Burnouts Ruining Tires

[LouNY]

Burnouts, especially the real smokey ones do NOT require much horsepower or torque, once that tire is spinning it doesn't take much at all to keep it spinning. As long as the brakes on the none spinning end of the vehicle hold while the tires are free to spin, it can and will spin if desired till it blows.
As far as drifting with these front wheel drive car they are using the parking brake to cause the rear end to slide out.
It's nothing like power drifting the driving tires out, as many learned to do with rear wheel drive vehicles in snow.
They are just driving into a corner and locking ip the rear wheels so as to lose traction, by varying the braking they can vary the rear drift on a front wheel drive car.

 

[davisjt1977]

This is an awesome thread. Glad to know that at 68 I am still a kid at heart (immature per the others)
My dad always told me I had better not be doing that because he would know and then one night he & mom drove thru Shoneys where we did burnouts,etc. Glad we were not doing it that night. Then when I got my own car, I let the smoke out.

 

[oosik]

My first car was a brand new 1965 VW. I paid for it with my own $$$$ - $1685, as I remember. I was newly married - just out of college - we were on our way to Alaska for my first permanent job.

Money meant too much to us for such foolish activities. Not that you could ever do a burnout in a VW.

After that - such activities never held much interest for me.

 

[cqaigy2]

Drifting is a very good skill. I learned it on frozen ponds/lakes in Vermont, mostly with a '69 VW beetle. Like in the commercial.

Back in the 60s during winter, my dad used to ride with another local veterinarian that drove a VW bug. Snow drifts, they'd take a run at, and slide over the top to the clearing on the other side. If they got stuck, a farmer would hook up and pull them to the next clear spot on the road.

 

[ultrarunner]

Had a Chevy Monza with a 350 ci that would smoke tires just accelerating with a slightly heavy foot.

 

[tallyho8]

Besides being bad on your tires, aren't burnouts really bad on your brakes also? It seems it would wear the pads out quickly and, if long enough, boil your brake fluid ruining your master cylinder.

 

[IndyJay]

Besides being bad on your tires, aren't burnouts really bad on your brakes also? It seems it would wear the pads out quickly and, if long enough, boil your brake fluid ruining your master cylinder.

Yeah, it's probably bad.

 

[coast40]

Yeah, it's probably bad.

Yeah, that's why I have 2 Hurst Line-Loc setups for future projects, a 68 Dart with a 440 and some other project. The Line-Loc allows you to lock your front brakes to do a burnout for drag racing. My 32 Ford 3w coupe (racecar from 1959) had a locking aircraft brake valve mounted on the dash for that purpose.
Hurst 1745000 Hurst Roll/Control, Line/Loc Kit - Universal

 

[Gem99ultra]

Yeah, that's why I have 2 Hurst Line-Loc setups for future projects, a 68 Dart with a 440 and some other project. The Line-Loc allows you to lock your front brakes to do a burnout for drag racing. My 32 Ford 3w coupe (racecar from 1959) had a locking aircraft brake valve mounted on the dash for that purpose.
Hurst 1745000 Hurst Roll/Control, Line/Loc Kit - Universal
View attachment 761777

Great looking little car Coast140. Reminds me of my '38 Chevy 5-window coupe w/rumble seat, 283 & 4 speed.
It's clear that most responders on here have no idea as to the purpose of burnouts when drag racing. I understand won't attempt to explain. They're not into drag racing, and that's okay too.
Those doing burnouts at signal lights, etc. are simply jerks doing what I call postering. That's for no purpose other than getting attention, of which won't come from me. ...keep that on the dag strip, not public streets. (I'm NOT for public street racing nor drifting!)

 

[npalen]

I've always assumed that any vehicle doing an extended burnout would require a line lock otherwise would burn up the brakes, but that may not always be the case?

But then there is the AWD or 4WD burnout: