Robbie, You'll meet him in a video one day, was chatting with me about the trip. I'm about to stay in his house. Keeping up the research of Brock and the A9X on Bathurst, Robbie found a video. Interesting one to be honest. Brock's car, versus a new stock Commodore SS, the A9X and a modern V8 Super car. Released at timed intervals, the cars were supposed to finish at the same time, to show the changes in speed. When they didn't, I was intrigued. What was different? What caused the Torana to run a nearly identical lap time to the nearly stock Commodore?
It dawned on me, watching the video the weakness of the Torana setup. They only used a 4 speed transmission! The v8 super car, whizzed past both cars after the corners section. The most interesting and difficult part of Mt. Panorama is the variations of course type throughout the lap. 3 sections of big, long straights, mixed with a tight, difficult section of uphill and downhill, winding climb. This section is very narrow, and changes elevation and camber quite quickly.
The difficulty of this layout is the car must have good low end grunt, with good gearing for climbing the hill, but also high rpm power and long gears for the big straights. Two counter productive goals in car building. Some things can conflict. You can build a motor for medium to high RPM power, but it will struggle with low end torque, making climbing and corner exits more difficult. You can cheat with gearing, running shorter gears for better acceleration. This improve climbing and getting up to the cars top speed is much quicker. The inverse of this is that you lose top speed, you lose time on the many straight aways, which, with such abundance are also important!
Secondarily the consideration for the engine is also important. Many V8's are built for initial launch and low torque. This is great for the 1/4mile, but when cooking along a long straight, with a good run downhill into them, you may jump up into top gear sooner than your used to. Engine building for low end push doesn't promote very high RPM's, either through valve float, or pointless wasting time in the run gear running the motor out rather than shifting into the power band. The limitation of fewer gears is the requirement to use more of the RPM range. More gears, more time in the sweet spot of the torque curve. So the motor needs to make a pile of low end torque to get strong push each time you shift into the next gear, but it also has to continue pulling all the way up to redline. This is some tough stuff.
If you consider the weight of the Commodore SS, being roughly 1500lbs more than the A9X, then the gearing must improve the acceleration and hustle that much to make up for it. Both cars V8. With this in mind my opportunity is in numbering more gears in the box. I may be able to use less power more efficiently.
http://www.boostclassifieds.com.au/advert/2147112-1986-Toyota-Corona-for-Sale.html
Some of my time has been hunting for opportunity. Recently this Corona Popped up. It seems perfect for my goal, caged, ready for a motor. I've messaged a few about their cars. It seems difficult for me to contact others, and I'm embarrassed to come on so strong. "Here I am, this is what I'm doing!!!" I must sound batshit crazy. It's little gems like this that will make this whole thing work. I am at my best building with other peoples waste and refuse. Here's hoping I can score it!
~DQ
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3sge beams and six speed, two more gears, four less cylinders. Abundant in oz?