[the head]

At the track it’s good to remember that your reaction time does not affect your ET on the timeslip. It does affect the total amount of time to get to the other end. Adding the reaction time to the ET will give the net amount of time to get through the ¼ mile. A good tip here is to leave on the last amber (yellow) light on the Christmas tree. By the time you mash the pedal and the truck gets going it’ll be green.

Some people say that they get a bog when mashing the gas all the way from a dead stop. Some titans do it, others don’t. Go out and practice once or twice to find out if yours is one of them. I don’t have that problem so I just mash it all the way all at once. Take the VDC off if you have it. It will allow the tires to spin a bit, which is a lot better than the traction control putting on the brakes and really slowing you down.

Weight is the enemy so lose as much as you can. Or at least what you are up to doing. The spare tire and tailgate are pretty easy to remove. Run a ¼ tank or less of gas. This can get as extreme as you want it to be. I’ll also remove floormats, the jack, and anything else I don’t need to make a pass that is loose in the truck. I don’t remove seats or bumpers but you could do it if you want to get radical.

If you have a few days and know where you’re going to be running, it doesn’t hurt to go out to that place and see what kind of traction you have. You might try playing with tire pressures to find out what works best. For me, I run about 35 pounds in the stock 18” wheels/tires. When I run the 17” wheels and shorter tires I go 28 pounds.

I’ve tried shifting manually and with it in D. It always shifts at the same spot no matter what I do, with the exception of if I don’t shift out of that gear manually at redline and then it just smacks the rev limiter. Mine is always in D after the burnout. If you have a the Big Tow, that switch won’t change anything for full throttle so leave it off.

Another traction issue is if you stall it or not. Some people do OK by mashing the pedal at idle. Some do good at 1500rpm. And some think it’s best to launch at the full stock 2200-2300rpm. This is another ‘try it and see’ what works for you.

Run your air filter, removing it doesn’t help anything.

Synthetics help, but I think it is marginal for performance gains on a truck due to weight. I run them, but it is more to know I have a better lubricant than for a power gain.

Turn off the air conditioner. It will switch off automatically under full throttle but running it just keeps the engine hotter. At the dragstrip, they generally get mad at you for doing this since the A/C drips water when running from the lines sweating and the evaporator drying the air as it passes through. Another trick at the dragstrip to help cool things down is to turn the heater on full blast after a run. It helps remove a little heat. I also pop the hood lever on the return road if I’m not going back to the staging lanes for another run. It lets a little more hot air out from under the hood.

At the dragstrip, be patient. Running continuously without letting the engine cool down a little doesn’t help make the truck any faster. Let it cool down about 30 minutes with the engine off and the hood open. Some people put ice bags on the intake. I don’t because of the mess and I just don’t feel like Hercules-ing it through the staging lanes to push my truck up to the burnout area to make the most of the cold soak.

Don’t run anything more than pump gas. Opinions vary but 93 octane is about as high as you want to go. Higher octane gas burns slower so that 104 or 112 octane race gas will actually slow down the process that your engine needs.

Fold in your mirrors, especially if you have the Big Tow. I don’t know if the truck runs faster with the tailgate up or down. I just take it off. The weight savings is there for the entire ¼ mile. Aerodynamics isn’t going to play a factor until you hit about 60mph (almost half the time of the run).

Overinflate the front tires. 50psi is mostly safe to drive around on if you aren’t doing a long trip or going very fast. Most tracks have air so you can bring a gauge with you to set the tires. Just remember to let some air out for the ride home. Leaving the tire gauge in a cup holder is a good way to remember.

I don’t disconnect my front sway bar for weight transfer. It works on some vehicles but I can’t say about the titan because I’ve never tried it.

Those 22” wheels sure look cool but the weight and the inertia from the weight being so far away from the rotating center don’t help. If you still have the stock wheels, put those on. I also run a 29” tall tire on stock 17” off-road wheels. The speedo error caused by this doesn’t hit the speed limiter, even on nitrous but it helps the overall gearing to the tune of about 0.15 seconds in the quarter mile. That’s better than either the Banks cat-back or the Volant CAI gave me. As far as wheels go, lighter is better. Shorter helps too, to a point.

Some folks get a little extreme and remove washer fluid reservoirs (or drain the water from there and the radiator overflow) and stock exhaust pipes/mufflers.

For timeslips and dyno runs, refer to the sticky in this “Titan Performance Modifications” section of the forum.

So now when people want to know what to do for a first time race, here ya go. I hope that others will chime in and fill in the holes I’m sure I left open.