Power is super easy to make, it just costs money. And you can do is in an unmodified car with lots of power (because physics), but it’s a bad idea (because safety). The math is simple, really. There’s mechanical drag and aero drag, and they are equal at about 50 mph (which is why we say “power required is 50/50 at…
Rock Bottom
rockbottom81
Curves? On the highway??? You’ve clearly never been to Oklahoma... or any of the states between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains...
See my comments about the surprisingly high Cd of most supercars, including both Corvette variants you named. According to my testing, the base Corvettes require way less aerodynamic horsepower to go a speed than the Z06 or ZR1, and that’s just because the aero guys on those variants had stricter lift/downforce…
He look like a crack head!
In the interest of OpSec, I’ll just say that I work for a major auto manufacturer :)
Well now I feel like a dick :)
Like I said, I’m an automotive aerodynamicist and I tend to think like everyone else is, too. A ZR1 Corvette has a frontal area a little smaller than a Mustang (not much), but my data says it’s Cd is around .450, which is totally normal for modern fast cars. Downforce always costs drag. Always. The Hellcat has a…
If someone wants to go to the trouble of building a 200 mph Mustang, they’re not going to be shy about changing the rear end.
Aero changes to alter the frontal area, you say? I’m going to guess that’s pretty unlikely. The floor and the roof are damn hard to move in a modern car, and I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess this guy didn’t have the anti-drift “narrow body fender mods”. I’m betting it’s a drag car, in which case a burst…
A friend of mine had a Premier in high school. German transmission, French and Swedish engine, Japanese sound system , and assembled in Canada by an American company! Brilliant!
Not super related, but I see a lot of people around me leave their car running (generally blasting loud music) while they go inside convenience stores to buy stuff. Nine times out of ten the windows are down, and sometimes they even leave a door open! So a loud, running car is just sitting outside a store for 5 or 10…
The bottom end is 100% NOT Cleveland. The heads aren’t, either. The ports are all wrong, as are the chambers. Sure, they share a deck pattern and valve angle, but that’s it.
The mains are different. Hell, the whole bottom end is different to accommodate those big mains. The heads are different (bigger chambers, and higher floors in the intake ports, maybe some other junk I missed last time I had both boat anchors on the bench). The only things they share with the Cleveland are bore…
1978 Stick Axles > 1996 Twin Traction Beam!
I’m still pissed that it’s not actually a Cleveland... 400M≠400C
That’s not a 400 Cleveland, it’s a 400M.
You’re right, I’m 100% with ya. It’s super important to get that high trailing edge flick on there for good aero performance, and if it’s going to be high you might as well get some help seeing under it! Makes it easier for Prius owners to see what they’re backing into while parking-by-Braille in downtown Ann Arbor…
That rear spoiler you’re complaining about is all aero. Flick the air off the car to get them MPGs. It’s on other cars, but you don’t notice because they don’t have more window under them. Prius buyers don’t know they want that spoiler, but they really want that spoiler.
I disagree that an LCAC has a higher heat rejection capacity than an ACAC simply because you have to fight the heat exchanger efficiency term an extra time. Heat has to go “Charge->CAC->LTR->Cooling Air” instead of “Charge->CAC->Cooling Air”, and we both know the heat exchanger efficiency term is never 1 (more like…