Ridiculous Horsepower Dynos. How?

[Zenith]

I keep seeing videos like this...



Where a turbocharged R8 or turbocharged lawnmower or turbocharged turbo is getting horsepower numbers upwards of 1000-2000bhp on a dyno. I have trouble believing that VW uses millions of dollars 16 cylinders and several radiators to make 1000hp while some tuning company from LA is making double that with a twin turbo I6. Are they using fuel additives? Are the dyno numbers BS? Or am I just too skeptical?

 

[Famine]

It's a mix of things - but remember, the Volkswagen you're talking about has a warranty and a PR department. It doesn't look that good for them if £5m worth of car explodes every other week...

Getting that power is easy. Getting it driveable and getting it reliably isn't.

 

[Keef]

You must be too skeptical lol.

Many big-power cars run race gasoline, but a Supra can make a thousand horses on pump gasoline, just as many other cars can. AMS's Alpha 12 R35 GT-R is making over 1500 horsepower at the wheels (The Veyron's horpower rating is at the engine crank, not factoring in loss from drivetrain weight and friction, just like all manufacturers rate horsepower). Underground has a Gallardo making 1700 wheel horsepower.

The only problem with them is that their smooth drivability has gone out the window. Their NVH levels and general comfort definitely isn't what it used to be. I'm not really sure how stable a GT-R or Gallardo would be at 260 mph because nobody has ever taken one there, and the cars' hardware wasn't exactly designed for it.

The Veyron is a perplexing machine. It doesn't need to be as ridiculous as it is, what with all the radiators and 4 turbos and intercoolers and massive weight, but it is, and the fact that it still performs as it does despite the excess is something else.

It's also perfectly happy going 260 mph, and then cruising down to pick up groceries immediately afterward. It starts every time, it doesn't require any awkward rituals, it's smooth to drive through a parking lot, it's comfortable, stable as a rock at its top speed, everyday reliable, etc. Plus, there is an entire business model wrapped around it. AMS doesn't have a hyper-luxurious dealership experience or a private test track where you're given a special 260 mph key.

Is it worth the money? Hell I don't know, I've never tried one. There's no way to get a car that is a total package like that any cheaper, so yes, it is. But when it comes down to acceleration, it doesn't cut the cheese, and until AMS or Underground get their cars on the test track, we'll never no if a $100,000 GT-R can be made to beat a Veyron at its own game.



Apparently a 1500 horse Gallardo still goes straight at 241...in a standing mile.

 

[Rykon Zero]

As I know it, it's very very easy to get a lot of power out of an engine. It is remarkably hard, however, to keep that new superpowered engine from exploding in your face the moment you do anything resembling touching the throttle.

 

[Zenith]

Cool. Great answers, good points, thanks 👍

 

[Bottoz]

You must be too skeptical lol.

Many big-power cars run race gasoline, but a Supra can make a thousand horses on pump gasoline, just as many other cars can. ...

Are you sure? Pump Gas? I've seen 104 and 116 from a pump, but that was at a race track!
I haven't kept up with Supra stuff ever since I sold my Cobra back in '06. I will say, it was fun beating 600 and 700hp Supras with just a 550hp Cobra. Yay Torque!

 

[JCE]

Getting that power is easy. Getting it driveable and getting it reliably isn't.

I think this is the best answer for this subject there is. Literally anyone can shovel some money into a car and get 1,000bhp out of it. But not anyone can get that sort of power AND make it quiet, comfortable and daily drivable. Hell most cars north of 600bhp are nearly impossible to drive on the street daily without taking a good amount of sacrifice from the noise, harsh ride and fuel consumption. The Veyron literally ticks all the right boxes minus fuel consumption. But I maintain it does get better MPG than some drag cars with similar power output.

 

[Keef]

I will say, it was fun beating 600 and 700hp Supras with just a 550hp Cobra. Yay Torque!

What did you do, let off right when they started to pull?

Cars with that power have to cover at least 100 mph before you can call the race.

 

[Jim Prower]

I'd love to see one of these show up to one of those one-mile dragfests.

But you'd never see it with a license plate attached.

 

[Bram Turismo]

Are you sure? Pump Gas? I've seen 104 and 116 from a pump, but that was at a race track!
I haven't kept up with Supra stuff ever since I sold my Cobra back in '06. I will say, it was fun beating 600 and 700hp Supras with just a 550hp Cobra. Yay Torque!

Excuse me for being overly skeptical, but either the one driving the Supra was bad or it didn't actually make 700 hp. You don't just simply beat a Supra in a straight line pull.

On the topic of ridiculous power and speed:




I'd sacrifice an arm to get a ride along with this car. 1,295 hp. My mother's car makes 95

 

[Keef]

I'd love to see one of these show up to one of those one-mile dragfests.

[pro-mods]

But you'd never see it with a license plate attached.

Too bad their gears would run out at, oh, say, the 1/4 mile.

 

[Dennisch]

Simple example : The Ford RS200? Rally car produced ~600hp, but after 6 hours the engine was done for. (correct me if I'm wrong)

Hell, I could get 750hp out of my 1.6 Golf. I don't think it would finish the dynotest in one piece.

 

[Cano]

what Keef said in his first post is basically true, you can put down amazing numbers, specially with today's turbo/supercharging technology and even some nitrous, and have a car that works for nothing but bragging rights. It doesn't mean it isn't cool, driving a high-powered car in the street is fun as heck.

Now, if you want to really have the best of both worlds, you can also plumb in twin fuel systems, one for pump gas that works until 1/3d of the throttle, and then another one for good gas when you dump your foot into oblivion. You'll of course need a completely tuneable computer and someone who knows what he is doing when building those fuel maps, but it can be done:

This:

has this underhood (no turbos, they are twin Rotrexes):

Which is fed by these:

It made 1,160 hp and 825 lb/ft back in 2009, and it just ran Hot Rod's Drag Week two weeks ago so it still exists and one has to asume it has been upgraded with time and runs. Who knows how much it's putting down now.

feature:
http://www.hotrod.com/featuredvehicles/hrdp_0611_72_nova_w2w/

 

[Bottoz]

Keef and Bram - Supra guys in Colorado hated me years ago... and some of 'em still do. 40MPH roll for 1/4 mile, measured out... it was fun (for me)! They were all secretive on what they actually ran, but claimed high HP, definitely higher than what I had.

 

[Slash]

Are you sure? Pump Gas? I've seen 104 and 116 from a pump, but that was at a race track!
I haven't kept up with Supra stuff ever since I sold my Cobra back in '06. I will say, it was fun beating 600 and 700hp Supras with just a 550hp Cobra. Yay Torque!

The highest pump gas we got here that's not at a track is 97 although there is only one place around that does 104 and it's mad expensive. Most track gas we got here is around 107.

 

[niky]

Hot Rod's Pump Gas drags are a... gas... with requirements that cars be streetable and street-driven before the drag races. Some of those guys are putting down some awesome numbers for cars you can actually drive on the road.

-

It's probably possible to beat a 700 whp Supra with a 550 whp Cobra if the Supra is on a map that favors top end over absolutely everything else. I've seen some Supra dynos that look suspiciously like B18 dynos... nothing, nothing, nothing, 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 500, 700... shift...

Also depends when and where the car was dyno'd... if the dyno the Cobra ran on was a Mustang (honestly.. what other dyno would you run it on? ) and the Supras were dyno'd on a 'Jet, it's a big possibility the Cobra's deficit isn't as big as it seems.

 

[Bottoz]

We had a funny little saying... "Do you know what a 600hp, 700hp and 800hp Supra have in common? They all run 12s."

 

[Troux]

The main points have been hit on in here, but some things are being left out, and some are a little off.

Making cars reliable these days is much easier than it used to be. Building solid cooling systems and stronger parts is cheaper, and more info is available, plus cars are better designed for reliability from the start. The Supra is extremely reliable, as there have been many 1000HP Supras running stock block, stock head, stock head gasket, and stock radiator and fans (yes, really).

One of the primary factors is what these cars give up to make that power. No Supra is making 1000WHP on pump gas, unless you count E85, even that is a MAYBE. The highest, at my best guess, would be 600-650 on 93, and the turbo lag is unbearable for a mass-appeal car (non-car people like to buy high end exotics, too). Similarly, huge cams make an NA car more powerful, but make low-end driving much more difficult, and not ready for the inexperienced, unprepared, or lazy driver. A BIG cube engine increases driveability, but at the cost of gas mileage. Then, you can open the exhaust or intake up for better flow, but the car gets louder, and if you drop the cat, emission suffer, which are all big no-nos for production vehicles. Also, all of these cars are tuned. They use just the right combo of fuel and gas for maximum power, based on air density and temperature. In the case of a production car, they sacrifice a LOT of power by giving the car a VERY conservative tune (too much fuel), so that it can safely run in a Mexican summer or a Norway winter, along the beach or among the Alps. You can destroy an engine if it's perfect in one climate and fed too much air in another. Another factor is manufacturing costs. Tubular headers and a tightly-packaged intercooler are expensive, as are precision machined heads and all the other things that builders do.


The Veyron suffers from none of this.

 

[Keef]

Keef and Bram - Supra guys in Colorado hated me years ago... and some of 'em still do. 40MPH roll for 1/4 mile, measured out... it was fun (for me)! They were all secretive on what they actually ran, but claimed high HP, definitely higher than what I had.

Sometimes people test on dynos with different correction methods, often set to produce higher numbers for bragging rights. The only problem is that when you race somebody who tuned on a properly corrected dyno...and they have the same power...

An 800 horse Supra wouldn't be able to hang in Texas these days. That sort of power is for little boys.

 

[Bottoz]

Well aware of correction factor tweaking.

And yes, I'm sure many changes have come in 6 years. I haven't really followed it since then.

 

[LP670-4 SV]

one answer my friend.......Turbos

Like people before me said, its easy to get a LOT of hp from and engine....its NOT easy making it "accessible"/reliable/and safe..

These "drag" cars are have lost there "street-ablitly" for the sake of pure speed. Hell I know of a Saab ng900 9-3 that puts 719 whp and that's a I4....in the world of UGR Gallardos and AMS 12 GT-R's which both put 1300+ whp with twin turbos etc...that's NOTHING, these cars are running the standing mile in 250mph+ range, so the old 800hp supras/skylines would be destroyed by today's standards

The main problem with these cars simply are they aren't refined anymore, any mistake made in these types of cars will lead to a very ugly accident as they will simply sling shot you down the road into the oncoming semi truck..

There maintenance must be damn near race car level, as an engine making anywhere near 800+ hp is going to EAT through internals let alone a car with twice that power

Its a very slippery slope when cars are tuned to this level as they were not designed to reach these levels of performance.... A Veryon or Koenigsegg are designed to go 260+ mph, the UGR Gallardo and AMS GT-R are not but are "forced" into this realm with pure power

 

[Eric.]

There's a video of a UGR Gallardo being delivered to its new owner at the Texas Mile. He spins it multiple times while braking from well over 200mph.

 

[Keef]

Perhaps because it's got 150 pounds of turbo hardware mounted directly over the rear wheels. Straight-line stability is very important at those speeds, especially under braking because you're gonna have to slow down eventually.

 

[Troux]

You guys are running off a lot of assumptions...those UGR engines are built strong, and they can and will put up with a ton of torture. None of them have grenaded under their own power yet, so no reason to assume they all will soon.

 

[OwensRacing]

When trying to build a car. You got three options

Fast

Reliable

Cheap


Pick Two

 

[Jim Prower]

Too bad their gears would run out at, oh, say, the 1/4 mile.

That's what the quick-change rear-end is for.

but, yeah, I'm kind of not too impressed by the supercar tuners. Way to make an already unaffordable car even more unaffordable, they're not great on the street, and they're still not pure race cars, either.

 

[OwensRacing]

There is a UGR Lambo in Indy that is driven a ton. Guy dang near daily drives it.

I thinking he went 9's at 160mph at ORP too. Drove there and drove home. No tore swaps no trailers.

Cars making 700-1k at the wheels these days are uncanny about their street manners. Turbos, DFI, and E85 has made for some exceptional pump gas cars.

 

[Cano]

Cars making 700-1k at the wheels these days are uncanny about their street manners. Turbos, DFI, and E85 has made for some exceptional pump gas cars.

What he is saying is right, though. No one is gonna believe a 1,000+ hp car is gonna run like it ran when it had 400-500, but they don't really are THAT rough and radical in their street manners.

To illustrate this, here we havea car I had forgtten about: Nelson Racing Engines' 69 Camaro with a cool 2,000 hp, all streetable.

Twin turbo 572 ci big block with twin fuel systems, just like the Nova I posted in the previous page. Unlike the Nova in the previous page, it doesn't look like a pretzel nor isn't a drag car, this is just an overkill street machine.

Watch the video. It isn't beastly at all until you put the foot down and mark the drag radials for 500 meters.

 

[OwensRacing]

Nelson does some awesome work!

I was into the car scene heavy when things started getting wicked. We ran with the Mustangs from Mid 90's on. Back then a 500 whp car on the street was rare. Recall Lidio from Alternative driving down a Stang from Michigan to Florida and ran 10's when he got there. I think this was in 96/97. Ended up with a huge article and his business boomed from it.

Surely some guys in their 30's thought like me. We missed the good car era of the late 60's early 70's. However things have changed and we are living the best time ever for auto enthusiasts. Cars from tue factory sitting at 500 wheel is common now. Smooth idles, manners, warranties.

Just awesome. We older guys dreamed of these kinda manners and power. Back then I wouldn't thought 1000hp+ would even live on the street. Those kinda cars made hits and shut down. Now they idle in traffic!!!

 

[Keef]

Cano, that car is cool and all, but the power numbers don't really matter. It's easy to make power. It's easy to make it drivable on the street. All these AMS and UGR cars are perfectly livable around town and through the corners. What's difficult is keeping it on the ground and going straight at 267 mph.

If we wanted to talk about powerful street cars...



Or maybe the world's fastest street car...



But I don't know man. Obviously they're powerful enough to get there, but what are they like to drive at 267? Do their 7-speed DSG shift like butter in the neighborhood or during full throttle passing 150? Fit and finish? Are they as complete a package?