Richard - I value your input and have benefitted from your experience when I needed advice on various suspension, differential and braking components. I know that you speak from not only an engineering background, but also from a history of track time in such high powered vehicles that includes.....
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Originally posted by Richard Hudgins
Examples of cars that I have driven with spools.
1. Porsche 935 2250 lbs. 89.75 wheelbase, 500>750 hp. (depending on where you set the boost.) A pure joy to drive once you got onto the power delivery issues.
2. McLaren M8 . 1750 lbs. 92 wheelbase 700+ hp. Really a cool car to drive and the motor was excellent in power delivery.
3. Lola T300 1550 lbs. 94 Wheelbase, 550 hp. Ok to drive but the chassis was really flexible and you had to be careful not to have the bodywork and chassis pinch you under the arm due to flex.
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As you may have read, I have built exactly the type of car that you have questioned the logic of, and reasoning behind. I cannot think of one good reason of why I need this level of power. In fact, I felt pretty queasy when I realised what I had gotten myself into. You see, I had planned on building a lightweight 400hp carburetted road/race Cobra originally. By the time I had placed my order for the engine, the entire reason for building a new Cobra was already out the window. With the new level of power came all sorts of other problems - such as now requiring high strength "drag-racing" style driveline components in place of the light-weight roadracing parts that I had planned to use.
All that being said, I've now spent my money and have ended up with what I think is a fairly unique car that screams performance. I still value the driving experience that comes with owning one of these cars, and I don't just want to park my car in a garage with the knowledge that I have one of the more powerful Cobras around. I still want to drive and enjoy my car.
Realising my limitations, and knowing that my level of power is drastic overkill for the street, I have had OZVENOM install some GT101 Hall Effect sensors from and rear as wheel speed sensors for the purposes of traction control (via my Motec M800). As you would be aware, the percentage of wheel slip can be dialled in to suit the vehicle. After that long winded insight into how I ended up where I am, I have a genuine question for you. How would you expect a Cobra chassis to cope with an 800hp motor if the traction control was dialled in to allow no more than 5 or 10% wheel slip. If the traction equation was levelled by the sophisticated traction control software, do you think that more than 400hp can be used on the street?
Would the problem with "too much power" then become more of a driver attitude/ego problem, rather than a chassis dynamics problem? To be honest, I cannot see a need for ANY Cobra to be accelerating at full throttle for more than a couple of seconds on the street. After seeing the datalogging of my car on the racetrack last Wednesday, I'm quite convinced that I'll NEVER need to use full throttle on the street. Thanks for taking the time to read my lengthy post. I hope you see this as a legitimate question, rather than a poor attempt at trying to justify my car.
Craig