fredraction

I was at the dealer yesterday buying another Mazda. This one is a 5 door Mazda6 for my wife (we’ve fallen in Love with Mazda). Anyway, while we were waiting for the finance guy, I started talking to the salesman about the top speed of the 8. He told me that last week a Georgia State Patrol came in with instructions from his boss to test drive an 8 to see “what they would be up against”. According to the sales guy, they got it to 153 going down hill on I75. He said that they got to 100 before the end of the on-ramp. The cop admitted that it would be hard to catch on a straight road and that if they hit a curvy stretch, they wouldn’t even try.

PainterMan

I guess that is the reason WA PD wants to get a string of pearls hmmm.

james11

234 km/hr but always alot of wind here in alberta.yes calgary is gonna win the stanley.what is 234km/hr in mph.

L8tr

What?
What pearls?

PainterMan

String of pearls = Bunch of satellites for monitoring/transmission. I think Clarke conceived of this idea.
Joke . If the cops cannot catch the 8 maybe they will end up resorting to satellite imaging.

rx8miami

that'sa good idea for a thread on this forum. who in the workd knows what teams are in the playoffs this year in the nhl? do people still watch hockey in u.s.?

L8tr

OH!! thanks, I hope they don't do that

VeilsideRX-8

125 auto, felt like there was a little left, no eng. mods

Jailbreak'74

Car in goverened at 148 by US law, some say they did 153 but I don't know if i believe it cuz mine won't break the 150 mark.

Without the gov. cars top speed would be approx 180MPH going by mazda numbers. Here's the math. (5th=146mph.....147 / 3.75 6th g ratio = 39 + 147 = 186MPH??)

Raevik

Wouldn't even try to catch you? That's right, they wouldn't....they'd just radio ahead of you and set up a roadblock and/or call a chopper.

Either way, your *** is done for. Best not to get detected in the first place

Jailbreak'74

gives you a sense of pride though doesn't it! LOL!

I loved the post saying the cops might chance chasing you at 150MPH, but once cornering got involed you're home free. Bye piggy piggy!

Feras

iTrader: (1)

while that may be the physical top speed, that does not take into account air resistance, at a certain speed the car just does not have the power to push much harder, so unless you were on the salt flats you wont see much more than 150 without the governor. At that speed the cars power is doing two things, keeping those wheels spinning at that velocity and also cutting through what is technically a 150mph head wind...i never got to that advanced physics in college but we know the coefficient of drag and we know what air pressure is, we know what the coefficient of friction is between the ground and tire and we also know the power output of the vehicle along with the angular momentum of all 4 tires. All the necessary info is there but i have no idea what the equation is...but it will tell us what the physical top speed of the car according to the conditions

Jailbreak'74

Very good points Feras....that 186mph math only applies if there's no wind resistance and so forth and so on. However I think this dog would have no trouble doing 160-165. It got right up to 150 on the highway for me then the governor said no more sonny.

GodWhomIsMike

Slightly twisty roads + deer + top speed runs =

A messy situation
- Mike

btw... that's not my car.

Feras

iTrader: (1)

the question is has anyone been ballsy enough to remove the governor, is it possible?

Jailbreak'74

Of course it's possible, but you won't find instructions searching google on how to do it quite yet :D

Genom

There is no governer on the 8. It is drag limited only. On a dyno mine registered 170 at 9K RPM in 6th.

Jailbreak'74

Where do you live and what's your born on date. My fuel gets cut off at 150......born on date oct/03. Maybe something was changed?

sohcpunk

So, any auto owners push the limit on their cars yet? I'm interested on the Auto's top speed.

Jailbreak'74

We've pretty much gone over that. 150-170MPH depending on what country the car was made and how much you lie.

kbull

I crunched the numbers using some fluid dynamics equations for terminal velocity, drag coefficient and air density. I had to assume a projected frontal area for the car (does 1.6 m^2 sound reasonable? That's about 2/3 of the bounding box). 238 hp would then be able to push that shape through the air (at standard conditions) at about 188 mph, whereas the speed at redline in 6th gear is only 186.5. This DOES NOT include transmission losses (friction), which I have no idea how to account for. I'm sure those losses would account for the difference between the theoretical maximum and the observed 150-155 top speed.

Feras

iTrader: (1)

awesome thanks for the expert physics equation solving (id be lost personally even though i know some of the givens). I find that quite nice, that the theoretical limit of the car and the top speed per gear ratio are about the same. Kind of gives you an idea at a possible mazdaspeed rx8s capability....time to wait and drool.

Slick_Advanced

I hit 141 and was still accelerating before I was awash in a wave of common sense

Feras

iTrader: (1)

i had a similar revelation on the highway going 120 in a banked curve, i was thinking to myself i wish i had some sort of kneepad to keep my left leg away from the door, lol, then common sense chimed in and i slowed up a lot.

Jailbreak'74

I don't think wind resistance would play that much of a part in top speed at the rate we're talking. BTW, excellent math, not trying to knock you.....I have just never heard of wind resistance playing a very noticable factor in top speed unless you're humming along going 200+. Friction is also very minimal. I'm gonna stick with 165 as my final guess regis.