So, are you smart enough to find the rings around Uranus...................

Being a pilot doesn't make you the smartest individual on this board so stop trying to dislocate your arm patting yourself on the back. Your fly buddy should stop trying to exacerbate his tendonitis by stroking you. Your limited bandwidth of information does not mean you cornered the market on gray matter. Some of us here are much brighter than you think and better educated that you.

Since you are so smart, I am sure you recognize that fact there is no transitive property for street cars running at race tracks and, therefore, you can not assume that Dennis has a 0.X second advantage by running in NJ vs running in AZ. Drag racing a street car has, and always will be, what a particular car ran at a particular track on a particular day. There is a lot more science that goes into real race cars - math that would boggle even your razor sharp mind.

Corrected figures are not actual figures - it is just the application of a mathematical formula - following trends - meant to get it close. For instance, If AZ means you are 10.5% down on power due to DA, who is to say you can use the "extra" 10.5% in NJ? You might launch "AZ" style and, with the extra power, blow the launch. What about track prep between the two tracks - that could be as important as DA. Because these cars are not on autopilot (no pun intended), the variables that occur on each run due to the human factor really play a big role. Further, I believe that the math used to calculated corrected figures are much closer for real race cars than for street cars. I have a client that is a nationally known drag racer - sitting around the office one day, he tried to apply the math he applies on his race car on street car time slips and recognized that his math doesn't work in the street car world.

Thank you for your explanation on DA - I found it informative. Unfortunately, you surrounded it with enough useless and distractive crap that I almost dismissed your posts and missed the information.

 

now this guy is smart

 

I'm sure you know that was a typo error. but hey im so dumb i type with one finger and its not this one just put a good time up on the list

 

Man, some of you guys just take little snips of posts and run with tangent ideas to the subject being discussed. Its like we have some politicians in training on here.

To all who can't get it, the overall friggin point is all things being the same, cooler, denser air(lower DA), will make more power and give you a faster time. I can learn to drive in cold weather, I cannot learn more power.

Is this so hard to grasp? Set the ego aside, thats the point the Airbus guy is making.

 

Now Here is The POST OF THE DAY !! ...Well Said !

I always run quicker ET in "better air" (lower corrected Alt) I ran my best ET 12.11 at Atco my Tag weather station showed -600' the following week at E Town at +400' (a 1000' difference) I slowed down to 12.18

My 60' times were only .006 slower at E Town so I cant blame the slower ET on track conditions...but at every increment I was just a "little" slower...and I attribute this to the corrected Alt.

We'll see how it runs this Sat at E Town its supposed to be 40 deg. (unknown baro, or humidity) but I'm guessing the corrected Alt will be close to 0' and if the car is ok I should run 12.15 or damn close...

 

Wow. What a smack-fest. The most amazing part of this whole issue is that those of us in the NE poke fun at Dennis' car when we can't get ours to go that fast. I've had my share of fun with Dennis, but since I'm local and I can't spin wheel of excuses and hope it lands on DA, I have to poke at his car (sans passenger seat and all).

For those not local, they can poke at the DA.




Nope. I've seen 8,000 DA in NJ. It's rare, but it happens.


Try www.duats.com or maybe http://www.aopa.org/members/wx/. Those are really good one's too.




OK, I don't care who you are, that right there is funny.

 

we know what he was trying to say, and we know what effects da has. the point is, my car, theofels, and jbs, all at different tracks ran great times. because of great tuning the right mods and good driving. DA had some effect but not that much, theofel ran in florida with the best air da they ever had and went slower. i ran a 10.92 with positive 300 da and 10.91 with a negative300-800 da depending on who's portable weather station you use, i use yo-el - 800 now that a negative 1100 difference and only gained .1 now how hard is that to grasp

 

Dennis- Noone can say you have a slow car and you've proven that you can consistently get good times, but don't discount the importance of DA. It make a huge difference in the amount of real power produced by an engine. It's nature's supercharger.

 

Ben i have always agreed on that. i calculate and believe 3% of hp per 1000 ft da plus and minus. i can usually take advantage of it, but the negative da in cold high humidity is hard to take advantage of im talking sub 40 degree and yes it can be learned but a lot of people in the northeast haven't learned it yet

 

It was DA error....

 

You mean, because of traction limitations in those conditions?

 

YES! i gave an example that the da was + 3000 but i still ran great because i was able to air up to 30lbs rear and get less rolling resitance and gain et and mph because the track was hot 95 degree day sunny so traction was alright at a high air pressure, yes the da would have slowed me even more, and cold temps and even guys gaining extra hp from low da might not be abble to harness the extra hp. example! these guys in arozona 400 0 ft elavation or da high 5000 ft 400 hp - 3% for each 1000 ft 12x5 60 hp now there running on 340 hp, now come to atco get -da 2000 add 24 more hp. now there running on 84 more hp, they never ran that before with that car, how hard was it to harness your extra power with the heads and cam

 

No, the point is all of these guys, all else being equal, would have run faster with lower DA's than the DA's their best times were set with.

Sure there are other factors to being fast, but thats not what is being discussed in this thread. I think we can all agree it takes a good driver, a good tune, good weather, and a good setup to be the fastest.

Edit: FWIW - I picked up 3mph going from +3100' to +1650'

 

they can go faster, but not as fast as me even at my track

 

Lol, probably not.

 

You, and the others here that have been so hurt by the science I explained here all have one thing in common. You all agree in the end to exactly what I stated about the effects of DA. Since there are fragile egos involved (see your above first couple of paragraphs and others, damn you're clever) you and others, first act like childish morons, then take what I said to the illogical extreme in an attempt to discredit what I had said. Then finally agree.

Yes, DA exists, yes it affects performance in good and bad ways, yes it has a predicted effect on performance that can be charted. No, it isn't so accurate to tell you exactly what a car will do in different weather but it will give you a trend. Yes there are other variables.

Here's an example of my own car on two separate track days two weeks apart.

DA 3400 ft trap speed 115 mph
DA 1400 ft trap speed 117 mph

Dennis believes there is a 3% difference in power per 1000 ft change in DA. I said 3.5% based on piston engine aircraft, but lets go with Dennis's 3%. I've never dynoed my car, but most stock LS3's are making about 380-390 rwhp. A 2000 ft shift in DA should've effected power by 6%. Just by looking at the DA shift, I should've gained about 20-23hp. Actual track trap speed shows I gained 2 mph. If you follow the rule of thumb that it takes 10 hp for every 1 mph increase in trap speed then the 2 mph increase in trap speed shows about 20 hp, exactly what the DA calculation shows. The NHRA corrections closely follow this rule of thumb. Obviously, when you get to the extreme ends of the scale, the numbers get off. But we're not at the extreme ends so no reason to even discuss it.

Now, what part of the above paragraphs does anyone dispute? If you generally agree, then we're on the same page.

And I apologize if I suggested that anyone's times at ATCO were bogus. Clearly, they are not.

 

When? Even 8000' DA in Phoenix is very rare with temps over 120 degrees and low pressure.

 

Don't fight with me. I'm jealous of Dennis' times too. Just ask him!

As for the NJ DA's, I guess we see things a little differently down here in the thick air then you do up there in the thin air. My little spam can let's me go to about 100x more airports than your big one, so I suppose I've been exposed to a few more little, hot NJ airports than you.

Yes, it's annoying that Dennis goes so fast. Yes, there are some annoying posts in this thread. No, I generally don't agree with much of what Dennis, Tony, et. al. post. But no, the barometric pressure is not higher in the NE than in other parts of the country and no, Dennis' performance is not a result of higher DA's in the NE than in other parts of the country.

If you want to go faster, just shed some weight off your car and run some good sticky tires. I hear that it's real quick and easy to remove the passenger seat and front sway bar, but your mileage may vary.

 

Not at ground level you didn't. Try this.

Highest elevation in NJ is 1803'.
Highest temperature ever recorded in NJ is 110 in 1936, but it didn't occur at the highest elevation.
The lowest BP ever recorded was actually across the river in PA at sea level in March 1993 and was 28.43.
Let's even use 99% humidity, so it's just short of raining.
If you took all four of the most extreme cases together it would only produce a DA of 8247.

Thanks for being a contributor of in this "smack-fest"

 

You do know that Ben is also a pilot....