So, you wanna go 200?
Work out how many revs you can "afford"...... ie: calculate how much you want to spend on a motor, 5000rpm is a no-brainer, 6000 will need some non-stock gear , once you go beyond that there is a very steep curve of increasing expense.......
Generally production style cars struggle to pull a final drive with a numerically lower ratio than 2.4.
You will want to run 1:1 in the box, some people run an overdrive but it is generally accepted as good wisdom to go 1:1.
You can get tires up to 32 inch, generally you will see 26 or 28's on what you intend to run.
Your car will need somewhere north of 750 HP.If you do really well on the set-up you might get there with less , but you mightn't get there quickly enough......
OK , say you have 28inch tires...( I'll work in metric here its easier)
tire height = 700mm, ~ circumference = 700 x 3.14 = 2198mm(lets call it 2.2m)
The diff gears it down , lets say you have a 3.0:1 then the factor is 1/3 ~ .3333
so, we need revs x gearbox x diff x rolling distance x 60(minutes to convert to hours)/ 1000( convert metres to kilometres)
6000rpm x 1 x .3333 x 2.2 x 60
----------------------------- = 263.97km/h
1000
OK I can hear you all groaning about metric.....263.97KM/h is about 158.4mph
At this point when you want to go faster ( assuming your car doesn't want to go tail first at this speed or lower) you will need more gearing, or a motor that will rev harder, see above.
All this is ALSO based on the assumption that the drag that your car produces is LESS than the amount of power your tires can transmit to the salt. Picture this , you have parked your car with the front bumper resting against a tree , if you get in and try to drive it forwards the tires will spin. If instead it was a D9 you'd parked there you will push the tree over because the tracks are capable of transmitting more force to the ground than the roots of the tree.
When you are increasing in speed on the salt the force acting directly against you increases exponentially, soo you will not be able to overcome it, either your motor will rev no higher, or, your tires will spin.You can add ballast to increase your "
thrust" ( you can't change traction, it is constant) and go a little quicker....ballast is generally regarded as preferable to downforce as it doesn't increase drag.............
wow, this, is getting complicated.
If you make an exact copy of a car of the same make and model as yours it is likely you will go slower until you work out how to drive it.......but who wants to copy someone else?.....look at what other cars like yours are running( thankfully in this game folk are generally pretty keen to talk about it)....then ask them what they would do if they had their time( and their money) again.
at that point you are getting close to "cutting edge"
Then, multiply everything you have heard time and money wise by five, or seven if you don't want to kid yourself.
If this sounds ridiculous then you can always build a lakester or a streamliner, they'll go much faster with a lot less power ....but they, um, are a whole other can of worms