It's almost always more RPM and more clutch slip than a normal brain with some degree of mechanical empathy is willing to try at first.
You definitely want a burnout with those tires - second gear sure turn them loose easily and give you sufficient wheel speed to heat them up nice and quick. Shouldn't take more than 3-4 seconds.
I recommend that you pick a launch rpm, and continually work it up each pass using a generously slipped clutch release until you encounter significant wheel speed. Then you can back it down a couple hundred rpm and start working on fine tuning things.
Also, you may want to consider using the emergency brake for staging and preloading the driveline. Basically, I roll into the prestage beams and stop with the footbrake. Then I grab my e-brake (keeping my thumb depressed on the release at all times) and hold the car with that and gently creep into the stage beams by bringing in the clutch just enough to roll the car against the lightly held brake. Once I've got the car fully staged I firm up my hold with the e-brake (don't want to roll out of the beams), bring the car to launch rpm (assuming my opponent is staging right along side me - if he's lagging behind I may wait till he gets fully staged) and then I release the clutch just enough till I feel it start to drag. You'll feel the whole car "tighten up" - you're taking all the slack out of the bushings throughout the rear suspension, clutch dampener, axles, driveshaft, rear gear, etc. There are a lot of points for spring-iness in the 5th gen driveline in stock form, so the more you can do to gently preload those components, the less they are going to bounce back when you release the clutch and potentially cause wheelhop. When it's time to launch, I release the brake at a similar rate that I'm releasing the clutch.
It sounds complicated, it's really not. And your stock axles and differential will reward you with many more passes if you don't shock load them with harsh launches, or even worse, wheel hop.
Video for reference - this isn't a real good pass, but you unlike most of my passes which occur in the dark, there is enough light here. It's on a crappy street tire, so you'll want even more RPM than that. This was with the 3.45 stock gears - I've since gone to 4.10's and that changes everything (for the better).