Landspeed Race Car
Discussion
Geoff Stilwell said:
Doofus said:
Forgive my ignorance, but this is a subject about which I know very little. I don't mean to cause offence. But...
If a road car can do over 200mph with 5 or 600 hp, what's the other 2,000 doing in your car?
There is a vast difference of driving on the road and on salt. The other 2000 pushes the car to over 250 and possibly even 300. My car does not have any traction control and it takes a huge amount of skill to drive on the salt rather than a smooth tarmac surface and achieve that in a relatively short space. If a road car can do over 200mph with 5 or 600 hp, what's the other 2,000 doing in your car?
Salt is not very grippy, and Bonneville is nowhere near as good as it was in the 60's and 70's when LSR was a big deal more over there.
It is fine for smaller stuff like this, but for the big stuff, they all run on metal wheels and they cant run properly on salt.
I would think this car can get up to near 3o0 when it is working. but salt has very little grip, you can't get traction on it, and if you use grippy tyres they break up at high speed.
So you have a long run up, gear the thing to work at speed, and then you get into the stability, gearing, transmission and reliability issue most teams run at there.
The wheel driven record is well over 400mph for piston engined cars. But they are usually multi engined. I think Al Teague maybe still holds the singe engine record at about 408/9. But that was basically a drag engine on nitro or methanol he somehow managed to keep running over a few miles!!
It is fine for smaller stuff like this, but for the big stuff, they all run on metal wheels and they cant run properly on salt.
I would think this car can get up to near 3o0 when it is working. but salt has very little grip, you can't get traction on it, and if you use grippy tyres they break up at high speed.
So you have a long run up, gear the thing to work at speed, and then you get into the stability, gearing, transmission and reliability issue most teams run at there.
The wheel driven record is well over 400mph for piston engined cars. But they are usually multi engined. I think Al Teague maybe still holds the singe engine record at about 408/9. But that was basically a drag engine on nitro or methanol he somehow managed to keep running over a few miles!!
Hello there Geoff.
Long time drag racing fan here(and constantly planning/dreaming about being able to run a nostalgia car in the future,living 20mins from Santa Pod doesn't help either) ,thank you for putting your experiences on here.
Would it be fair to say that with the current motor setup you are running do you leave the tune pretty much 'as is' to peg the output at 2500 bhp approx or are a lot of changes made between runs?
I'm fascinated at how you can make a fuel motor live at pretty much WOT for 8 miles!!
Many more questions to follow!! Thanks again.
Long time drag racing fan here(and constantly planning/dreaming about being able to run a nostalgia car in the future,living 20mins from Santa Pod doesn't help either) ,thank you for putting your experiences on here.
Would it be fair to say that with the current motor setup you are running do you leave the tune pretty much 'as is' to peg the output at 2500 bhp approx or are a lot of changes made between runs?
I'm fascinated at how you can make a fuel motor live at pretty much WOT for 8 miles!!
Many more questions to follow!! Thanks again.
Doofus said:
Forgive my ignorance, but this is a subject about which I know very little. I don't mean to cause offence. But...
If a road car can do over 200mph with 5 or 600 hp, what's the other 2,000 doing in your car?
the drag squares with speed i.e. if you double speed from 100 mph to 200 mph then the drag increases by a factor of four. So you need four times more power to maintain 200mph than you do 100mph, and 4 times more than that to maintain 300mph (16 times what you need to do 100 mph).If a road car can do over 200mph with 5 or 600 hp, what's the other 2,000 doing in your car?
BAR took a Honda powered V10 F1 car there and I think got up to a decent speed, not sure exactly what, about 240 or 250 I think. 400KPH basically.
Again, grip was the problem and stability, salt has very little grip!!
Bu that's not bad for a car with no effort made to be smooth, drop tank shape etc as most salt flats cars are.
Again, grip was the problem and stability, salt has very little grip!!
Bu that's not bad for a car with no effort made to be smooth, drop tank shape etc as most salt flats cars are.
SHutchinson said:
Geoff Stilwell said:
SHutchinson said:
If a Bugatti Veyron turned up in standard form would it be able to hit it's top speed on the salt?
Unlikely is the simple answer. SH, dig out the Top Gear episode where the chaps take regular cars to the salt. Quite informative on the basic problems Bonneville racers encounter.
Geoff Stilwell said:
aka_kerrly said:
You are a lucky man to be able to indulge in such activities!!!!
I am indeed and I am extremely lucky to have a fantastic team around me and sponsors that support what we are trying to achieve. To drive a car at over 250mph on salt and achieve that within 2 to 3 miles is quite an achievement and to then back it up to within 5% is something else. It certainly is not as easy as you think.Gassing Station | General Motorsport | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff