Thread: Effect of weight on 1/4 mile times

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Originally Posted by hhaywoodjr

If two cars were to race, both with 7.6 lb/hp ,one weighing 3300 lbs with 425 flywheel hp and the other 4300 lbs and 565 flywheel hp. What would be the effect of moving the extra 1000lbs even though they're putting the same power to the ground.

The effect would be your still moving 1000 pounds extra down the track. Forget the effects for a moment of moving the thousand lbs. and concentrate on getting from Point A to point B with the quickest ET. More effect would also be putting more strain on your parts, 1000 LBS worth. The question is pretty vague.

From pure physics, both cars would accellerate identically. But as many have already said, there's more to racing.

On the TV show "Trucks" this weekend they were demonstrating a new power tuner from Bully Dog that will control lots of different vehicles. So they put the tuner on the pickup truck and towed a new Camaro to the track. Then they put the same tuner on the Camaro and made several runs down the dragstrip. Then they loaded a "football player sized cameraman" in the car to get some action shots. With the addition of 200+ pounds, the car was 0.2 seconds faster in the quarter mile! The only thing that suffered was the top speed. That just goes to show you that there is more to racing than horsepower and weight.

Originally Posted by Mark in Memphis

From pure physics, both cars would accellerate identically. But as many have already said, there's more to racing.

On the TV show "Trucks" this weekend they were demonstrating a new power tuner from Bully Dog that will control lots of different vehicles. So they put the tuner on the pickup truck and towed a new Camaro to the track. Then they put the same tuner on the Camaro and made several runs down the dragstrip. Then they loaded a "football player sized cameraman" in the car to get some action shots. With the addition of 200+ pounds, the car was 0.2 seconds faster in the quarter mile! The only thing that suffered was the top speed. That just goes to show you that there is more to racing than horsepower and weight.

I agree theres more too racing and the TV show was probably more advertisement then anything else.