Power Shifting Question

[FMOS Racing]

Why does powershifting cause wheel hop? Mine never hops once it hooks up, and I'm not powershifting before it's hooked. I've made about 100 passes so far and nothing has broken, though the [edit]rearview[/edit] has ended up pointing straight down a couple of times from wheel hop.

(By the way, mine doesn't hop at all when it has the drag tires on it, just with the 35-series 19s.)

I'm not sure why you'd hot-spot anything by powershifting. You get a lot more heat by riding the clutch while sitting still on an incline. If your clutch is slipping when you powershift or if your flywheel is out-of-plane, maybe, but that's a bad sign in and of itself and not related directly to the shifting technique. At least in my opinion.

I've powershifted a lot of cars... my poor ol' 93 Probe GT has been subjected to it for many, many passes and it's still on the stock clutch at 180K miles. Matter of fact, I've never had to change a factory clutch in something that stayed reasonably near stock power. My Mustangs had upgraded clutches, but they were making a few more ponies than the stocker would hold.

 

[LukeP]

You get a lot more heat by riding the clutch while sitting still on an incline. If your clutch is slipping when you powershift or if your flywheel is out-of-plane, maybe, but that's a bad sign in and of itself and not related directly to the shifting technique.

Yeah I would say slipping the clutch in any way would be the most devistating. As long as the whole drivetrain is strong enough to take the blunt force hammering of horespower (engine mounts inclusive), then it should hold up. Damaging or wearing the clutch by poor technique is going to be what sets it apart from the vehicles that go 180k like your probe, or 66k and slipping like the summer student's civic here.