Hey freebeard!
To my knowledge, Volkswagen holds the record for production at about 260 Mpg. Craig Vetter's group, The Craig Vetter Fuel Economy Challenge (craigvetter.com) is the real point of the spear with gas, diesel and electric streamliners and such in my opinion (They were doing 400 Mpg in the 70's!).
Currently, and oddly, some of the older Guinness record's have been removed for economy. An example is/was "The California Commuter", at 155 Mpg, in 1980...
There is also a guy named Vic, who frequent's Craig's stuff and ninjette.org, he just broke 260 Mpg on a simply faired Ninja 250...and that is serious!
Oh Bonneville...sigh. Got to walk on it last year...terribly humbling. We are working on a long tail version to get out there and play with the big boys by maybe 2020...but you are right, they don't play about scrutinizing for safety. We'll see. (Oddly, you wouldn't believe how often folks ask about this!)
Gonna take a look at your links and am very grateful for the sharing.
On the spats, we are working on downforce and geometry right now, and can't put the pants on till we are very firm at high speed. They act like rudders...and we only weigh 350lbs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by freebeard
Small-f freebeard, I'm not that important.
What's the current Guiness record? I really don't follow them.
Generally, with sanctioning bodies, the rules determine what can and can be done. Of course, the most unbounded would be your inspiration — Bonneville. You could look into whether you can pass scrutineering there.
You might review the materials at http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...html#post87799. I don't car to dig through it myself, but generally a free body in ground effect can have a Cd of 0.05-0.09. See also http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tml#post289064
Once you add fully spatted wheels (three or four) it's hard to reach 0.12. When you figure in the open front A-arms it goes north of that. You might send a Personal Message to aerohead and invite his comment. I think he would like to see it.
That other thought was unpremeditated. If the top of the kingpin passed through the upper Heim joint or whatever to a sprocket, then a chain running in the hollow upper A-arm would allow eliminating the drag from the steering arms and the drag link/idler arms (or whtvr). Those small round tubes probably have as much drag as the A-arms which are thicker but have a better fineness ratio. |