I think I am 'hooked' on truck pulling

[markrinker]

Pulled #2 truck yesterday. First time for me. What a blast! Was much more nervous than expected, but nothing broke, and placed squarely in the middle of the field of other 8,000lb competitors running tuned up Powerstrokes, Cummins, and Duramaxs. Mine was the only 6.5 Chevrolet in a field of at least 80 trucks.

I made two mistakes that took at least 20 feet off my pull:

First was bad information/supposition that my adjustable 2" receiver tube pintle hitch would work for the 'hook'. The hook was too big, so rather than lose my place in the pulling order, I dropped the big hook around receiver tube, losing about 6" of drawbar height. That cost me at least 10' according to experienced pullers.

Second was my learning curve. The truck hooked up hard in 4LOW/1st gear and rev's/boost climbed quickly to max (no tach) RPMs. Had good ground speed and no wheel slip at about 40ft down the track, motoring hard. Then I made the mistake of getting a gear, rather than wait for the sled to pull my trucks RPMs back down to its power band.

Lost lots of ground speed after the shift, all four wheels then broke loose, and started howling against the dry packed track. It went down spinning HARD with no bounce or wheel hop at 164'. I let it wind for a full second after the flag, since all that was going away was tire rubber. That got some claps and cheers from the stands.

The longest stock 8,000# truck pull was a tweaked out Duramax that went 230'. He twisted his rear drive shaft in half after starting to bounce at the end. Bounce is bad. Very bad.

I'm going again next weekend...

[ 07-18-2004, 07:27 AM: Message edited by: Mark Rinker ]

[Jim P]

I would love to pull my truck too but my wife is kind of holding me back for fear of breaking something.

When you are talking about grabbing a gear, I assume you have a manual trans. Do you think it would have been able to take off in second gear?

I pulled an old international truck in second gear, low range but it ran out of guts. What gear ratio are you running in the rear ends?

[markrinker]

Actually, I meant manually shifting the auto transmission from 1st to 2nd. The gear ratio is 4.10.

Tire size 31 inch Goodyears (borrowed) with really aggressive tread that wraps well around onto the shoulder of the tire. Ran them at 38 lbs to get more bite.

Other prep included backing off torsion bars tension 6 turns per side to let the front end hang real low over the wheels, equalizing front and rear weight distribution under load.

Added about 650 lbs of weight to the rear bed in the form of salt sacks over the wheels, installed Timbren load springs - they are actually illegal for the stock class but nobody checked and they could have been removed in 15 minutes to comply, if asked to do so.

[Jim P]

Ok, I understand now. I was trying to figure out how you shifted a manual during a pull.

I have seen it done before but it is not something that I would try.

My truck has a manual trans. and I don't know if I should pull in 1st or 2nd gear. I talked to a guy at our local pulls and he was pulling his power stroke in second.

[markrinker]

My guess would be first, especially if you are running taller than stock tires.

However, you can try second, and stop before 75 feet if it doesn't work and re-pull.

[Kennedy]

In my LIMITED truck pulling experience, I will say that 1st gear low range isn't going to cut it. 2nd gear low will be so-so.

I've pulled my Dmax in 3rd low and 1st high, and its just about fast enough, BUT that is with 3.73 gears. Looking at 2nd high with TCC locked...

[markrinker]

The sled must have been set really heavy last night because a few guys with suspension lifts or oversized tires and tall gears couldn't even get it off the starting blocks. They just wheel hopped.

Don't know what the sled weight was, but it was by FAR the hardest pull I have ever felt behind me - and it got worse really fast!!! I think second gear would have worked better had I selected that gear and not shifted manually after the engine was past peak torque. If the computer had determined the shift point, it may have stayed 'hooked up' and done better.

Also, going to 31" rubber might not have gained me anything. 265s would make LOW/2nd a more viable option for the power my lowly 6.5 is making at present.

[ 07-18-2004, 05:28 PM: Message edited by: Mark Rinker ]