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Old 06-04-2008, 06:38 PM   #12 (permalink)
aerohead
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rear heat-exchangers

Quote:
Originally Posted by lunarhighway View Post
what i really think helps this car is the engine location, or rather the resulting approach to the cooling system. frontal radiators are a huge contributor to car drag, not only do you ram air trough an obstruction, but very few cars seem to care much what happens to it after that, and it's usually spilled out into an area of already turbulent flow under the car.
Ford Probe-IV and GM PNGV both use rear quarter panel mounted radiators and AC condensers with wake-blaster outlets to help keep the nose clean.Ford is front engine,GM is rear engine with Cd 0.152 and Cd0.163 respectively.Ford was going for low drag while GM set a goal of 0.19 to allow stying concessions.No mention of over-steer problems.The rear-engine Tucker Torpedo did have oversteer (you can see it in the movie) as do my air-cooled VWs.Opposite lock steering and judicious use of throttle corrects okay.I read too that the Tatra was a monster around curves.I'd like to drive one and find out first hand!
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