Mr.E.G.

what he said

trivium

You have to make a good argument before I do that.

trivium

I really dont understand what you were trying to say. These are the things you said in short-form:

produce more downforce and make a car stable at those speeds (200+)....

creating more drag which must be overcome with the power of the engine which limits the top speed even further....

I am sorry but you either mis-wrote your statement or something doesnt make sense.
I am trying have an intelligent argument here so bare with me and try to re-explain your statement.


BTW, the TVR's 0-60 if 3.9 seconds and the top speed is 195/198mph. I would think that the gearing is somewhere in the middle since the acceleration is very quick and the top speed is very high. Anybody care to argue?

C6400hp

I could not have said it any better

Mr.E.G.

what he was telling you is that you can build a car to slip through the air easily (low drag) but it wont be as stable at high speeds. or you can build a car to be more stable but the aerodynamic devices that it takes, to produce the negative lift required ,also add additional drag, and therefore it takes more power to overcome that drag and achieve the target of 200 mph.

the moral of the story is that that tvr can probably reach 200 mph but it cant do so with the same level of stability.

and i dont want to sound like a dick but so the **** what if a tvr can go 200 mph with 400hp. it doesnt mean that a car is not impressive for doing so with more horsepower.

tvr accomplishes this through either gearing, which you seem to state otherwise because it acclerates too quickly to be the result of long gears, or they have created a low drag vehicle.

i assume its the latter.

for example: if you took a honda insight, which has an extremely low coefficient of drag, and you gave it the same 400 hp engine and gearing, and lets say you even added axtra weight to make it weigh the same as the tvr, it would still reach a higher top speed because of its low coefficient of drag. however it would be incredible unstable because of the lack of negative lift.

you can make compromises between negative lift and drag but you cant have a lot of both simultaneously.

also another big factor in the tvr's top speed is its low curb weight

tafka TMB

Depends how long the straight is. If you were running on the salt flats it doesn't have much affect at all.

Mr.E.G.

you know what i mean. curbweight does affect top speed but only up to a point. at least thats what i remeber of it. maybe what i should have said is that a lower curb weight will still give you quick acceleration and you can have longer gears. for example lets talk about an s2000. if you have a 2800lb s2000 and you want to accelerate faster you can add a different rear end and effectivley the gears are lower. you will accelerate faster, but the top speed is limited. so if you want to keep the gearing for the higher top speed, you can reduce weight to get the acceleration to be where you want it. and to someone who wasnt familiar with the car they may very well assume that because of the difference in acceleration from the low curb weight s2000 that it must have short gears, but it still can retain a high top speed. so in the case of the TVR, he said that it "has" to still have short gears because te accleeration form 0-60 is so good. and i think the point he was trying to make is that the tvr more efficiently uses it 400 hp to achieve a similar top speed. i think that it can be said that the tvr still robably has longish gears but it has a low curbweight and that is what accounts for its acceleration. so in other words he was assuming that it had short gears "and" it could still reach a high top speed, therefore he justifies his explanation of why the original car in question is not that impressive, in his eyes.

i am not trying to break his balls or anything, i am just saying that you cant have it all. the tvr has high top speed because it does have longish gears, and it still accelerates quickly because of its low curb weight. i am just speculating, here as i have never seen what the gearing looks like on a TVR, i am just offering this theory to counter act his claim of this magical car that has short gears, and has a rediculously high top speed.

again, not trying to break anyones balls here, i am just making an observation.


i havent read what i am about to post in a few years, but i remeber it said some shocking things about top speed and whatnot. its a good read either way. again, i dont know if this will answer any questions for anyone, but it will give us something to argue about


from bobnorwood.com


in case you dont know who bob norwood is, i think you should go to his site and check it out.

[The Fastest Little Sports Car in Utah: Bill Gordon

Mr.E.G.

sorry for the length.



...if i only had a dime for every time is have to say that to the ladies. LOL

sam_spider

Bugatti Veyron
1001 SAE net horsepower, Top speed 253 MPH...

Mr.E.G.

and stable at that speed. go figure