How Traction Control Works -
Ours vs. Theirs

No one can predict how much lap time you can decrease. Being able to detect wheel spin without detecting the car’s speed (either by GPS or a front-wheel sensor) is simply ridiculous. To monitor an engine’s RPM increase and guess that it is caused by wheel spin is very inaccurate. 

Timing controls can only reduce about 15% of the engine horsepower and are very hard on your engine. Talk to your engine builder. In many cases, a 15% drop in horsepower is not enough to stop wheel spin, especially on dirt cars. Along with the damage caused by retarding the timing, it is not recommended to use timing control.

Claims of detecting wheel slip in 1/4 of a turn of tire rotation are completely misleading. Their systems detect engine RPM changes only, not wheel slip. RPM changes alone cannot determine when the tire is losing traction. All race cars need a certain amount of wheel slip. Asphalt cars use between 3% to 8%, and dirt cars use 12% to 18%. 

If too much wheel slip is controlled, the car will not turn in the corner. If their unit did what they claimed, the car would “push.” Also, lap times can be slowed by “over-controlling” and wasting what could have been a fast lap.

There is a company that claims to have superior technology that only they understand. We have built and tested several versions like their so-called “superior” technology and found them extremely hard on the engine, very noisy, and inaccurate. The systems we sell are more efficient and much better at controlling wheel spin than any others.

Our units work using an adjustable wheel spin setting. As the track loses bite, the system maintains an allowable amount of wheel spin and nothing more. This helps the driver to not over-drive the car. We will never tell you, “Your driver isn’t driving the car correctly,” because the unit is designed to work with any driving style. Our units do not have—nor do we want—any self-learning feature. With our units, you never have to think, “What will it do this lap?” It is not rocket science—the slicker the track, the harder the unit works.

MSD™ sells a “traction control detector” that will detect any timing control unit, retarding the timing of the engine. This MSD unit cannot detect our brake control or throttle control system. In fact, the other companies’ so-called “can’t be found” system has been caught many times by tracing the wire harness or claimer on the MSD box or by listening to the car in the corner.