> Same car in a soloII the drag race start should hinder the 6 cylinder M3 vs.
> the same pony car..
I agree that the ponycars have a higher power/weight ratio which all
things being equal should mean quicker times till the first turn in a
ProSolo. But apparently all things aren't equal.
Some people feel the suspension and weight distribution advantages of
the M3 give it the ability to launch quicker.
I'd love to hear the physics details on this. Till then, all I have is my own
experiences.
At the LeMoore ProSolo, about the only thing I did well was the
launches. At Friday's practice, I was a .1 quicker in the 60 ft times than
Steve Eguina who has considerably more experience than I do. I felt my
launches were good. Given my stupid strategy of staying in 1st gear
throughout the course, this maximized my speed from the launch till the
first turn. But I couldn't pull the M3s (and I'm guessing they were losing
time during the shift to 2nd that I wasn't doing).
My car has 3.37 first gear ratio, 3.27 ring and pinion gear ratio, and
depending on the RPM, 250-300 lb-ft of dyno measured SAE corrected
RW torque. That comes out to between 2750 and 3000 lb ft of torque
available to my 315 tires. At that event the car weighed in at about 3700
lbs with driver so that's .7 to .8 lbft torque/lb of car. For reference, that's
higher than even Marcus Meredith's monster torque machine since he's
wisely shifting to 2nd gear.
I don't know what the transmission and ring and pinion gear ratios are
on the typical ESP M3s out there (can you fill me in?), but I have to
believe that the torque #'s come out WAY less.
So maybe other people's theory about suspension and/or weight
distribution is making up for the differences I'm seeing.
|