2021 Mustang Mach 1 Laps Nurburgring in 7:58.29 Min - by Sport Auto

[Hack]

If we want people to have correct information, that's not the only kind of stall.

Pull the nose up at too low a speed and the airplane stops making lift, and goes into free-fall.

The stall you're talking about means you still have control of the plane, you just can't climb. You do that on purpose when you're landing.

The stall I'm talking feels like falling off a cliff, and if you do it on purpose you give yourself a thousand feet or so of room for recovery.

Yes this is true, but explaining the why will help people. There is an operating window where a wing makes lift proportional to air velocity, but there are also flow regimes outside of that operating window where lift is not governed by the same relationship.

My point remains. If we know downforce at a given speed, we can calculate it at any. That value might be quite low, but it will be.

The generation of lift from an airfoil depends on the flow of air over the airfoil. At low speeds the air might not stay attached to the airfoil. In that case, there will not be lift generated by the airfoil.

This is what stalling is. When there is too great of an angle of attack between the airfoil and the wind that is hitting the airfoil. At a low speed, you need to have a small angle for the air to stay attached and have a laminar flow along the airfoil. When the airspeed is sufficient, you get that laminar flow and the wing starts to generate lift.

So I disagree that it is a percentage.

And don't even get me started on Reynold's numbers. Fluid flow has weird behavior and it isn't always intuitive what will happen. It's even extremely difficult to predict with high-powered computers. That's why we see videos of Ford using wind tunnels to test different shapes. Wind tunnels are still useful.

The ring is a lot of straights too, long ones where you can really stretch your legs. I still feel 7:40 for HP car.

The speed you achieve on a straight and how long you are at or above that speed will depend on corner exit speed. Better tires not only help you in the corners, they also make the straights faster. The 'ring has a lot of corners.

I have no idea how fast the Mach 1 would be with better tires, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if it could set a time less than 7:30 with the right tires and suspension mods. That's why Ford won't publish 'ring times, because it's too easy to cheat using super stiff suspension and better tires. I'm fairly certain that some cars with really fast times were not using all stock equipment to achieve those times.

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[TeeLew]

Yes, in speeds below 3mph (assuming we don't have a stiff breeze), where laminar flow might actually exist, our downforce numbers may be inaccurate. If you're actually on the racetrack and care about the number, though, it's exactly how I state, a squared function (I don't know where you got percentage).

GTFOH, with laminar flow on a racecar. It doesn't exist in any situation where we might care.

 

[Hack]

Yes, in speeds below 3mph (assuming we don't have a stiff breeze), where laminar flow might actually exist, our downforce numbers may be inaccurate. If you're actually on the racetrack and care about the number, though, it's exactly how I state, a squared function (I don't know where you got percentage).

GTFOH, with laminar flow on a racecar. It doesn't exist in any situation where we might care.

My assumption is a lot higher speeds than 3 mph, but I have no idea. It might be 30 or 50 or even 75 mph when certain shapes on our cars start generating down force. I agree you didn't say percentage and I stated it wrong. You are right that lift produced by an airfoil varies by the square of the wind velocity (in the regime where the airfoil produces lift). Since drag also varies by square of velocity and EPA economy ratings matter to Ford, my assumption is it's most important to Ford to reduce drag at highway speeds.

You really want laminar airflow, however. Otherwise you end up with a lot more drag and poor fuel economy.

I think that's what they are doing when they release smoke and let it flow along various surfaces of cars when they are testing in a wind tunnel. They are looking for turbulence and then they will iterate changing shapes to try to reduce the turbulence and get back to laminar flow where ever possible.

 

[TeeLew]

You're using words you don't understand. There is no laminar flow on a car that we care about. It's all turbulent. There are actual definitions concerning these words, it's not just me being pedantic.

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