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Subject:Re: aerodynamics, was: 101 MPH Vanagon!
From:Eric Zeno
Date:Mon, 18 Oct 2004 07:39:34 -0400

Aerodynamically everybody seems to be missing one thing.
If I have a very unslippery vehicle with a coefficient of 1 (flat surface)
and a slippery vehicle of .5 and the surface area in question on the .5
vehicle is 3 times the area of the vehicle with a rating of 1,  the .5
vehicle is much higher in resistance than the vehicle with a rating of 1.

         Interesting!     By what critera is the surface area measured?
I've never seen spec's
on this.                                      Eric

jimt wrote:

>On 10/17/04 8:53 PM, "Stan Wilder" <wilden1-1@SBCGLOBAL.NET> wrote:
>
>
>
>>With less than 100 hp the dream of 100 in a Vanagon is just a dream unless
>>you drive off cliff and read your airspeed indicator on the way down.
>>I think Bruce just dropped the hammer on his hybrid toy to see how
>>everything behaved and reached that 101 as part of the test but that brings
>>up the speedometer error that is about 10% and that means he was only doing
>>92 mph. Well within reasonable speeds for Texas Highways for all Pickup
>>trucks, SUVs, MPVs, 18 wheelers, and Rice Rockets of both the two and four
>>wheel varieties.
>>
>>Stan Wilder
>>High Performance Ceramic Coatings
>>www.engineceramics.com
>>
>>
>Last year after a proper breakin on my subie mod I took it out on the flats
>on i70 towards kansas.  Took it up to just under 6k on the tach.  At that
>speed my speedo is definitely off by very close to 15 percent.  (only goes
>to 85). However 5.8 x 18 is comfortably (uncomfortably) over 100mph. Havent
>done it since and don�t plan on it.  Even at a moderate 80mph a crosswind is
>not nice in a vanagon or any slabsided vehicle.  For a regular vanagon to
>hit those speeds is right at the cutoff.  The subie electronic cutout is at
>about 6.2k  the vanagon electronics cuts out at about 5.8k plus or minus a
>little.  I am told that the last couple years of the vanagon the ecu cutout
>at 6k but no change was made to part numbers.
>
>Aerodynamically everybody seems to be missing one thing.
>If I have a very unslippery vehicle with a coefficient of 1 (flat surface)
>and a slippery vehicle of .5 and the surface area in question on the .5
>vehicle is 3 times the area of the vehicle with a rating of 1,  the .5
>vehicle is much higher in resistance than the vehicle with a rating of 1.
>
>
>
>........................................
>jimt
>Planned insanity is best.
>Remember that sanity is optional.
>http://www.tactical-bus.info (tech info)
>http://www.westydriver.com
>
>
>
>