NataSS Inc,

I saw this thread and at least thought of you. I knew you'd find your way here sooner or later.

 

Let me give you an idea what it is like at speed. In June I navigated in a 1954 Studebaker Commander at the Bonnoville 100 ORR. Our cruising speed was 197mph. This is on a 2 lane highway that is only 21ft wide, no shoulders and in the middle of the desert. At 197mph you are covering a HAIR shy of 4 miles per minute. that already narrow road looks like it is about 2ft wide. The yellow stripes down the center of the road look as solid as the white fog line on the edges of the road. Mile markers go by almost faster than you can keep track of them to make speed adjustments. When you look out the side of the car to check stuff out.....thats when the ole heart does the pidder pat pidder pat. The only way to describe it would be to say if you had just freshly finished an oil painting of a landscape, place your hand on one side of it and drag it all the way accross the canvas smearing all of it. You can not focus on any one thing, or anything for that matter. The view of the horizon changes in seconds. then you try and keep the things out of your mind like tire failure, catastrophic engine failure, wind gusts that could blow you off the road, any little bump or dip in the road that could cause you to spin out of control, animals entering the road etc etc etc.

Speed isnt something to be played with. Let us lunatics in ORR do it for you.

 

NataSS,

Another year or so and I'm headed your way. I've wanted to run that event for many years, and I sold the last project car just after getting it completed, so here we go again....

 

Hope to see you out there soon!

 

I see what your staying. I was on a basically completely straight stretch of road anyways. As I said before, the only real reason I didnt shift into gear was I was afraid of hitting the wrong gear, or having the chance of something in the drivetrain f'ing up when I shifted, etc. I figured I would wait until what I considered a safer speed (after going 160+, 130 doesn't seem that fast anymore) before I made ANY changes to the car as far as braking or shifting.

 

That story is a great description nataSS, really makes you feel like your there. Fortunately for me my high speed excursion was only for a few brief seconds. I cannot imagine going faster then I was, for a long length of time. Massive props to you sir.

 

To be totally honest with you.....that is when things are the most dangerous. After running at speed for a while you get "speed soaked". And thats when things can sneak up and bite you in the ***. It may not "seem" fast, but in anyones book 130mph is still moving at a good pace.

In the ORR runs I talk alot to the guys that run in the "Unlimited" class. These are the guys that have cruising speeds above 220-230mph. Even they will say that after a 14 mile straight stretch at 220mph(that btw goes by in a little over 2 minutes if my math is right.) that when the navigator tells them to slow to 180mph for the next long sweeper it feels like they are crawling. It may "feel" like they are crawling but think of it.....they are still at 180mph IN A CORNER!

I love speed just as much as the next guy (ok maybe a bit more) BUT I cant stress enough how much damage can be done at speeds. The sheer physics of whats going on at high speed are mind numbing.

 

That sounds like it is pretty fun. what do you think the fastest safe speed would be in a stock
WS6. I want to know this so when i try i dont end up pushing it to much and killing my self.

 

That really depends on driver skill, road conditions etc. I dont even want to speculate on that one.

 

No flames, but I have driven 145-165mph a few times and the cars felt very stable. A stock one should be able to hit the limiter, I hit it with an 98SS M6 with very few mods. Just very few place in Chicago to top out a car. I had a buddy with a 93TA who did 180mph racing a Ferrari, his 93TA was a 383ci + blower.

If I tried going around 180mph I would work on aspects of the car to make it handle.

 

Our cars are stable at high speed. I just hate saying to people "xxx is SAFE in an Fbody" because I know some people that xx mph isnt even safe with them behind the wheel. When the 140-150+ digits start rolling around it starts turning into a total package, Driver + Car + Air Management + sack size.

My goal with my SS is to be the first person to go over 200mph (CERTIFIED, not "yup, had the ole granatelli speedo pinned") with a N/A LS1 powered Fbody on STOCK c.i.

This wont be one of those "get to speed and lift". This will be a sustained speed for an extended period of time during an ORR event.

 

NataSS Inc., That does sound awesome, and I would love to try it, although I am smart enough to know that I am not qualified to try it. Great explanation on how it feels. I could almost imagine it.

BTW 14 miles at 220mph is 3.825 minutes.

You da man.

 

Just the other day I had mine in 5th at just under 6000 rpms. Granted I have a few screws loose and I love that sort of thing, but mine seemed to handle quite well. The main thing I am concerned about was the short amount of road I had to slow down on. My rotors are now black, it's been over a week now and they haven't gotten much better. They didn't crack, but it just seems like they burned all the way through or something. Not sure.

 

your rotors are more than likely toast

 

I agree. My car felt pretty stable until right before I let off when it felt like it was getting a tad lighter and starting to gain some lift (I am a pilot, and it started to feel like I was like halfway to the rotation speed where the wings begin to develop lift). Granted it probably wasn't even getting close to the point where the car would actually become unstable, but as I said before ... I don't have a deathwish, so at the first point of the car not feeling like it should I gave in.

 

Ill be a physics weenie and state the KE=1/2mv^2 equation.

Look at it this way, a wreck at 50mph is gonna hurt. A wreck at 150mph has 9 times the energy of a 50mph wreck. Chances for survival are much less at these speeds.

I agree that these cars are pretty stable at high speeds and risk of crashing is low but if you do crash theres a good chance of being killed or maimed.

 

I passed by one of those "your Speed is" ___Mph police dummy radars(they put them up to scare people) at 167 mph... If I can find the picture my buddy clicked, I'll digitize it and post it....dam shame I cant remember where I put it right off hand. Middle of Arizona at night(about 2am) and it was still climbing hard....dont know what it would do.... couldn't tell...speedo only reads 155 and I slowed back down to about 130 after I passd the sign. But it was FUN!

 

Couldnt have said it better myself. I was trying to keep this on a bit more simple level LOL

 

Uhh, I have that picture on my computer if you want it. Theres like 100 people that claim to be the person that was driving/took the picture. When in reality it came out of a magazine, road and track to be exact. That was a nice sayin it was you tho ...

 

just a suggestion for those who would be attempting speeds of 130+. Be sure your brakes are in perfect order.. slightly warped rotors will cauze an ABS event (which can be pretty damned scary at speed) and for those who have vehicles that pull slightly under braking conditions.. well, i couldn't imagine a sudden swerving of my vehicle at 130mph never mind 160.. food for thought. People need to make their cars brake as well as they accelerate.