What would be your cheapest way to 200mph?

In reply to Snrub:

Don Sherman did it in a Racing Beat RX7 turbo back in 1986.

used cup cars are pretty affordable and have more safety engineering in them than most other options at the same price point.

alfadriver wrote:

Flight Service wrote:

alfadriver wrote: Seeing an Alfa do 230 mph, I would choose a Miata. With the cheap V8 swap, as was done in 2003 for the challenge. Fully MS treatment. I would think that body shape could do 200mph for just around 400 hp. For the bikers out there- you are brave. I knew a biker LSR. She was really good looking. Even with tubes running out of her after a big, big crash.

Your about 100 hp short.

So you think a Miata body has that much more drag than an Alfa? We did 198mph with a problematic turbo 2.0l with a bad belly pan. Thinking about it more, I think it's possible to do an MS Turbo Miata and break 200mph. The 2.0l TS doesn't even make 500hp and it does 230. The NA Miata is a great shape- should be easy.

Miata is .38 cD and a frontal area of 17.6 (365 hp) Assuming an as teated weight of 2500 lbs. (remember with driver) with tire friction at .15 (smaller tires for Miata than vette) (20 hp)

That is 385 hp at the ground so at 25% losses that is ~485 hp at the crank.

The Miata isn't as slick as the Vette and at high speed it shows.

alfadriver wrote: This is what I'm talking about for a Miata.

Ohhhhh, so not a whole miata. That will change your frontal area but your cD might go up because of the cage aero, don't know.

Will an LS4 fit somewhere under the body of a Honda Insight?

In reply to Flight Service:

The alfa speeds I posted were this car. So I'm pretty sure that a Miata done the same can clear 200 with a little less than 400hp. This one did 232 with the exposed cage and less than 500hp.

And we left some pretty easy aero rules on the table.

I think the biggest swap I would do with the Miata, regardless of the engine, would be the diff. Not sure which one would let me swap a 2.something in there.

edit- the cage adds some aero- but that's way more than made up with the full belly pan. Plus a lot of nose treatment.

1. Remove wings and tail.

2. Add supercharged V8.

^In other words, you second a DIY landspeed car

yupididit wrote: A depreciated Mercedes AMG + Renntech. Or...S600 bi-turbo + Renntech.

I was thinking along these lines. There is a CL600 that needs work near me for $6500. Sadly, Mercedes has limiters on everything these days, so I couldn't find real top speed numbers.

Woody wrote: In reply to Snrub: Don Sherman did it in a Racing Beat RX7 turbo back in 1986.

I actually remember that. But I can't remember the movie I watched last night.

My Mercedes had scary electronics but I bet somebody here could conquer that hurdle even though I was not up to the task.

Esprit Turbo SE running S4s code and with a mild turbo upgrade.

Jump from something 1,336 ft above the ground

Woody wrote: I think that the cheapest way to get a 200 mph car would be to contact Andy Nelson and ask how much it would cost for him to build you a 200 mph car.

A couple of Challenges back I asked Andrew how much he had tied up in his Studebaker. The number he told me was impressively low.At least I thought it was.

AngryCorvair wrote: Jump from something 1,336 ft above the ground

I think that will only get you to about 140 MPH. Unless you have way-cool aero.

1953 Studebaker coupe body (Seen these go for surprisingly low prices) plus minor aero work (Block off grilles, remove mirrors, shave driprails) and then install junkyard turbo 5.3L

Flight Service wrote:

alfadriver wrote:

Flight Service wrote:

alfadriver wrote: Seeing an Alfa do 230 mph, I would choose a Miata. With the cheap V8 swap, as was done in 2003 for the challenge. Fully MS treatment. I would think that body shape could do 200mph for just around 400 hp. For the bikers out there- you are brave. I knew a biker LSR. She was really good looking. Even with tubes running out of her after a big, big crash.

Your about 100 hp short.

So you think a Miata body has that much more drag than an Alfa? We did 198mph with a problematic turbo 2.0l with a bad belly pan. Thinking about it more, I think it's possible to do an MS Turbo Miata and break 200mph. The 2.0l TS doesn't even make 500hp and it does 230. The NA Miata is a great shape- should be easy.

Miata is .38 cD and a frontal area of 17.6 (365 hp) Assuming an as teated weight of 2500 lbs. (remember with driver) with tire friction at .15 (smaller tires for Miata than vette) (20 hp) That is 385 hp at the ground so at 25% losses that is ~485 hp at the crank. The Miata isn't as slick as the Vette and at high speed it shows.

What happens when you change that to 0.29?

https://hanchagroup.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/splitter-or-air-dam-which-design-is-best/

I think with a miata, there is a lot of aero on the table. Combined with a really low frontal area, I think its not a bad choice.

A longer car is better though

In reply to ProDarwin:

Effective frontal drag area reduces by about 25%...drops tire hp required down to 279+20 so ~300. so down to about 360 hp. That is doable with a Focus RS 2.3 EcoBoost in a Miata.

In case you guys think I am being all engineer-y and doing this with a spread sheet or a calculator I am not

HP Calculator.

I did verify the output myself and against two other sites. If you go up one level he has numerous calculators on there.

Which is a linear effect on Power required, right? So that brings your 485hp number down to 365 or so. Damn. still a lot. Conceivably MS Turbo territory though. For a few minutes anyway.

Add all the other aero mods on the table and that number will come down pretty far.

In reply to ProDarwin: Getting rid of the windshield + a solid cover over the open space except for cage and driver- that should get it into turbo Miata area pretty close.

And with a simple underbody- easy to put a pan on it.

I really think 200mph could be done pretty with a Miata. It will be permanently a land speed car. So one needs to use a disposable car- and it WILL rust if one takes it to the lake.

But noting how fast the car came up to speed- could be possible in a mile, too.

Flight Service wrote: The flying mile is a new qualification

Is it?

TIGMOTORSPORTS wrote: What would be your cheapest way to 200mph? after watching a video of a Hennessey 2016 Camaro going 202, and dreaming about mile runs......

I interpret that to mean reach 200mph from a standing start in less than a mile.

A cheap way to do it, maybe, would be to get a Top Alcohol or Top Fuel car and detune it. You can get engineless chassis pretty cheap since a lot of people are getting out of the sport. Apparently it's really popular to take the chassis, put relatively mild naturally aspirated engines in, take the wing off, and go bracket racing for funsies.

I mean, don't the flying mile sanctioning bodies have some pretty hefty safety gear requirements if you can hit 200? You'd be getting most of that with a dragster chassis certified for under 7 seconds, and the rest is personal gear. No need to have a certified cage put together for whatever car you got, no need to get chutes, or any other stuff. They're already good for 250+mph in the quarter. 200mph in a mile with one of those is like wearing SCUBA gear in a kiddie pool.

Mike wrote:

yupididit wrote: A depreciated Mercedes AMG + Renntech. Or...S600 bi-turbo + Renntech.

I was thinking along these lines. There is a CL600 that needs work near me for $6500. Sadly, Mercedes has limiters on everything these days, so I couldn't find real top speed numbers.

Usually 155, and 186 for the higher end models. I think most AMG's are electronically limited to 186. Nothing a tuner cant undo.

yupididit wrote:

Mike wrote:

yupididit wrote: A depreciated Mercedes AMG + Renntech. Or...S600 bi-turbo + Renntech.

I was thinking along these lines. There is a CL600 that needs work near me for $6500. Sadly, Mercedes has limiters on everything these days, so I couldn't find real top speed numbers.

Usually 155, and 186 for the higher end models. I think most AMG's are electronically limited to 186. Nothing a tuner cant undo.

In this case, the factory speed limiter is at just 130mph.

Using's Flight's calculator, I get 365.2 HP. Specs on this 2002 CL600 car show 362 HP. You would probably have a contender in the 2003 model, when the V12 gets twin turbos, and an output of 493 HP.

When I saw this title I thought of this https://www.youtube.com/embed/H6Ni2gPo5Us