Quarter mile discussion

[Murray]

My thread title is a quarter mile discussion i.e what people think about racing in these events and why people get caught up other it when in actually fact its only really about how fast your first gear accelerates.. Well not only that but its got a hell of alot to do with it.


I also enjoy quarter mile racing/standing starts from time to time but only for fun and not to be taken so seriously as that is not an indication of how fast your car is, its an indication of how fast you can pull off and maintain traction at low speed.

The fact you beat more powerful car on track means that your car was either better set up or experience of your driving was greater then theirs. I wooped loads of faster cars on the tracks that i went on in my EK9 back in the day so i know what you mean. Now i put it like this. Those cars you were beating round the track, imagine your car was even slower and with less power but with exactly the same chassis set up and driver. You wouldnt be beating them as much if beating them at all. And once on the move your car will be faster with more power. Every time ive gained power on all my cars they always seem to go faster LOL.

Your thread might aswell be about rolling starts, there quoted alot in this thread.

People get caught up in 1/4 mile racing because it is a competitive sport? From the person your trying to beat in the opposite lane or trying to beat your own personal best.
You might just find this out when you go trying for that 10sec run.......
Also is there any other way of telling how fast your car is? I can only think of 1/4 mile, 30-130 or a top speed run,racing on the M25 doesnt really count.
The trap speed tells alot about the cars power, you cant have a 100hp car doing 140mph traps can you?
What about the faster more powerful cars i beat at the 1/4 mile, is it all to do with how good i am with 1st gear? No weight, setup all plays a big part aswell. The same weight and setup that is used on the road so the variables dont change, apart from the standing starts.
Just read another bit of your 1st post, you say just because a car has a good 1/4 mile time doesnt make it a fast car in general? What about AFP subaru? unofficial 30-130 4.1 secs,30-190 approx 15 secs, 1/4 mile in 8.4@170mph, i guess this is not a fast car in general?

I get what you are saying when more power should make the car faster, it still needs the squidgy bit behind the wheel to make the most of it.
So your statement "Power does make your car faster FACT" isnt true

AdamB,
Horsepower is how fast you hit the fence, torque is how far you take the fence with you:haha:

 

[Dan3SGTE]

Your thread might aswell be about rolling starts, there quoted alot in this thread.

People get caught up in 1/4 mile racing because it is a competitive sport? From the person your trying to beat in the opposite lane or trying to beat your own personal best.
You might just find this out when you go trying for that 10sec run.......
Also is there any other way of telling how fast your car is? I can only think of 1/4 mile, 30-130 or a top speed run,racing on the M25 doesnt really count.
The trap speed tells alot about the cars power, you cant have a 100hp car doing 140mph traps can you?
What about the faster more powerful cars i beat at the 1/4 mile, is it all to do with how good i am with 1st gear? No weight, setup all plays a big part aswell. The same weight and setup that is used on the road so the variables dont change, apart from the standing starts.
Just read another bit of your 1st post, you say just because a car has a good 1/4 mile time doesnt make it a fast car in general? What about AFP subaru? unofficial 30-130 4.1 secs,30-190 approx 15 secs, 1/4 mile in 8.4@170mph, i guess this is not a fast car in general?

I get what you are saying when more power should make the car faster, it still needs the squidgy bit behind the wheel to make the most of it.
So your statement "Power does make your car faster FACT" isnt true

AdamB,
Horsepower is how fast you hit the fence, torque is how far you take the fence with you:haha:

Ok for you Mr pedantic.... I actually mean quarter mile in comparison to street/track preference. Is that clearer to you?

I get why people get competitive but people get caught up over it, they get a bad time they think their cars are slow etc. Which they shouldnt as in in my opinion its more how it performs on a roll whilst driving in real life scenarios. If you dont agree thats fair enough

Ive done plenty of quarter mile racing, cheers, i know exactly what its like It can get competitive, but i dont get caught up over it.

The trap speed doesnt always determine how fast you are, as it can depend on how much you are loosing traction on the mid section of the track i.e smashing it into 2nd gears or 3rd gear too harsh causing excessive wheel spin thus decreasing your terminals.

Momentum is a massive factor in racing so yes the variables do change alot.. I cant count the amount of times ive proved that.

Ok... i refrain from that comment, i didnt mean not a fast car in general, i meant if one car holds a faster time then the next car it does not mean that it is a faster car in general. Bloody hell i really need to be specific here dont i?

Aright then yeah.. more power doesnt make a car faster.. in fact it makes it slower.. I might take the turbo off my car, in fact the whole engine while im there and just use my legs? Maybe that will be the quickest way around? 1000BHP is the new 300bhp....

Personally i think your are just being argumentative and you know exactly what im talking about. But hay.. If not then me and you are on different planets. And that i will accept.

 

[spuddy]

Whats going on here?

 

[weeJohn]

Whats going on here?

Not sure, it keeps changing lol.

 

[Rev]

I think dan you are saying you would like to have a more powerful car up top which means your best time is on the roll rather than from stationary. This suits a big power turbo that that spools later.Tuning this turbo for low torque will reduce the max power the turbo can give so you would prefer to tune torque higher in the rev range which may result in a slower quarter mile but will give more top end power.

This sounds like a good strategy for driving in the country side to me but as a very small road car in city traffic I find off the line power useful. I would say safer as I can get out in front while other cars that fight each other lane changing behind me. Secondly the traffic lights are set to stop traffic at normal acceleration if I am meeting a deadline in the heart of the city I can keep to the speed limits but get all lights green as they are set to stop cars that have less off the line acceleration this saves time and makes city driving a breeze.

I am sure we all have our preference unless we are twin turbo or have switchable dual maps but I find quarter mile tuning makes sense for my daily drive and I would imagine is a lot of fun and learning at the track too.

 

[Dan3SGTE]

See now thats the kind of comments i was expecting, not an argument or trying to prove a point.. I see what your saying, very short sprint town driving the take offs and low speed/low torque car will be very handy like my old EK9, i just found myself on a motorway or a dual carriage way quite often and didnt have that enjoyable power and out on track up the straights i didnt have what it really needed...

 

[Rory]

Dan your confusing as fek, you have contradicted yourself a ton of times now.

Within your 2nd paragraph you have taken the quarter mile discusion away and input the rolling start thing.

Quarter mile is driver skill, fuck all to do with 1st gear. Yes more grunt is a good thing for anyone, but you could put a 14 yearold into a 100000000bhp Datsun and somebody with some skill and mop the floor with it with a car alot less powerfull. Where does the power help there?

Quarter mile is a good place to show how much power and torque a car has got, everyone knows this.

Anyway tracks with corners is wheres its at.

 

[Texx]

An engine creates torque, HP is the product or measurement of torque output vs velocity (or engine/crank speed). If you want an engine that will perform well under almost every condition, it needs to produce it's peak torque as early as possible in it's rev range and hold that peak torque as close to the end of it's rev range as possible, that's why an engine with a long flat torque curve will drive very well out on the open road. However, torque is a measurement of weight over distance, so an engines torque output needs to be realistic and match the weight of the vehicle that it's expected to move. A low engine torque output can be 'amplified' via the gear ratios so more torque is being transferred to the wheels than what the the engine is physically producing, this has a downside though and will result in the engine reaching it's rev limit more quickly, an increase in the engines max rev limit can be used to overcome this issue.

I suppose what I'm trying to say here is when you look at a dyno graph, ignore the HP reading it's almost irrelevant, look at the peak torque output and then look at how early in the rev range it reaches or gets close to that peak and then also look at how long it holds or stays close to that peak output. It's that 'window of opportunity' along with the weight of the vehicle and the gear ratios being used that will provide an indication of how well that engine and car combination will perform out on the road.

 

[Dan3SGTE]

Dan your confusing as fek, you have contradicted yourself a ton of times now.

Within your 2nd paragraph you have taken the quarter mile discusion away and input the rolling start thing.

Quarter mile is driver skill, fuck all to do with 1st gear. Yes more grunt is a good thing for anyone, but you could put a 14 yearold into a 100000000bhp Datsun and somebody with some skill and mop the floor with it with a car alot less powerfull. Where does the power help there?

Quarter mile is a good place to show how much power and torque a car has got, everyone knows this.

Anyway tracks with corners is wheres its at.

Rory it seems i have confused people in what i was trying to get out of this thread, my apologies!

What i really wanted to discuss was the comparison between the quarter mile scene vs on road/track.. So in essence discussing both scenes. That should have been my thread title to avoid confusion. Rev pretty much got the idea of what i was trying to discuss..

Saying that some useful information that texx has provided is also nice to be thrown in.

It wasnt meant for an argument but just a thread so people could talk, share opinions and create some knowledge as its what we build our cars for at the end of the day to get the performance we want out of them.

I cant agree with the fact that quarter mile has fuck all to do with first gear, there are lots of factors. That was just a kind of sarcastic remark i made at the beginning.

And yeah again your right about the experience will help a great deal here too, but thats irrelevant to what im saying as im judging the cars not the drivers. i.e people thinking their cars are not as quick as the next car because they hold a worse time, so many factors there.. A true indication of speed in my opinion is from a roll where both cars have traction and can pull up to what ever speed. To be honest it just feels like im repeating myself now.

Tracks are fun yeah, im all for that, so is drag racing and so are top speed runs in my opinion. I like it all. I just think quarter mile racing isnt ever really used in real life scenerios. Its just a point to point race where there are waaaay too many variables to take as gospel. You obviously disagree which is fair enough.

 

[Dan3SGTE]

An engine creates torque, HP is the product or measurement of torque output vs velocity (or engine/crank speed). If you want an engine that will perform well under almost every condition, it needs to produce it's peak torque as early as possible in it's rev range and hold that peak torque as close to the end of it's rev range as possible, that's why an engine with a long flat torque curve will drive very well out on the open road. However, torque is a measurement of weight over distance, so an engines torque output needs to be realistic and match the weight of the vehicle that it's expected to move. A low engine torque output can be 'amplified' via the gear ratios so more torque is being transferred to the wheels than what the the engine is physically producing, this has a downside though and will result in the engine reaching it's rev limit more quickly, an increase in the engines max rev limit can be used to overcome this issue.

I suppose what I'm trying to say here is when you look at a dyno graph, ignore the HP reading it's almost irrelevant, look at the peak torque output and then look at how early in the rev range it reaches or gets close to that peak and then also look at how long it holds or stays close to that peak output. It's that 'window of opportunity' along with the weight of the vehicle and the gear ratios being used that will provide an indication of how well that engine and car combination will perform out on the road.

Lovely bit of info there, cheers dude.....

 

[GP82]

Hey Dan bud, been following this thread with interest on your opinion about what a fast car is and i appreciate all yours and others input and comments. I am just lost abit as the thread title is quarter mile discussion. Anyway, well i like my drag strip runs, but i am more focused on setting my car up for the track and a very fast street road tune. Anyway this is what i have always believed. Watch the vid and listen to what Tsuchiya and co have to say at the begining, well they say it better then i can:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8HGbIbcuFo&feature=g-vrec&context=G2763518RVAAAAAAAABw

This coincides with what Texx and many others have explained that it's not about the HP number or that dyno sheet that does the pub rounds.