Ever think about the cars' speeds being really unrealistic?

  • Thread starter Thread starter rigdon
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Just running rigdon's figures, from post #1...

rigdon
I fully tuned a Honda Civic Type R so it developed 320bhp and took it to the test track. At the end of the maximum speed trial the car recorded a speed of 288km/h or 179mph.
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Either way, you did the math.

Which has gotten me curious as to what level of education you have, and what the hell you do in real life. While those equations are not complex, pretty much just mechanical physics, you put them together, and well, took the effort to work them out... unlike me, where I probably could... but I'm lazy...

Either way, bravo ~applauds~
 
I have a Master's degree in Genetics.

But that stuff is all on a very nice website I once found. It dispels a lot of car myths with regards to power.
 
Genetics.. damn.. that stuff makes me go cross eyed. I was looking at Astrophysics... but realized I don't much care for high end calculus.

Any chance you could link me to that site, or do you wish to keep it secret to crush those that challange you?? :P
 
Secret. Crush those that challenge. That whole deal.
 
Well, it was worth a try... I just hope I don't end up opposing you here... :scared:
But I shoulda figured as much with a guy having qoutes regarding necrophilia and fun facts from the dead to living ratio and now "rhaphanidosis"...
 
Remember that u can get any speed with any power. U just have to see what are the physical barriers and try to overcome them.

For sample, here in brazil a college has developed a car with a 1.0 liter engine turbo, running 180 hps, and that can do 300 km/h on a test track. They did not run with it yet but they will, or i don´t know if they had already ran and i am not noticed about. It´s the fastest 1.0 liter car in the world.

So, if u can keep with very light materials and low height cars, why can´t u get 300 or more with 200hps or less? Power is nothing. The whole car it´s the difference, it´s weight, height, suspension sets, gear ratio sets.

Even in GT4 demo i couldn´t see some realistics on it. Seeing the Nordschleife lap times board here in this forum, the fastest time with the Falken Skyline was in the house of 6:50 , when in real life it´s time is around 7:30 seconds. It´s hard to make a car that would be hard enought to drive over the limits so u would stay in your best run, in the 7:30, i mean, in the PD programmers view.

The same in GT3. Maybe an excelent driver would go under 7:20 with the Falken one in real life, but 6:50 i guess it´s impossible. Maybe with some modifications as a better engine, stiffer suspension sets, better tires, u could go ya 6:50.
 
Interesting stuff !

But what I do not understand from the formula Famine presented is that the lower the ride heigth the more HP you will need to reach a certain top speed. I am a total nitwit regarding these things but it seems illogical or is there an explanation ?
 
In the case of the cars presented, I had only the exterior dimensions - height and width. In order to find out the frontal area of the car, I need to find out how much of that height is actually car - the gap underneath it doesn't provide any air resistance. It's not that a lower ride height requires more power - if you were to drop that Civic so it had less ride height, it'd still have the same frontal area (it's still the same car), because the overall height would drop too... :D
 
wait a tick... these are street cars, Famine. The gap under the bumper, lower parts of the differential, blah blah blah... would all create drag. There are no covers on the underside of the cars to reduce this, like on some F 1 car or something. Lowering the ride height would allow less air, and thus air resistance, under the car.
 
Indeed.

As I said, it's got a lot of fudge factor about it. Nonetheless, when you're talking about a car with a frontal area of 22 square feet, the deliterious effect of a couple of inches of mechanicals is not going to be significant.

Note that I'm also making no reference to lowering the ride height on a car - I merely subtracted the ride height from the vehicle height (both given by the manufacturer) to arrive at the amount of "car" in between.
 
Though, the underbody does add drag, due to the parts being exposed down there. If it had underbody plates to allow smoother airflow, then you could ignore the underspace. Or thats how I am thinking.. ~waits for Famine to unleash superbrain powers~ :scared:
 
Hey Famine, what is your source for rolling resistance? It seems a little low. I created an Excel spreadsheet a while ago to figure out top speeds for cars based on: FFCobra Forum Question: How fast is my Cobra with this much horsepower?

Also there are plenty of web resources out there for dispelling torque power myths. Here are a couple:
HowStuffWorks: How Horsepower Works Learn all about James Watt and his amazing mine ponies
Torque and Horsepower 5252 *is* a magic number
Physics of Racing Series (PhoRS) by Brian Beckman Eek - let's get REAL hardcore.
 
It's a wondeful little website devoted to blowing apart a few myths about engines.

Their method of calculating rolling resistance is to multiply the vehicle's mass, in pounds, by a factor of 0.012-0.015. They don't go into why the factor varies so much - and I used the lowest factor possible to be as kind as I could to GT3's cars. I usually use 0.013 or 0.0135 as a nice middle number.
 
SpeedZoner-T
i have noticed those same things... looking at the civic type r, the accelration is un realistic too.. i dont have any stats right now couse im on my way to bed but i remember something. fully tuned type r accelration, in medium setups, accelrates as fast as same stock type r in real life. ok, it accelrates little bit faster.. unrealistic indeed...
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Well one things for sure, There have'nt been as much testing on real cars to get as close accuratecy in any Racing game besides GT3/GT4......
 
The only test of car performance I had as a kid (1970) was to test my favorite car on my Matchbox Superfast Loop the Loop set. The Volkswagen 1500 sedan never made the loop, it would get half way and fall of the top. The sports cars on the other hand flew around the loop with ease. I did not know about drag back then but quickly worked out that a low slung wedge shape was faster than a rounded brick.
I know I am a bit off subject but it brings back found memories that kids today will not get to experience as a result of video games being a lot more compelling than car track racing sets.
The average price of that 40 cent matchbox car from 35 years ago is now around 50 to 100 dollars in mint condition. What will a boxed mint PS2 and GT game be worth in 2040?
 
Well one things for sure, It want be my PS/2 and GT games, I'm taking them with me! :D :D :D
 
on the topic of speeds not feeling right.... i read a review of NFSU2 in the weekends paper, the reviewers comment.... (along the lines of....)

it has a greater sense of speed compared the gran turismo series, going 100km/h feels like 200km/h

now theirs an all time great contradiction!
he went on to say that going 100km/h in gt3 didnt feel fast... blah blah blah

IDIOT
 
Uncle Harry
What will a boxed mint PS2 and GT game be worth in 2040?
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Don't know. Won't do me any good though, I am going to play GT4 until the DVD melts and the PS2 is destroyed in a puff of smoke.
 
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