I suggest you go around the water box with street tires.When you get street tires hot they provide less traction not more.So no burnouts.Just a short hop to clean the tires off before you stage.

A gear change is going to help straying(ya-not a big fan of getting hook on the bottle)the engine in third.If you look at one of the formulas with your current gear ratio in third and the mph,you will see the rpm of the engine going threw the traps at the top end.The engine is saying I think it doesn't like straying at that low of a rpm.

If you go to any of the sites-Jegs,Summit,etc-you will find trailing arms for your rear end that are for traction.They do work and really are not that expensive.

Even for a street ET car.Keep a log of those times,what you changed and the effect it had.Fall into a routine you follow on every run.Develop that log that includes the time of the day and if you deep staged or shallowed staged by just bumping the stage light.Some tracks get tighter as the sun goes down and others get loose.

Years ago everyone used to pick on Peter Magel and his bullet nose Studebaker he drove to the track.Telling him he should build something faster.Peter watched guys spend tons and be breaking things some missing the rest of the season because they couldn't afford to fix what they blew up.Every wk Peter at the end of the day was at the win window to pick up his cash.Quietly under the radar making more money than anyone else.What I am telling you is from yrs ago from what I learned for him.Giant killers don't brag.They just go about their business getting the job done.