Re: figuiring HP

[Neal Tovsen <ntovsen@piper.hamline.edu>]

I don't rememember the equations to figure HP from drag and speed, but you
would also need to correct for any head/tail wind, barometric pressure
(both for drag and for HP corrections), and perhaps humidity.

Lowering the car should actually *increase* drag, because you would pick
up more parasitic drag under the car. The analogy is that the closer your
car is to the ground, the more you are literally dragging your car on the
ground. Obviously, it's probably a very small change. 

The reason lowering
your car is good aerodynamically is because it increases downforce which
improves stability/handling at speed. I read somewhere that an Indy car
actually has far more drag than your average passenger car, but it is
almost all converted to downforce. So much that an Indy car produces more
than it's own weight in aerodynamic downforce. Theoretically, at 200+Mph,
an Indy car could drive upside-down!

Neal

On Wed, 7 Jul 1999, Kris Rayner wrote:

> Is there a way to guestimate your horse power at the wheels if you 
> know your top speed and and drag coefficent?  Coming back from 
> Great America this weekend I found myself on a long stretch of 
> hwy 101, north of King City, with no traffic and just let the car go.  
> Cross checking my speedo and my tach gave me a fairly accurate 
> top speed of 110mph in my '81, with the stock drag being about .44 
> I believe.  Lowering the car doesn't reduce drag I suppose does it?
> -----------------------------------------------------
>                    Kris Rayner
>                 1984 VW Scirocco
>     1981 VW Scirocco S - Soon to be a 16V :)-
>      "I do nothing in moderation but work."
>                -Charles Dickens
>    http://www.fix.net/~trzracing/web/scirocco.htm
> 
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			Neal Tovsen


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