What makes a car fast?

Question

How do cars go fast like how does streamlining work and things like that?

Answer 1

Streamlining reduces the drag of the air on a car moving through the air - reduce the drag and the air provides less resistance to the car's motion, meaning the car can go faster with the same power. The drag increases with the square of the speed, so if you double your speed, the effect of the aerodynamic drag is four times greater, meaning your engine will need to produce four times the power it did at the lower speed.

Weight will affect the acceleration of the car - i.e. the same engine in the same body will take longer to reach 60mph if the car is heavier. However, weight does not have a direct effect on the top speed (it will have an indirect effect, as it will probably increase friction in wheel bearings and at the tyres), just the time it takes to reach that speed.

The human body is more sensitive to acceleration than speed, so a car that accelerates quickly will feel faster than one that accelerates more slowly to a higher speed.

So, to make a car go fast you can either reduce the drag, or increase the power of the engine (or install a more powerful engine), or do both.

To make it feel fast you can increase the power, or reduce the weight.

Answer 2

Hello,

(ANS) What makes a car fast is its "power to weight ratio"!! meaning that you need to have a BIG engine that produces a large amount of power output "acceleration" (or potentialy large amount of acceleration) & so can move the vehicle from zero to high speed (say 60mph) in the shortest possible time.

**There are a number of things that cause problems with creating high acceleration levels.

a) The larger the engine the heavier it gets, the heavier it gets the more drag on the acceleration becomes.

b) Airodynamics also cause drag and slow the vehicle down so fast cars MUST be as streamlined as possible to reduce drag to a minimum. This also helps to increase the acceleration rates.

**In other words its a kind of balancing act, to find or make an engine that is both light in weight yet creates tremendous power out put "acceleration" yet doesnt weigh so much as to drag the performance down. Look at F1 cars or land speed cars as an extreme example.

IR

Answer 3

Streamlining is when you design the body of the car to have minimal resistance to the air. The air works like a force against the car so they work to design cars to avoid that force.

Sometimes that force can be put to use by using it to keep the car pressed down to the road.

Also: Didn't you know the cool graphics is what makes cars go fast.

Answer 4

Power to weight ratio is most important followed by aerodynamics i.e a sporty sleek design with the same power as a ice cream van would beat the van everytime as there would be less drag/resistance from the wind. Down force important in fast cars as well so they dont take off when going mega fast

Answer 5

If you are thinking along the lines of how F1 Cars stay on the track at speed. check out the following

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/fwrat.html

Ok this for air craft , but if you make a car go fast enough it will want to try and a take off. The Fin's and spoilers are to provide Down Force to cancel out the Lift, this is really what aerodynamics is all about, keeping a car fastened to the road instead of back flipping down it.

Also have a look at this site, it explains it in a lot more detail
http://www.f1-country.com/f1-engineer/aeorodynamics/aerodynamics.html

Regards

Answer 6

Power from the car i.e bhp and torque divided by the weight of the car ( i.e a tractor may have 1000bhp but it weighs 20 tonns so it's only 50bhp per tonn) then you have to take in to account the areodynamics of the car. if the car not going to cut through the air your going to have to work harder to get to the same speed. if the car is big like a van then it has to push all the air out of the way. if the car is small and is cutting through the air like a lotus or somthing then the car has to do a lot less work.

thats what makes a car go fast.

Answer 7

Streamlining is designing the car's shape to create as little air friction as possible. It's like cyclists shaving their legs, or swimmers waxing their bodies: the less friction there is, the less effort needs to be put in, the faster you will go!
Your engine is obviously one of the most important the things: bigger ones do it better ;) Having a small car with a big engine also helps (less weight).
The rest comes down to things like good tyres and good shock absorbers.

Answer 8

Streamlining makes the car more aerodynamic

Answer 9

gearing makes cars fast as far as speed high gears makes your cars top end faster low gears will make your car launch better but wont have a good top end so you have to find somthing that works for you and it also depends on what you have for a motor a four cylnder can turn more rpms wich will create a higher top speed if tuned rite but a v8 or higher cant rev as high so that top speed wont be there if you dont gear it rite but will give you a better launch and most of the time a better 1/4 mile but it also has a lot of extra weight as i said you have to find what works for you

Answer 10

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