I had a chance to take the CLK to the Woodburn Dragstrip over the weekend so I could get some full runs on the new PCS transmission controller and see how the weight reduction over the winter has helped.
With the brand new Mickey Thompson drag radials and about 300 lbs of weight missing since last year, the car launches totally differently. If I stall it too high at the light, the tires just go up in smoke at the starting line. I had my best results by leaving the tree off idle, at about 1000 rpm, and was able to match my previous best 60′ times of 2.0 seconds.
The transmission controller is working well; driveability to and from the track was good, and for the most part it performed well during testing. It did need a few tweaks, and Russell from Sound German Automotive was able to email me some updates that I got installed right at the track.
The only remaining problem is with the 3-4 shift. You can see in the graph, in the red circle, that the RPM gets erratic during the shift, causing the speed to drop (blue line) right at the end of the quarter.
Even with the problem at the 3-4 shift, I was still able to set a new best ET for this car at 13.062. Unfortunately it kept me from getting my goal of a 12 second pass! That’s about a half second off my ET from last year when the car was full-weight!
