Was wondering what the majority of you do? When I raced in the past, I would take out my spare and go with as little gas as possible, to save weight. but now...I find that it's best for me to leave in the spare and gas the sucker up. Of course, I'm racing a front driver, but it feels to me that the car is better balanced this way. Has anyone lese seen the same results? I figure the car was probably set up to handle properly with gas and spare in in place when they designed it....right?

 

I take out the spare and everything else in my trunk along with filling up the tank. I figured that if there is little gas in the tank, and going from side to side, the gas swishes around which might cuz your car to act funny (shut off). I ran the fun runs with the stuff in my trunk and my cars ass end was sliding all over the place. So I'd rather keep the trunk empty and the gas tank full.

 

Well, your car is poorly balanced, being a WWD car. It probably does help the balance to leave the spare in the trunk. As for the gas, it would depend on your car. My cavalier used to starve if it had less than a 1/4 tank. My Miata can run on or below "E", but it has a baffeled tank. At most events I don't care how much gas I have. At the PCA event, I had over 3/4 tank.

 

if i run less than a half a tank i get fuel starve, i remove all the weight i can from the trunk, my car's heavy & underpowered so i need all the help i can get!

 

I take everything out of the car—never thought about running w/o a spare because I just figured tech would tell me to take it out.

I tried running w/ 1/4 tank in my Escort, but it was starving for fuel because of the slosh factor. It was the most frustrating thing to have no power out of the turns in an already slow car; I've never run with less than 1/2 tank since.

IMO, unless you are at the top of your game and can't get any faster with the car as-is, fuel/spare aren't going to make a ton of difference in your time.

Have you tried lowering the rear tire pressure when the back comes out too much?

 

1/2 tank
17" spare + scissor jack left in

 

i dont carry a spare, the jack isnt secured to well, about 1/2 tank of gas

 

I usually remove about 40 pounds worth of miscellaneious pieces from the hatch including my spare tire and jack. I also try to arrive at the event with as little gas as possible. I've never suffered from fuel starvation.

Having said that, I don't think removing this kind of weight makes any difference to me, especially since I've made some of my best runs with a person in the passenger seat. However, it doesn't hurt either, and only takes three minutes of my time.

 

Take everything out and run the least amount of gas you can without starving. That's the ideal situation. It doesn't matter THAT much, but if you have a choice, that's the way to go.

 

its funny the things people come up with, i run a full tank of 93, sans the fuel for the trip, cuz i'm slow, so it doesn't really matter