I wish my Mazda could make it down any of the straights at Road America in 12 seconds. I would be King. Its worse at Charlotte Motor Speedway, where we run nearly all of the oval and the infield course. Lynn E Hanover

Lynn and Bill, it is not full power all the way done the straight unless the car has reached
top speed, the RPM is at peak power and not changing. Is that the case with your
car at Road America Lynn? That is undoubtedly true on the oval at Charlotte.  If so
let me help you with the aerodynamics. Send me some pictures of the cooling system
ducts and the under hood area. Subtle changes can make a big difference. Most high
power race cars accelerate all the way down the straight. Do you have data
acquisition so you can send me a plot of RPM around the track?

Paul Lamar

Data acquisition????  I can't get the driver to remember which track we are at, week to week.
Our data acquisition is a movie camera watching the gages for later review. We want to be just off the rev limiter in fifth gear a number of heart beats before breaking for the longest straight. If you gear taller, you can go a bit faster for a second or two on that longest straight but acceleration suffers everywhere else. Also (I know you did all of this already) the rate of change in the higher gears is slower (fewer revs per mile). The answer is a gearbox with at least 7 speeds. We are allowed only 5. The max power (245) is at 9,450, and we should be shifting at 9,600. But the wear rates are very high and the money short so the rev chips are for 9,500. The movies we get are interesting and boring at the same time. The sound is distorted but you can hear the thing working hard. The tach is supposed to be above 7,800 all of the time, as there is no power under that. Sometimes I catch him under reving and we have to talk. Most tracks are point and squirt, there are few long!

 s!

weepers where the throttle would
 be feathered for very long. A long gulp at the end of each straight is about all of the rest it gets. I can'y believe the duty cycles are all that small. We need more money, a stack system, a limited slip diff, a dog ring sequential gearbox, more power,(and apparently, a longer duty cycle).
Lynn E. Hanover

Hey aero improvements are cheap.

Paul Lamar
 
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