Is wheel hop on launches bad?
 

Towards the end of the day, my last two passes I had some extreme wheel hop on the launch. My times stayed the same and didn't reflect a bad start, but my god it felt horrible everything vibrating at ounce. Is this bad? Could I possibly destroy anything? If so good way to prevent wheel hop? Thanks in advance.

Good way to prevent wheel hop is proper pedal control. Period.
Tire and transmission selection can assist you, but in the end, it's your feet that do the work...

Yes , that is real bad for the drivetrain and could easily result in failure if you keep doing it . Rx8soldier is correct to a point but our drivetrain is really bad for drag racing so the car is way harder to launch than most.

Some suggestions
adjustable Coilovers
Stiffer diff mounts
Stiffer anti roll bar
stiffer suspension bushes
Diff brace


I wish there was one majic change you could make to fix it but to date I have not found one .

sounds like your rear shocks may be shot or maybe never were great to begin with WRT valving

I'd start here before going into the more arcane solutions. Factory shocks?

Even with coilovers wound up to max. I still get wheel hop in certain situations . It's a design thing and even with factory shocks in good condition it's difficult to get a good launch without hop.

"wound up to the max" doesn't necessarily mean anything useful. It just depends what's in there for valving to start. The factory shocks are not that great.

I have a lot of experience drag launching on good aftermarket shocks (Koni, both sport & hardcore race versions) and rarely ever get hop on my RX8.

I'll actually shut up since I know nothing practical about standing starts, only conceptual.

Don't undervalue your input. Your conceptual exceeds the knowledge base of most.

Arigato gozaimashita TeamRX8-sensei

I don't notice much wheel hop, but I'm on a set of olins ... :lol:

I found once I had turbo charged my RX8, that it would wheel hop if I was trying to launch the car hard.
My car runs Koni coil overs and king springs, and 265-30-19 tyres
The best thing I fitted to stop wheel hop was a set of Super Pro Diff support bushes.
No more wheel hop.
I'm sure if I had as much hp as Brettus has going through my rear tyres, then I may still have a little bit of wheel hop.
Here's a link to the Super Pro part.

SuperPro Parts

rx8performance.com sells delrin diff bushings.. but I would still start with testing the shocks on a dyno :-)

I don't do drag launches much at all to be honest . Just gave up even trying . I even get hop when nailing 2nd sometimes as turbo comes into boost - mainly when road is a bit bumpy. I have lots of mods to stiffen things up back there - just a design issue in my opinion .

... as we were saying about shocks .... but I can see how sloppy motor or diff mounts might contribute too. I now also have solid rear subframe bushings now, but even when I ran Stock class with everything OE except for shocks I didn't have much of a problem with fresh OE parts. I personally don't recommend delrin for diff mounts (or motor). You need stiffer rubber/elastomer with some give on the motor and diff mounts.

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