I was very disheartened to race a 2010 + quad cab dodge ram 1500 today against my 2009 dodge quad cab. Both have 5.7 hemi. We were at a 45-50 mile per hour start. He kept ahead of me slowly but steadily till about 90. He was factory and I have a bully dog set on regular tune but still upgraded from stock. And I have a k&n cold air intake. Granted I have slightly bigger and wider nitto grapplers. How in the heck did he beat me. I feel like on 89 octane and the added horsepower I should have smoked him. I would have if we got all the way to governor stage since I can surpass the factory cutoff. But I don't want to go that fast in a truck and around traffic. I don't want to hurt anyone. Even off the line my truck feels like it builds up power before it launches.

Any advice or similar experiance would help my shattered ego. He was nice and put his hands up in the air like he was shocked he beat me. And then gave me a thumbs up as he turned the corner. My head down in shame. lol

Broken man,

Jeff Burns

 

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/dodge-r...s-section.html

If he had factory highway-styled tires, and you with the Nitto Grapplers, that may be all it took. Its very possible he had a higher gear ratio as well, which would have gave him an edge. Not necessarily more power, just he gets it down to the wheels faster (at the cost of higher RPMs). What is your gear ratio?

 

Tires make a huge difference !
When I had stock terrible goodyear tires my 4.7L Reg cab would run 15.9
in the quarter, as soon as I switched up to Cooper Zeon LTZ's (which I loved)
my best times were 16.3's, the extra grip + 8lbs per tire really hurt performance,
To the point where I could feel the difference with the butt dyno,..
Yes I lost almost a half a second on just tires ! I sure the hemi suffers little
less from something like that but hey 0.2 - 0.4 seconds is more then enough to loose a race !

 

Tires!

 

Agreed on the tires and most likely your gear ratio. It makes a huge difference, especially with me going from 3.55 to 4.56, I noticed I hugediff turning my tires. Now I can peel them almost at will and the truck rips.

 

If your wondering why the CAI didn't help you, its because on these newer trucks they have such good airflow already. Putting a CAI in anymore does not really help performance wise...Only thing I have seen with DYNOED proven increase is a ram air intake. Which was all custom!

I do agree with the tires too...More rubber=more horsepower to turn
Gear ratios are a big thing as well...

As far as your bullydog tuner goes, I found that if I was on regular tune with my 07 I had to run 91 octane to get the added performance. Which meant that I could only fill at certain places. Instead I just went to the high octane and put premium in. I noticed a difference there....But also a difference in fuel prices :S

The other thing that I can think of is weight. It might also be that because the truck was a year newer they cut down weight somewhere. Now I don't know the curb weight stats, but all these things above plus this could be where your loss is...

 

Probably the tires.
The larger tires will reduce your effective gear ratio and also lift the truck up higher where it creates more air resistance; especially at the relatively high speed you started from.

 

I agree with others here, tires and final gear ratio is a likely factor... BUT, how do you know the other guy might of had a few extra mods done to his truck. (we dont know that for sure: higher octane tune, exhaust mods, street tires, etc etc etc [???]) So unless you can pick apart the other truck for comparison to your 09, cant really say why you got beat that badly.

 

Do you know for sure the other truck was stock?

 

if the other truck was an 11 or 12 model, there are no tunes for it on the market yet.