200mph and front wheel drive? I presume its been done?

[bigfatnick]

Inspired by the guy who has the rx7 build in the readers rides sections wanting to do 200mph for 10k, I began wondering if someone had done 200mph in a fwd car, but having quickly googled it, i couldnt find any evidence of it. Google didn't even throw up an bonneville style stuff. Does anyone know of a 200mph front wheel drive car? If not, how would you do it?

The new focus rs supposedly does 173mph iirc, and it cant be particularly aerodynamic with all that fibreglass hanging off it, and there was a smilarly paced vecrta if i remember correctly, so what about a calibra/cougar/mx6/406 coupe? How much power would it require to get one of these to 200mph? i presume someone on here knows how to do the maths, given the drag co-eficient?

[Scottish Greg]

There was a mk3 Fiesta RS turbo (obviously highly modified) that did approx 180mph

[Paul Drawmer]

Would be very difficult.
read here about 200 4WD and see how much power is used.
http://reyland.co.uk/index_2.asp

[K87]

Why does the driven wheels being front and not rear affect it particularly?

[mp3manager]

200mph civic

http://www.importtuner.com/features/0609impp_2001_...

Edited by mp3manager on Friday 18th December 08:19

[bigfatnick]

K87 said:

Why does the driven wheels being front and not rear affect it particularly?

doesnt as such, just wondered if it'd been done.

and the post below yours shows it has been done.

Now, what would it take to do it in a road car!

I presume the calibra has the lowest drag coeffcient, since everyone raves about it. That civic had 560wheel bhp.Calibra, Smooth underpanels, taped cracks, tiny wingmirrors, narrow tyres, 600bhp custom gearing for exactly 200mph on the limiter?

Edited by bigfatnick on Friday 18th December 08:28

[MADRod]

bigfatnick said:

The new focus rs supposedly does 173mph iirc, and it cant be particularly aerodynamic with all that fibreglass hanging off it.

The Andrew Gallagher Focus using a wedge front end & 680bhp reached 196.6mph within the confines of Brunters its 4X4. The Fiesta mentioned did 179.0mph with a tad under 500bhp again at Brunters. Lots dream & wish to do 200mph there but only a handfull ever have im afraid. Dreams & reality are serarated by having to 'do it'.
The Civic probably had 3 or 4 miles to reach 200mph a different ball game in the UK when the longest straight that can be used is 1.7 miles.

Edited by MADRod on Friday 18th December 08:55

[K87]

Would there be any issues with gearboxes? Obviously less room to play with at the front the big issue for getting the power in there.

[kambites]

K87 said:

Would there be any issues with gearboxes? Obviously less room to play with at the front the big issue for getting the power in there.

I don't see why it would be a problem. You don't need any more gears to increase the top speed (if you have enough road to play with) and the strength of the gearbox seems to be more determined by the materials used in its manufacture and the quality of the parts than its physical size.

Edited by kambites on Friday 18th December 08:59

[bazking69]

Scottish Greg said:

There was a mk3 Fiesta RS turbo (obviously highly modified) that did approx 180mph

Reynard one? Eek, they feel ropey at 80MPH. 180MPH must be truly terrifying.

[ApexJimi]

179mph in a Fiesta?

That must be hairy

[Scottish Greg]

Aye i know when i go over 100 in mine (on a private road officer) its not the most stable of cars. There was a clip on youtube of Sunny and his green Fiesta doing 178.

[Plotloss]

Do not underestimate the difference in power needed to go from 180 to 200mph.

200mph is an utterly monumental task.

Even in the very slippery 911 shape you're looking at needing around 650.

In a FWD car you'd need enormous power as they've got to be more slab fronted.

[marcosgt]

Plenty of production cars do 200MPH+ now, I don't think you need 650+ BHP to achieve it.

Maybe 500+, but some of that's down to gearing and aero and although most FWD are a little constrained packaging wise compared to a mid or rear engined car, there's no obvious aero advantage to RWD front engined over FWD front engined.

On the other hand, if you want a car which will JUST do 200MPH you can do a lot with aero and gearing to get you a lot of the way there. Lots of FWD cars can do 150MPH, making one that could do 200 can't be that hard if that's ALL you want it to do - Most supercars, though, are required to deliver awesome acceleration to high speeds, too.

M.

Edited by marcosgt on Friday 18th December 10:20

[bales]

marcosgt said:

Lots of FWD cars can do 150MPH, making one that could do 200 can't be that hard if that's ALL you want it to do.

M.

I think its pretty obvious there is a MASSIVE difference between 150 and 200mph, if you stick with a standard road car shape then as mentioned above it is the aero of being slab fronted that makes it so hard!

I would hazard a guess that given a Fiesta with over 500bhp can only really make 180mph then to get another 20mph would require a lot of aero and a LOT more power!

[aeropilot]

Scottish Greg said:

There was a mk3 Fiesta RS turbo (obviously highly modified) that did approx 180mph

There's a handfull of Saab's in the UK that can do that too (one of them is owned by a PH'r), and even more in Sweden that can.

[Hugo a Gogo]

http://www.auto123.com/en/news/car-news/pontiac-bo...

[ScottishSamurai]

I think there was an article in Banzai magazine a while ago about a EP3 civic tuned to do 200mph I tihnk, don't think it was british but it was a beast! about 800 ponies iirc

[Vixpy1]

marcosgt said:

Plenty of production cars do 200MPH+ now, I don't think you need 650+ BHP to achieve it.

You do on any of the UK airfields

[marcosgt]

Hence my comment that you could do it easily if that's ALL you want it to do.

You would need to focus heavily on reducing drag and fitting long gears, but not ALL FWD cars at shaped like the Kia Soul...

The RS Focus is reckoned to do 163 (maybe more) on just 300 BHP - 40 more MPH with a lot less weight, longer gearing (JUST for max speed) and improved aero would seem quite feasible, although it wouldn't do 0-60 in under 6 seconds or be that practical on a day to day basis I suspect.

Read the link about the 200 MPH Civic - That's basically what he did and it DOES 200+...

M.

Edited by marcosgt on Friday 18th December 10:40