ljg335i]

Raceway Park is basically at sea level AFAIK...I don't know exactly what I powerbraked to but i feel like it was less than 2k except for the last run which had me spinning for a while..

We were only given three runs, so I will try a few more/different things next time and see how much better I can get. Anyhow, the 335 definitely impressed people at the track

[Bimmer335i07]

When's the next time you'll be going. Let me know, I might just go too.

[ljg335i]

Originally Posted by Bimmer335i07

When's the next time you'll be going. Let me know, I might just go too.

Hopefully pretty soon.. I will let you know

In any case (for you and anyone else interested) you can go to www.etownraceway.com and look for test&tune days.

Also, I would love to get a ride in/see what a turbo tuner car can do as that is likely the route I will take... How do you like it?

[ljg335i]

Originally Posted by sflgator

Definitely nice times...about as good as can be

btw -- the next time you go, try just pushing the DTC button one quick time to turn DTC on ("DTC Activated, DSC Limited") and use the Paddles from M1 (so you control your shift points)...you might be surprised to find even a tad better times and trap speeds.

Thats one of the options I wanted to try, and will try next time after lighting up my tires so much on the third run

[Bimmer335i07]

Originally Posted by ljg335i

Hopefully pretty soon.. I will let you know

In any case (for you and anyone else interested) you can go to www.etownraceway.com and look for test&tune days.

Also, I would love to get a ride in/see what a turbo tuner car can do as that is likely the route I will take... How do you like it?

I love it.

Although it doesn't give you the extra HP that the PROcede gives you, it's more than enough to satisfy my need for extra HP. Plus, it's really simple to install and uninstall.

[ljg335i]

I cant wait for the extra power, even though its quite fast as is!

[bronco]

nice times. You need Proceed

[scooby9]

Sounds like a fun time. I can't wait to take my car to the track after the break in period is done.

[Evo8MRto335I]

Excellent times indeed. It looks like the manual have some trouble getting off the line while the auto is very consistent

[Black Chili]

Well when a Vette hands you your own ass I suppose that's not a positive thing, but I will say that those are all crappy times and for all those cars, both from what i've see at the track and in the mags(mostly).

It was either a humid track, it was really warm and/or the track wasn't prepped well. I expect the C6 in the 112-114mph and solidly in the 12's; the bimmer aound 105 and definitly low 13's with the cosmoline still cleaning to it's fenders.

[ljg335i]

Originally Posted by JephryB

Well when a Vette hands you your own ass I suppose that's not a positive thing, but I will say that those are all crappy times and for all those cars, both from what i've see at the track and in the mags(mostly).

It was either a humid track, it was really warm and/or the track wasn't prepped well. I expect the C6 in the 112-114mph and solidly in the 12's; the bimmer aound 105 and definitly low 13's with the cosmoline still cleaning to it's fenders.

i just was posting for comparison purposes, jackass...i had the vette until about the 1/8, which is pretty impressive imo...btw he trapped 110...temp was in the mid-high 70s and nj is always humid in the summer, but relative humidity wasnt reading