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Re: Lightweight wheels...drive only?

To: Kevin_Stevens@Bigfoot.com
Subject: Re: Lightweight wheels...drive only?
From: jon e prevo <tcbracer@juno.com>
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2000 09:12:24 -0500
We're already hurting  ;-)

Jon FP 73

On Sat, 29 Jul 2000 23:08:41 -0700 "Kevin Stevens"
<Kevin_Stevens@Bigfoot.com> writes:
> <private>
> 
> God, will someone take the slide rules away from these guys before 
> they hurt
> themselves?
> 
> KeS
> 
> > Eric,
> >
> > You made some good points.  It will require more energy to "spin 
> up" the
> > non drive wheels than the drive wheels due to inefficiencies.  As 
> you
> > said, the flexing of the body won't be significant unless your 
> driving a
> > Mustang without subframe connectors.
> >
> > Additional inefficiencies will come from the deformation of the 
> tires.
> > For the sake of this discussion lets consider the drive axle the 
> source
> > of the energy, and all 4 tires/wheels are the same weight and 
> size.
> > Consider only the portion of energy needed spin the tires/wheels 
> from 0
> > to 60 mph, the simple analysis says energy to "spin up" 4 
> tires/wheels
> > will be 4 times the energy to spin up one tire/wheel. I'm sure 
> someone
> > can look up an equation for stored energy in a flywheel 
> (tire/wheel).
> > The drive wheels are driven directly from the axle so there won't 
> be any
> > inefficiencies for the drive wheels.  The other wheels will get 
> their
> > energy from the drive wheels, thru the inefficiencies of the drive
> > tires, and thru the inefficiencies of the non drive tires.  The
> > associated rolling resistances will manifest itself as heat (lost
> > energy) in the tires.
> >
> > I would now conclude that the lighter wheels should be put on the 
> non
> > drive end if all you're interested in is acceleration.
> >
> > Bob Mosso
> >
> >
> 

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