tdi-rick
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Actually they aren't totally gutless, unless comparing to an F2, V8 Supercar, etc. (any of which I would have driven in a heart beat if offered a drive. Hell, that's why I drove the old Torana's and stuff I did too, blokes were silly enough to either want me to chassis test for them or a couple of times offered me a race drive )
FWIW the ARDC did some lunchtime drags at a National meeting at Amaroo back in '91 I think and over 200m the only car that beat Troy Dunstan's RF90 Van Diemen FF was Colin Bond's RS500 Sierra, and then only by a bumper.
None of the Sports Sedans could touch it, it's all about power to weight and getting that power to the ground.
One of the blokes I raced against, (Richie F) was bet that he couldn't beat a bloke in a heavily modified Phase III, so he wheeled his Swift FF out of the trailer in a street in one one of Sydney's leafy suburbs and they had a drag race down a suburban street in the middle of the night.
The car without lights won
Re tyres, they've never used a road tyre, it's always been a dedicated race tyre, can't remember what Formula Vee's ran, think that might have been a road tyre ?
Current tyre supplier is Avon Motorsport, and has been since about '98. Dunlop Motorsport (English Dunlops, although we tested some Japanese Dunlop slick radials once) supplied them for about three years prior to that, and Avon supplied prior to that.
Suspension is everything on the track, suspension is worth more HP than HP found in the engine on the dyno, it's your suspension that ultimately allows the tyre to generate its maximum lateral force, but what's optimum on the track is bloody awful on road and vice versa.
Trying to optimise the suspension is why we used to go testing all the time, we used different springs and anti-roll bars at each track, and although I couldn't afford them when I raced, it's why we used $2500 shock absorbers on customers cars. BTW, that's $2.5k per corner. (triple adjustable Ohlins TT44's)
I'd alter spring pre-load, camber and caster, toe, rake, roll centres, weight distribution, ackerman and dampers just trying to optimise the setup.
On road you need much more compliance than on track just to cope with the everyday lumps and bumps, and you need the compliance in suspension bushes for NVH and comfort. The wheel alignment is optimised for nice straight steering and optimum tyre life, not maximum cornering grip.
Even the steering rack is rubber bushed on a road car for NVH, and these are things that destroy handling and ultimate road holding on the track.
In a track car you don't want compliance in these areas, you want precision.
Karts work because they do, it comes back to power to weight, tyre contact patch area to mass and they have such a low CofG.
Actually you can adjust quite a few chassis parameters in a kart, much as you do in a car.
Track width, (the main adjustment) front and rear 'anti-roll bars' (chassis stiffeners) toe, weight distribution are all adjustable and they adjust the 'suspension', that chrome moly chassis.
I raced sprint karts for nearly three years back in the eighties and there's nothing like having your arse only 1/2" off the track @ 125km/h with only a thin piece of fibreglass between.
FWIW the ARDC did some lunchtime drags at a National meeting at Amaroo back in '91 I think and over 200m the only car that beat Troy Dunstan's RF90 Van Diemen FF was Colin Bond's RS500 Sierra, and then only by a bumper.
None of the Sports Sedans could touch it, it's all about power to weight and getting that power to the ground.
One of the blokes I raced against, (Richie F) was bet that he couldn't beat a bloke in a heavily modified Phase III, so he wheeled his Swift FF out of the trailer in a street in one one of Sydney's leafy suburbs and they had a drag race down a suburban street in the middle of the night.
The car without lights won
Re tyres, they've never used a road tyre, it's always been a dedicated race tyre, can't remember what Formula Vee's ran, think that might have been a road tyre ?
Current tyre supplier is Avon Motorsport, and has been since about '98. Dunlop Motorsport (English Dunlops, although we tested some Japanese Dunlop slick radials once) supplied them for about three years prior to that, and Avon supplied prior to that.
Suspension is everything on the track, suspension is worth more HP than HP found in the engine on the dyno, it's your suspension that ultimately allows the tyre to generate its maximum lateral force, but what's optimum on the track is bloody awful on road and vice versa.
Trying to optimise the suspension is why we used to go testing all the time, we used different springs and anti-roll bars at each track, and although I couldn't afford them when I raced, it's why we used $2500 shock absorbers on customers cars. BTW, that's $2.5k per corner. (triple adjustable Ohlins TT44's)
I'd alter spring pre-load, camber and caster, toe, rake, roll centres, weight distribution, ackerman and dampers just trying to optimise the setup.
On road you need much more compliance than on track just to cope with the everyday lumps and bumps, and you need the compliance in suspension bushes for NVH and comfort. The wheel alignment is optimised for nice straight steering and optimum tyre life, not maximum cornering grip.
Even the steering rack is rubber bushed on a road car for NVH, and these are things that destroy handling and ultimate road holding on the track.
In a track car you don't want compliance in these areas, you want precision.
Karts work because they do, it comes back to power to weight, tyre contact patch area to mass and they have such a low CofG.
Actually you can adjust quite a few chassis parameters in a kart, much as you do in a car.
Track width, (the main adjustment) front and rear 'anti-roll bars' (chassis stiffeners) toe, weight distribution are all adjustable and they adjust the 'suspension', that chrome moly chassis.
I raced sprint karts for nearly three years back in the eighties and there's nothing like having your arse only 1/2" off the track @ 125km/h with only a thin piece of fibreglass between.