forums.rennlist.com/rennforums/racing-an...resting-tm-data.html

This is a repost from Rennlist about lap times vs HP data from a Traquemate system.

Looks to me like HP is important but NOT near as important as what the perception is.

Read it all the way to the end.

Sweet. If it's not important, then 138 will do everyone just fine.

And a properly driven 130 hp car can still win. The driver is the biggest single factor in how fast the car goes.

Charlie, not to beat a dead horse or anything like that:) the spec part of 944 is ONLY for the car, it's very obvious to anybody with half of a brain to realize that drivers are going to vary and the only way I can think to equalize drivers is to maybe have us do Tequila shots before a race, but that might not be fair either because of those with lots of seat time in that condition.

CJ makes a great point, if HP isn't so important, then why spend the time, effort and money to go over what a "normal" build will do which has been proven to be in the mid to upper mid 130's.

That was a great write up with Neal's study on this and thanks to Neal for sharing. Neal was more than a second off per lap with 10 less H/P which I think is nothing to sneeze at! Without a cap and with our rules, I know it's not hard to build a legal motor with 145ish h/p with similar torque while many others can't get over the 135h/p mark. I believe his comment in #2 which is copied and pasted below is why the cap is so important to make this a driver's class.

WRITTEN BY NEAL AGRAN:
2.) However, this lap time comparison does not take into account the effect of HP on your ability to pass in a competitive situation. On a track with an 80mph average speed, 1 second comes to ~117 feet lost exclusively on the straights. Given that the difference between making a pass and tucking back in comes down to a few feet (the difference between bumper overlap and being front wheel to door), it matters a lot. Even being down a few horsepower means tenths, which might translate into 30-40 feet per lap. It makes passing brutally difficult against a driver of equal skill in otherwise equal cars. Don’t ask me how I know.

Charlie, I love ya man! But going against your better judgment of equalizing power, this is my prediction, this years local races and Nationals will be the best shows by far because of our "NASCAR" like rule to make all of the cars equal. Granted the finishing orders MIGHT be the same, it will be closer all of the way through the pack!

I was simply pointing out that equal HP will NOT equalize the field.
Now we add in new tires with more lateral grip.
The more experienced drivers are going to be better able to use that grip than the less experienced drivers. I believe that what we are going to see is a bigger gap from the front to the back.
The HP cap is not going to tighten the field much.
Any driver who selects a better exit line and applies the throttle at the exact right time will make a higher HP car look like the lower HP car comming off the corner.
Please note that Neal was running competitive times when he was down on HP, that is a true testament to his ability.

My point is that HP is not as important as was suggested.

I feel that the HP cap will be good for the class even if only for the perception of parity.

A single minor mistake can cost you .2 ths of a second, you may not even know you made it. And we make multiple mistakes every lap. Driver developement is way more important than chasing HP.

Great to hear from you Norm, wish I could make the Chuckwalla races but car is not ready yet.

First outing will be at Laguna on Feb 18th with NorCal Racing Club if any one can make it.

I am not here to stir the pot, I found this thread yesterday when I did a search for HP vs Lap Times and found the imformation interesting. I am surprised that this was not reposted on 944Spec earlier.

Charlie,
Would love to come out to Laguna, only $159 for the day on track but more like a $1,000 for the trip from Sedona. Wish we could have Laguna and Infineon dates back to back!

Time will tell on how close the field will or will not tighten up with the cap. I am sure many of the same drivers will show up to National so it will be interesting to see.

I think it's been about 2 years ago, one of the threads on this made me frustrated with the variance in H/P and Torque in all of our cars, I felt then that it was a losing battle so I stated on the thread "fine I am going to build a killer, legal motor and I don't want to hear anything about it" so 2 years ago I bought a 1988 motor and had it legally built using parts from 1983 to 1988. Well that motor was just completed a couple of months ago, Dec 2012, one month before the cap:( My last motor never saw more than 134.?? h/p with 131.?? torque. Last week, before our first race of 2013, Hal Dunn and I visited the dyno, I had to detune from what could have been more than 144/141 legal hp/tq to 139/136. Hal with hours of work, got his motor up to 133/139, so for comparison, adding hp/tq for an average, we are less than 2 h/p-tq apart. Before the cap, there is no doubt I could have been with a legal motor making more than an average of 10 hp/tq than Hal. I can tell you first hand being on the 134/131 side of this equation for the past 7 years has sucked at times! So call it bad timing for me, obviously I still am a believer that this is the best rule we have had to date making this more of a driver's class. Knowing my car as well as I do, I feel a HUGE difference in all parts of the track and driving it on the street with the extra hp/tq.

Looking forward to seeing you and the family Charlie, it's been a long time!