Author Topic: Weight Vs Horsepower  (Read 1782 times)

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Offline speed

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Weight Vs Horsepower
« on: October 04, 2012, 09:41:58 AM »
I have heard that to run a car on the salt that it needs to be heavy to stop the tyres from spinning. If you have a car which does not have a lot of Horse power (say 300) do you need to have a heavy car as the power to weight factor must come into it a some stage.
Thanks

Offline RichFox

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Re: Weight Vs Horsepower
« Reply #1 on: October 04, 2012, 01:03:14 PM »
Running a "G" and V4 roadster as well as some altered coupes in the past, I never felt the need for added weight. Vega went 208 without noticing slip. It's down there with you these days. maybe you could check it out.

Offline fastman614

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Re: Weight Vs Horsepower
« Reply #2 on: October 06, 2012, 01:40:45 PM »
We did not add a lot of weight to our Vega until we put the big block in it.... with 600 odd (sea level) horsepower, we were going 215 to 220 mph with a car that, with the driver in, weighed less than 3000 lbs.

With our lakester (C Gas & +/- 850 hp), the car weighed just under 3000 lbs with the driver in and we felt that the backend was a little "light" after our first successful record setting attempts... (world finals 2010) .... so, we added a sturdy platform, if you will, for the purpose of attaching ballast. We had 400 lbs of ballast weight to add in but we ended up adding only 250 extra pounds (including the 10 extra pounds of attachment hardware) .... it does not sound like a lot really (especially in light of the fact that the Vega got over 2000 extra pounds), but it was or seemed to all that the car needed.

Now, if I was to set our Vega up with a 300 hp (turbo'd G or H class maybe?) engine, I would be removing a lot of weight from the car....

So, IMO, don't build your 300 hp car to be super heavy - although having the ability to add some weight in the rear axle area may be a good idea.

Good luck.
No s*** sticks to the man wearing a teflon suit.