Author Topic: Weight to aim for  (Read 2148 times)

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Offline DLRA#363

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Weight to aim for
« on: October 13, 2013, 05:43:34 AM »
I am looking for guidance on what weight I should aim for for a lakester to hopefully run around 300 to 350 MPH??

Offline Sumner

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Re: Weight to aim for
« Reply #1 on: October 13, 2013, 11:00:39 AM »
If you look at the spread sheets here...

http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/bvillecar/bville-spreadsheet-index.html#Drag%20Force%20--HP%20to%20run%20a%20Speed

....you will see there is one called "Drag Force-HP-Thrust-Weight".  That spreadsheet will figure the Drag Force on a vehicle, the HP needed to run a certain speed for that vehicle, the thrust and the weight needed on the drive wheels for a given thrust and speed.

I also just finished a spreadsheet that is mainly for lakesters and figures the HP needed for a speed based on Cd and frontal area of the car and of the tires/wheels separately.  Since the body can have one Cd and the exposed tires/wheels another it figures them independently and then combines them into one HP total.  I don't have it up on my site yet, but if there is interest in it I'll put it up and a link to it.  Cars or streamliners could also use it, just don't fill in the section on wheel/tire diameter, width and Cd.  It is based on the formula in one of the spreadsheets on the page I posted a link to above, but is easier to use I feel.

If anyone is interested I'd be interested in comparing the spreadsheet output to real world experiences with cars that have some known data,

Sum
« Last Edit: October 13, 2013, 08:57:59 PM by Sumner »