Don Terrill’s Speed-Talk

could someone explain the best way to do a proper burnout on a 3300 lb car with a glide tranny. i just dont think i have been doing it right and so many people have different opinions. dont want to kill the car with an excessive burnout thanks art

Cut and pasted from ProTrans website:


GM Powerglide Transmissions
Water burnouts will not hurt units, except if you are shifting from low to high as you are comming out of the water. Shifting under conditions stated will cause premature clutch wear. Suggest deceleration as you come out of the water or power burnout to the line being sure the tires never grab the pavement.

IMO, if you dont have enough steam to start out in hi gear, then begin in low, and shift as soon as they get close to your normal burnout rpm, once in hi, I usually stick to a 3 second count, release lineloc, and roll out. If you have a crew man, and a temp gun, shoot the temp of the groove prior to you starting. Do a normal burnout, and shoot the tread surface, and I think youll find your best tire temp will be in the 20* more than track surface range(15-25).
Hope it helps

Other than maybe twisting an input shaft what would letting the tires grab coming out of the water hurt in a glide? If your in high gear its no going to hurt the planetary assembly because its not being used. I broke an ATI 36 element sprag in my TH350 from doing 123 burnouts. It didn't break, but I found little pieces of the bearing cage in the pan before it broke. A good fellow at TSR racing trans told me to start in 2nd and leave the water in high gear. After that no problems at all.

cgarb wrote:Other than maybe twisting an input shaft what would letting the tires grab coming out of the water hurt in a glide? .

Sprague in the convertor.

What sprag? My converter don't have no stinking sprag...lol