ORIGINAL: sawood12
I was thinking about this earlier today. What would you have to do to get a 944 to break the 200mph barrier? Obviously the multitude of engine mods often discussed on this forum would be required but what about the gearbox to get the ratios? would it be possible to mod the engine to get it upto 8k rpm (bigger bearings, lighter reciprocating parts) and I suppose you would have to loose the door mirrors, windscreen wipers and tailgate spoilers and use a bit of gaffer tape on the panel gaps to minimise drag? Would it be possible to get an N/A 944 over 200mph whilst retaining the bulk of the original engine (i.e. not taking the easy option and replacing with a V8)?
You wouldn't try to get the engine to rev higher. You would fit a taller final drive ratio in the diff. You would also need a lot more power than a standard car provides.
The fastest I have ever driven was 190mph (on an, ahem, private test track on the continent) in a TVR Cerbera 4.5. That was red line in top gear, but I doubt whether it would have gont much quicker with a 6th gear. If you managed to get hold of a higher final drive for the transmission and wound the wick up on your turbo to somewhere in the region of 400BHP, I think the car would manage it from that point of view.
The main thing that you need to worry about, rather than just how much power you need to get to that speed, is how the aerodynamics of the car will work at speeds well in excess of what the car was ever designed for. People always talk about removing boot spoilers to reduce drag, but you might actually need one to keep the back end of the car on the ground. On the other hand, you would probably want to put a splitter on the front to stop the front end lifting. The last thing that you want when you're travelling at well over 3 miles a minute is for the physics gremlin to raise his ugly head and throw you off the road, as at that sort of speed they would be identifying you from the stain on what was left of your underwear.
When I started racing my Ultima, I was advised by a fellow racer never to remove the rear spoiler, as the back end would lift off at high speeds if I did. When the first owner wanted to take a GTR over 200MPH, the factory actually took one of the factory cars to a wind tunnel to run a load of checks to see how the aerodynamics of the car should be set in order to do it safely.
James
PS. Good luck whoever tries it first.
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