Re: Fast 164L (and then some)

["David R Johnson" <johnsnd@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Feb 13, 11:19pm, Dave wrote:

> Lets recap.  The only two cars all day to knock out the dyno computer
> were the Lotus V8 twin turbo and my 1991 164L (not so stock) with 97,000
> miles on it.  Needless to say, the muscle heads were stumped.  I have
> this all on video and we have pictures of the speedo at 165 mph.  Now I
> know this doesn't take wind drag into effect.  The dyno that Hypertech
> uses has two 5000 lb wheel drums to add to the drag resistance which I
> imagine makes up for a little drag.

As the owner of a 1994 Z28 (as well as an "I-talian" car), I would like to
chime in on this one.  My car as built by the factory runs 155 mph (confirmed
by various magazines, not by me) with a stock 275 bhp.  It has a low drag
coefficient, but a quite large frontal area, which accounts for why it is not
so dissimilar to the 164.  This is real-world speed with air resistance, not a
dyno number.  The car is geared to reach approx. 225 mph in 6th, but of course
it does not have the HP to reach that on the road.  Whether it could do so
against the dyno drums I'm not sure.  My car has been modified to develop
somewhere around 400-450 HP.  Using a crude calculation assuming power required
is proportional to velocity squared, this shows it ought to be able to reach
192 mph with the appropriate gearing.  I would guess a more realistic number is
180 or so (I know of one 700 HP Z28 which has reached close to 200 mph).

The key here is the words "appropriate gearing".  Many muscle car enthusiasts
gear their cars for acceleration and dragstrip performance.  This tends to
compromise top speed.  My own car would reach redline in 5th at 155, and even
though it has a 6th gear, it probably would not have the torque to accelerate
since it is a kind of super-overdrive (gearbox ratio 0.50).  I would guess that
most of the cars you observed had this problem.  The Alfa OTOH has the gearing
but not the torque to reach these speeds on the road.

I am also a little disturbed by the attitude hidden in this post.  As an owner
of both a Z28 and an Alfa, I would say they are both great cars, but with
wildly different design philosophies.  The muscle car enthuiasts I have spoken
too are just as much in love with their cars as we are.  They also cover the
entire spectrum from intelligent and open-minded to ignorant and prejudiced.
 Mostly I am impressed by how strongly biased to the former the Alfa digest is,
but every now and then the prejudice rears its ugly head.  Sure, the
"muscle-heads" were scathing of the Alfa, but they are just ignorant of what it
is.  I see the same kind of thing from time to time on this list, and it
saddens me. The world is blessed with many wonderful cars, and many of them but
by no means all say "Alfa Romeo" on them.  After all, we're all "car guys",
can't we all just get along? :)

Dave J. (not flaming, just trying to shed a little light on things)
1982 GTV6 (not a dragster, but handles great)
1994 Z28 (almost a dragster, handles pretty good after a few modifications...)

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