First, I am going to say that the launch control on this car, when it works, is awesome. However, I am going to also say it is moody at best.
I took my car to Import Face Off at Houston Raceway Park on the 1st of August, where they had "simulated" street racing. What this means is that they were using arm drop instead of a tree, and not displaying times. (AP logging ftw).
I ran 10 full passes. 6 of these passes launch control was used, or I should say attempted. Of the 6 attempted launches using launch control, the car failed to launch 4 times. The two times that it worked properly were amazing. The other 4, not so much. There was a significant amount of cool down time between runs, with the care idling in "Park" for several minutes, as well as a good amount of time not running.
On each attempt, the launch control initialized like it is supposed to, meaning the car rev'd to 5k-ish and held there. I will summarize each failure and success.
Run #1 (vs 08 Mustang gt): Launch control initializes like normal, upon releasing the brake, car hits rev limitter without engaging the clutch. No slow down light, I got off the gas, let it go back to idle, mashed the gas, and car gave me permission to go. This was first run of night, and though the car was warmed up, it had sat for at least 3 hours prior to run, so trans temp was NOT the issue.
Run#2 (vs same 08 gt): Launch control works perfectly. Mustang is beaten by a distance to large for me to estimate.
Run # 3 (vs some random pos toyota fwd): Approx 15 minutes after prior run. Launch control initializes normally. Upon launch, Slow Down inlluminates, clutch does not engage, rev limitter hit. I speculate that it is because the chick held her arms up to long, and the car does NOT like to be held in launch control for anything beyond a couple seconds. After going back to idle, car drives normally.
Run#4 (vs n/a
3000gt) : Approx 10 minutes after prior run. Same exact result as above. This time it is NOT because of anything other than the car just saying no. As soon as Launch Control was initialized, it was go time, and Slow Down light illuminated without any clutch engangement again, same as above.
Run #5 (vs mild 05 wrx): Approx 35 min after prior run. Launch control works as it is supposed to. Beat Subi by 1.5 cars.
Run # 6 (vs another random fwd): 15 min approx later. More of the same failure. Launch control engages normally, upon launch, clutch is not engaged, and slow down illuminates. After letting the car go back to idle, slow down extinguishes, car drives normaly.
I am guessing a two things based on my experience, and I may be wrong.
1.If you hold the car in Launch Control for mor than 2 or 3 seconds, it will not launch.
2. If you don't press the throttle all the way to the floor, it will not launch. This surprised me, because I thought I had launched the car at part throttle before.
I am fairly certain that temperature played NO part in any of my fails, simply because the car had to long to cool down, and started out cool to begin with. It was also after 8pm, and the temperature was close to 80F.
I really would love to see a logic chart for the launch control system so that I could more accurately determine if the fail to launch is car or operator related.
