I think some people are confusing launch control and no-lift shift.

The Cobalt SS has no-lift shift. It allows the driver to shift gears without letting off the gas during acceleration. It's intended to keep the turbo spooled up.

The Camaro SS and Corvette have launch control, which allows the driver to floor the gas pedal and sidestep the clutch without having the rear tires go up in smoke.

 

This is what I'm thinking as well.

The Cobalt SS has BOTH launch control AND no lift shift. To activate launch control you have to be at a stand still, and press the traction control button once. Then you're able to hold both the clutch and the gas to the floor, and the revs will stay at an 'ideal' level (I think 5k...I should know this but I never do it in my car), then you can quickly let off the clutch and the traction control will eliminate most of the wheelspin (note, you can't just sidestep the clutch, you still have to let off somewhat reasonably). The whole idea behind this is you can mash the gas with the clutch in, get your boost built up, and then launch at full boost (for turbo cars), and of course, eliminate much of the wheelspin and still leave quickly from the standstill.

The no lift shift feature isn't actuated with a button like the launch control, it's just built in to the engine controls. In the Cobalt SS's case, it's again very useful for maintaining boost. When you go to shift, you DON'T lift your foot off the gas pedal, you keep it mashed to the floor. At the same time you stab the clutch, get into the next gear ASAP, and let the clutch out. Your right foot never moved off the gas. This keeps the turbo spooled, while the engine is prevented from over-revving by cutting fuel or spark (not sure which...or if it's both). It feels wildly un-natural for me to shift this way, and if you do it successfully you hear a single "POP" out of the tailpipe. If you stay on the clutch too long you'll hear several pops, which indicates that the engine is being limited by the computer controls.

Maybe the Camaro has this no lift shift feature, but I don't think it would be as beneficial to NA engines as it is for turbo engines....The launch control, on the other hand, is pretty beneficial since it can prevent wheel spin.

That being said, I think I have better feel for launching the car without launch control than with it. Most likely I haven't given it a fair chance, but the couple of times I tried it the car seemed to bog down too much. As for shifting, I've probably no lift shifted less than 10 times in the 8 months I've owned the car, and I don't think any of them were higher than the 1-2 shift.

 

How are you building boost when the clutch is in? The engine isn't under a load, so it isn't doing any work, so it doesn't need as much air and fuel, so it doesn't build boost.

 

By keeping the turbo spooled from exhaust gas, it's a more instantaneous benefit when you do launch. I think the launch control feature is going to be great for A: initially learning the car and, B: launching in less than perfect road conditions. It'll be interesting to see how it does on wet pavement. From what I hear, everyone says they can get better times manually but, like I said, it could be a very helpful tool to use as a starting point for learning the sweet spot for launching the car. Kind of speed up the learning curve for us average people.

 

Yes thanks for posting that. I knew the ins and outs of the launch control but Tadge made a great presentation. Nice to see the graphs and show whats really going on during launch.

Nice shot on Nissan at the end too.