Racetec's Tim Duffy helps Billy Shope

[BillyShope]

Some of you may have attempted to access my "Mostly Suspensions" site (http://home.earthlink.net/~whshope) in the last couple of weeks, only to find it down. This is because I've been using free web space alloted by Earthlink. I like the "free" part, but, unfortunately, they have a monthly traffic limit. If the traffic exceeds the limit, the site is closed down until the first of the next month.

On the one hand, I'm glad my site has become popular, but, on the other hand, I don't like it being available for only half the month.

Tim Duffy, of Racetec, recognized my plight and graciously offered some of his space on a commercial website. I did a bit of "housecleaning" during the transfer and I believe you'll find the site a bit easier to use. In addition, the pages are not "squished" to the left, as they were on the Earthlink site.

I will continue to maintain the Earthlink site, but, if you have me among your favorites, I would recommend that you switch the URL to:

http://www.racetec.cc/shope

[supernova]

I'm calling this one "BULL"
I went to the racetec site and pluged in some #'s of two real world race cars to see how close the calculator's are. I filled in both cars for 1/4 and 1/8 mile simulations and these calculators are so far off it's funny. Both car's are more then a full second faster in all calculations. I can understand a .100 or .200 but not over a full 1.0. One of the cars is my 68 camaro that I raced in the same configuration for years. The calculator reads for 60' 2.57 and the car in leaf springs and cal trac's 60' 1.47 range with a 500 hp SBC N/A.

Real world doesn't lie and there are better calculators out there!

[BillyShope]

I'm calling this one "BULL"
I went to the racetec site and pluged in some #'s of two real world race cars to see how close the calculator's are. I filled in both cars for 1/4 and 1/8 mile simulations and these calculators are so far off it's funny. Both car's are more then a full second faster in all calculations. I can understand a .100 or .200 but not over a full 1.0. One of the cars is my 68 camaro that I raced in the same configuration for years. The calculator reads for 60' 2.57 and the car in leaf springs and cal trac's 60' 1.47 range with a 500 hp SBC N/A.

Real world doesn't lie and there are better calculators out there!

If you had read my disclaimer, you would have noticed that I said the elapsed time calculations are to be used for comparison purposes ONLY! There are simply too many variables to capture in a relatively simple calculation like this.

I would maintain, however, that the speed calculations are fairly accurate. But, again, generic values for aerodynamic drag and a generic torque curve are weak substitutes for the actual values which I used when making these calculations in Detroit.

Pages 2 and 3 are essentially there for entertainment purposes. I hope you looked at other pages. It is, after all, "mostly suspensions."
http://www.racetec.cc/shope

[supernova]

Yep I read the disclaimer and understood every bit of it. I only checked a couple of the calculators and found them to be off (in my opinion) be more then what the disclamer covers. If just the 3 I checked are off that bad how do you expect anyone to trust the rest of them?