As a start the Lancia S4 didn’t have 600 hp, but in the order of 450hp. Then these 4WD transmissions had very low efficiency (remember that 4WD means 3 differentials sucking power + obviously the gearbox) and in the order of 30%, if not more, was lost well before reaching the wheels, so we are talking about 320-330 hp at the wheels, being optimist. That still more than what a current WRC has, again at the wheels, but not by much because the initial deficit, at the crankshaft, is vastly reduced thanks to the lot more efficient current transmissions.manchild wrote: So if the WRC cars with some 300-350 HP can afford to go 250 km/h without spoiling acceleration than why couldn't gr.B cars with 600-650 HP make average of 200 km/h?
Lower weight still allows the Group B to win in straight line acceleration but the power advantage isn’t probably enough to balance the poor aero and beat a current WRC top speed. I would be surprised if an S4 could touch 230 km/h actually.
Anyway I focused on top speed because it’s the easiest way to see it, if top speed is 230 it’s plain to see that average speed can’t be 200.
But even if top speed was lot higher that would mean nothing, the FXX top speed, electronically limited, is 345 still it, with 800 hp, weight 1150 kg, latest generation slick tyres, carbon brakes, capable of 0-100 km/h in 2.8” and producing an amount of downforce close to its own weight. can’t go over 150 km/h average at Fiorano.
Anyway if it could help you, I made a simulation with Bosch Lapsim (you can download it for free at the Bosch website), just to see how 1 parameter can affect the performance I used as car the F1 example car included with the program, as track Imola (from a lap I made in Gp4 and exported via f1perf) and I just changed the weight of the car from the 600 kg of the example, to 1000 kg (that is probably less than a S4 weighted since it was 900 dry + 2 people), keeping everything else, max power included (900 hp) equal. The laptime passed from 1’19”79 to 1’29”74, just the 400 kg more of weight mean 10 seconds, then we should change power, aero, cg, height etc etc.
The problem is that you will always find someone in some forum saying that “a friend or a friend of my friend meet Toivonen’s aunt and she said he did it”.manchild wrote: I can't say yes or no beacuse I wasn't there so only thing that would convince me are offical informations.
Just look at the opinion you posted from another forum, it’s already different from the other story, there it was a race, here it’s a test, there it was Cresto, here it’s a “passenger”...
Personally, also because otherwise I would be a philosopher and not an engineer... I trust physics law more than anybody opinion, and physics laws say a HUGE no to the possibility that an S4 could set a 1’18”1 in a complete lap at the Estoril track used for 1986 Gp.
These laws usually don’t lie and don’t try to over hype a presumed event in a useless attempt to say that Gr.B were more exceptional than they actually were, and don’t get me wrong, Gr.B were exceptional cars.
Just I think that, if the reason for all this story is an attempt by someone to justify his love for rally at the expense of F1 (and that’s the way it’s often used in forums), then it’s the wrong approach because he doesn’t help rally this way, it just makes other people reluctant to believe other facts once they notice that this one isn’t true.
Besides, I never understood why one can’t appreciate F1, rally, motorbikes etc etc at the same time without trying to contemporarily diminishing other people passions.
Yep, the best thing about internet is that everybody can share his knowledge, the worst thing about internet is that every idiot can share his idiocies... Sometimes to distinguish amongst them is easy, sometimes not, especially because more often than not the idiocies have more defenders than the facts do.Spencifer_Murphy wrote: Besides Jeremy Clarkson is quite accurate when he jokingly says "Everyone of the 246 Billion facts on the internet is wrong".
To setup a website now is so easy and you can post all manner of "facts" without proof. So sooner ot later, more people who make similar themed websites will visit yours to gain "information, data & facts" to fill up their website. Soon this incorrect "fact" spreads.
I got my dates mixed up. I thort we was talking about 1987...but then by 1987 Gr. B was aready banned. So we cuddnt have been talking about 1987 could we?
