Making The Truck Hook Harder

I'd ballast up as well, pulling in a group of trucks weighing 8000lbs with a truck weighing 6000lbs can't be fun.
 
ya get some wieght up front. from what i seen last year it pulls good or at least till the hitch broke. just need to get that fron end out of the air.
 
I just dont think you guys are taking in to account he plain out dont have the horse power to the ground to pull equally at full weight.

But what the hell do i know! LOL

Tim
 
2 years ago i pulled at about that horse power level and usually wieghed right about 7900 at the pulls. lol now i am around 550hp and plan to pull at about 7400 next pull.
 
Adding weight will give you better traction i know. But if there is not enough horsepower to turn his 305's, then he will still not get the speed he needs plus with more grip he will also be likely to break something in the drive train. A buddy of mine is a good example of this. Let me see if he will post the video of his 7.3 stroke fully weighted down and what the extra weight did for him. Tim
 
ahh, yes good point forgot about those tires. that year i only broke running full tread 315 buckshots, rest of the time it was 285 1/2 tread buckshots.
 
He's asking how to hook harder, and said in his first post he isn't getting what he's got to the ground, simply add some weight.
 
ILLINOISRAM said:
I have never ran or will run a auto so i dont know anything about them. But i dont think a 375 horse truck at 8000lbs will pull like a 600 horse truck at 8000lbs weather it is a auto or manual but i could be wrong. If he dont have enough power to spin the tires, he will do worse. The auto will change my gear selection part though. I just know its not all about weight, or power. He said he added weight and it felt like it didnt pull as good so i was going off of what he said. Tim
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The added weight was last year before the tranny build so I will try it again, Also I dont think we have any 600 HP trucks in my class. Got a cummins doing around 425 and a duramax that might be putting down a little more
 
Then by all means weight up to 8000lbs, dont change anything else and hook it. If you do better then great and im a dumbass. I can take being wrong. Tim
 
RSWORDS said:
The added weight was last year before the tranny build so I will try it again, Also I dont think we have any 600 HP trucks in my class. Got a cummins doing around 425 and a duramax that might be putting down a little more
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damn i need to come pull down there. LOL
 
ILLINOISRAM said:
Then by all means weight up to 8000lbs, dont change anything else and hook it. If you do better then great and im a dumbass. I can take being wrong. Tim
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You usually run a manual? That can be the difference, the manual guys usually need to get those tires blazing, the auto guys can walk it out and chug right on down the track.
 
Your gonna have a hard time making up 20ft with a non-lockup trans. Ask any puller, theres a whole lot of money in that last 20ft.

I think your best bet is to throw 1000lbs right up against the headboard and give 'er hell. I don't really think theres enough power there to benefit from traction bars, but they can't hurt. Look on the bright side, low power=less broken stuff
 
Yeah the auto thing does effect my knowledge as in i have none. I guess one of the days i am going to have to build a auto truck and try it out so i can have some first hand experiance. Tim



On edit, im not saying he shouldnt add some weight cause 5700 is light, but 2300 lbs i think will do more harm than good is all.
 
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Put a short set of tractions bars on it something in the 60" range that will help keep from lifting the front end of the truck up while pulling.
 
I have a friend running a first gen in my area. The truck looks great and he always takes home the fan favorite trophy, too. He was having the same issue with coming up 30ft short at most pulls. Started playing with wieghts and rear gearing. Now he is in the top 3 most of the time. His set up is a little more extreme than yours. 66 turbo, big lpm injectors and some water/meth. His auto is a full billet, built tranny. He ended up putting in a 1ton axle out of an '05 dodge with 4:10 gears. Hangs, and i'm not 100% sure here, 1250lbs on the front and 500lbs in the bed on a custom hanger as close to the cab as possible.

If you would like to call and talk to him, I would give out his #. He is very nice and loves to talk about the truck. Would make him glad to help out another 1st gener.

J.D.
 
As already mentioned....try some different tires. Maybe lower the air press. a little from what you are running now (dependent on track conditions). A wet/tacky track will usually require higher air press., a loose/dry/dry slick/hard track will usually require less air pressure.
More grip/traction will equate to faster travel speeds....if you have the HP to turn the tires.
Adding weight doesn't really mean that a person is gonna break more parts. If the truck is built to handle the extra weight/traction, then it shouldn't be a problem. Even if adding weight causes you to break parts due to the added traction, then so be it, build/rebuild it better and move on. That's just part of it.
Anytime you benefit from added traction, you will be taking away from HP.
You just need to find the right combo with your set-up.

You mentioned that when you added weight that the truck didn't pull as good....probably because it robbed you of some HP by adding the weight to gain traction. On the same note, if you add HP, then you will probably need to add weight (or traction) to compensate for the added HP.

Just my $.02
 
Yeah, thinking back on when I added the weight it was when I was running teh stock tranny and it was slipping, now that I have the goerend in it I'm gonna try and toss 1000-1500 in the bed and see what happens. Also have a good lead on some injectors so we will see how that plays out. Thanks for all the help guys.
 
RSWORDS said:
and a duramax that might be putting down a little more
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Just a lil maybe:aiwebs_004:

But having personally seen your truck pull, you have wheel speed. I think you need to get some weight in your truck and you will be up there with the rest of us, if not passed us.
 
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