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Originally Posted by jimepting
Fascinating pictures. I guess we might say these guys are working at the other end of the spectrum from ecomodders!
The body shapes interested me. The Nish car "appears" to stuff a lot of air under the front, which I would have thought would be bad, but perhaps they are generating downforce?
The Speed Demon looks in profile like a wing. One would think that would generate enough lift to cause it to get airborne.
But - I don't really have a clue on cars running at these speeds.
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Yes,they take Hucho's relationship about Cd/MPG/Top Speed and concentrate on speed.
The cars attempt to minimize projected frontal area as much as possible while shrink-wrapping the driver and all mechanicals.
The cars are typically quite heavy,some are 3-tons or better.With 5-miles/7-miles of acceleration distance mass is less important than aerodynamics.Also,the extra weight helps prevent wheelspin which can and does get the cars sideways.
Drag coefficients for the streamliner class reach into Cd 0.11 territory.
Goldenrod averaged Cd 0.115 in the Lockheed tunnel.
A scale model of Kenny Lion's BMW motorcycle registered Cd 0.11 in the Texas Tech tunnel.
Speed Demon strikes you as a fuselage.It is fully ground-effects back to the diffuser.
The Nish car does allow air underneath.The lower profile may generate downforce.I don't know and I didn't want to pester Terry or his family/crew.
Both cars have the stabilizing rear fin to keep the CP rear of C.G..
These cars can fly if rotated sideways,as I witnessed with Ed Tradup's 'Danny Boy' streamliner.
You may have seen Burt Munro 'get some air' on 'World's Fastest Indian.'
The ARVW and 1st-gen VW 1-liter would make fine Bonneville cars.
If I can ever get the T-100 to Bonneville I'll finally have some accurate data from which to reverse-engineer the trucks Cd.It's been unofficially to 115 mph,with plenty of throttle left.That's about 20 mph faster than stock so something's going on.