Nice Leighton...



the magic 3rd gear

good work Leight - glad you're enjoying the car again. Let's have some graphs please.

I wil see them in the flesh unless flea gets it rr'd before next saturday at powerstation. will make my car seem slow

maybe he might let me drive it as after all he has driven mine for a couple hundred miles i only want 5 milesin his

flea how drivable is it if you aren't getting grip in 3rd lol.

Hopefully get some figures in a weeks time Si, all I know is that it's made some big gains on the road.

Peanut, my front tyres have seen better days which isn't helping at the minute. However, in the dry it will take all the power in 2nd and 3rd gear, but if the roads are greasy or wet then it it's a problem at full boost. The solution is part throttle or lower the boost

Oh and Luke

ok thats sounds good. :-) what tyres do you run and maybe looking at even better 1/4 mile times this year?
i think wet or greasy roads will catch any car out apart from trick rally slags so if you can hook up in 2nd i bet its a real machine.

out of intrest how much would a remap on a stage one coop be? and what sort of gains would i get over my gtech 1?

Follow the link in his sig

Have a look here for stage 1 prices peanut

Hmmmmmm.

more or less every 'performance' car owner i have spoke to has claimed a magic second or third gear, from escort rs turbo's to cosworths, Renault 19 16v's and 5 turbo's to tubby mr2's, and newer stuff like evo's and focus ST's.

Somehow i believe Flea's second and third gear experiences may be slightly more magical than most !

Flea, would you hazzard a guess to what your top end would be now? not neccessarily provable at a testing ground, but potentially if you had more or less unlimited space (like on a private motorway for instance )

we need a couple of V-Max entries - I reckon my car is good for around 175 - Flea's should be 180 - 185

would the standard gearing allow that?

It's not just about gearing it's also about rpms. The standard limiter is 6800rpm, I have mine set at 7850rpm, the extra 1000rpms goes a long way in 5th gear. Theoretically I could see 195mph given enough power on a long enough straight. Nigel also has the option of the 6th gear.

The standard 5 speed gearing would allow for 171mph @ 6,800rpm on standard rolling radius wheels.

It basically turns at 25.2mph/1,000rpm in 5th gear. I think Leighton runs at 7,800rpm and so should be capable of 196mph on the standard rims.

yeah the gearing is well up to it mate

thats good to know then like i will ever have the power to achive it.
do you think you would have enough power to push that speed though?

In in practice doubt it as the coefficient drag will be too great. Flea will need a Areo package next

you say that i have seen a r33 gtst with 629bhp hit 212mph on gps and to be fair the coop has less drag than a skyline so if he can get the power above 500bhp i think he could do it

Is anyone else thinking Gearbox Oil Cooler?

with a six speed box and an increased rev limiter, the Coupe will do 200 (with the requisite power of course)

Mine is showing about 3,600rpm at 100mph in 6th, so should be hitting an indicated 200mph at an indicated 7,200rpm

However, the speedo is not deadly accurate and neither is the rev counter (it actually reads slightly high)

With 17" wheels, the speedo is only about 5mph out at 100 (although its not linear - its about 3mph out at 30, 4mph by 60 and 5mph out by 100). I'm guessing completely, but I reckon its no worse than 10mph out by 200mph, especially with new tyres.

I have a slightly raised rev limit (about 7,300 IIRC - Flea can you confirm?) and I reckon its geared for about 190-195 at the limiter.

It would be nice if it had the power to get anywhere near this, but I'm fairly confident it would run out of puff by about 175

Its my belief that the underside of the car is too cluttered to give it true supercar speeds - most proper supercars have very flat undersides - the Coupe is just a normal car in this respect - floorpan mouldings, brake pipes, heatshields, gear linkages, mountings - all sorts of protuberances that will destroy airflow (and probably create lift as well)

Top speed is about overcoming air resistance which is proportional to the square of your speed so doubling your speed quadruples your drag.

I'm not saying it’s not possible just there are many factors to consider: frontal area, coefficient drag, rolling resistance, transmission losses, air density, weight, gear ration, wheel size, power etc...

If he can overcome these by sheer power then we have a new record

*Cough* Brize Norton.....

Well not sure how long the V-Max runs are but I would only try it once. As Kenno says, keep doing long top speed runs and the gearbox might explode!

Nigel, yes your limiter is just about 7300rpm.

Sadly i think that option may now be out the window

Though i may be able to arrange something for an event at a different place

Milbrook? - would be nice to try the banked circle

TBH, 2 miles is probably not enough - even Bruntingthorpe can only offer this much AND this includes the braking area. The saving grace is that you can enter the straight at about 80mph, so you've already made up an eighth of a mile or so

I'm hitting 160 at a mile from a standing start - I expect Flea will be at 170

Whilst the car was still accelerating at 160, it was only creeping up gently and you have to realise that at 160, the next mile will disappear in just 22 seconds

I'd still love to give it a go though - getting to 160 is entertaining, but I imagine keeping it planted after this is quite scary

Even with an unlimited straight I wouldn’t attempt more than 150MPH without some way of measuring tyre temp/pressure on the fly.

And tyres that are rated to them speeds.....

so what speed would a coupe with about 260 270 bhp make?
i think the standard is 156 so would the extra 40 50 bhp take it past 160?

I did about 155 down the runway at brize (work here) earlier this year indicated on sat nav... its safe to say i was bricking it! and trying to pay more attention to the road than the sat nav. car is running around 270bhp at a guess.

The top lane of the "circle" is hands-off at 130mph, but after that you start to feel the cornering forces build up. Go much faster and its easier to start feeling nauseous (you are leaned over at about 20 degrees) and even easier to lose concentration and hit the wall which is right next to you! Not for the faint hearted

On the upside, it is a little known fact that Millbrook is available for hire by the general public, and the deal I was on allowed me use of all track facilities for £50/hour with minimum charge of £100. Go and play up and down the straight, the kappa was clearing 150mph just oer half way along - or do the same in monsoon conditions on slicks, wheelspin all the way down. Whizz round the bowl until you throw up, thrash round the Alpine handling course or the smaller track that 5th Gear use. And what fun we had going round in circles flat in second on the steering pan to test the Accusump really did work - and then the realisation that we were getting dizzy, and the only options were to go faster (and spin out), lift off (and spin out), oh, and to spin out!

Probably find a group buy could bring prices down, although I did have to go down to Millbrook separately beforehand to undergo an initiation in safety, how the walkie-talkies worked etc in order to get my track licence

Great place to play, but if you're going for top speed runs, stick to Bruntingthorpe or find a quiet straight junction-less piece of motorway!