Top speed of a 4th gen f- body

[Hobbs95]

i know with the gears i have installed mathematically speaking i cant go over the red line but in consideration of wheel bearings and the actual differential and with aerodynamic drag what is the actual limit of these cars?

[Rhode Island Red]

with the speed limiter set to 255 in the PCM, a canadian hawk owner managed to muster 172 mph and 171.XX sustained with stock power and ect. (verified and documented)

From the opean road racing boards,I've read that the WS6 hood comes apart in the 190's (obviosly above stock hp) . my guess is the 190's is where one would start seeing problems arise. I've never expericed going that fast, so it would be best to treat this info as a more a less a rumor ... best I could help ya.

[Joe 1320]

These cars start hitting the aerodynamic wall at 157 mph. cars with a few more ponies can squeak out another 1-2 mph, but the amount of power required to go further ramps up dramatically. It could take another 100 hp just to go another 5 mph.

[Kevin - Blown 95 TA]

157mph is exactly what MT said a stock 95 would go. Is the Vette that much slicker that it can go 226mph (Lingerfelter TT)? Some of the sedans that are going faster than that these days don't look as aerodynamic as the Firebird.

[Injuneer]

The aerodynamic wall is the point where aero drag exceeds the propelling force available at the rear wheels (= torque/tire diameter). More torque at the rear wheels, the faster you can go no matter how clumsy the car design is. Ron Dukes' LS1 convertible WS6 is running close to 180mph in the 1/4. The Lingenfelter TT had a ton more HP/torque thatn a stock F-Body. I doubt the stock C4 would have gone much over 165-170mph.

[ConElite]

In the Silver state Challange, the winner was a 93 Z28. Average Speed was like around 213 MPH .Topped it over 230.. Pretty crazy but true. It was in C&D about a year or 2 ago. Pretty interesting stuff. My buddies 93 Z did 159 with no internals and windows down (racing a 911). They are able to do alot. Regardless of design, they can do the speed. One guy that was in the SSC told me a good rule is in order to get over 200mph safely you need at least 500rwhp.

[casey02ws6]

I just read an article in GM High Tech performance a couple of weeks ago- a guy had a 2000 WS6 I believe. Just bolt on mods and he was running 170+ in an "open road" racing series. I don't remember where I read it but I remember reading the LS1 cars are typically 165-167 MPH cars stock. That would jive with the 157 MPH top speed MT observed on the 95 Z28.

[94 formula]

LS1's have a much better top end than a LT1 stock for stock but neither of them can pull any faster from 5th to 6th gear which is what makes their top speed similar. If I remeber right a stock LT1 can't quite hit the rev limiter in 5th gear which is 5,700 and a LS1 can pull fifth out to the limiter at 6,000 rpms which is why the LS1 has a higher top speed.

[Dave M]

I remember Car and Driver's 226 mph Vette they did about 10 years ago or so now, even that top speed was in 5th gear IIRC, because even it didn't have the power to pull 6th all the way out with the ratio's these 6 speeds have. On the other hand, the McLaren F1 topped out at 240mph in 6th gear, and the test driver said it could have had a seventh gear, it was still pulling!!

And as far as aerodynamics go, looks aren't always a good indictaor. I've seen some cars that looked pretty boxy that sported Cd's under .30

And take a look at this car. Just looking at it I wouldn't say it was particularly aerodynamic, but Mercedes claims it achieves a drag coefficient of just .19!!
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They call it the Bionic car and it is designed after the Boxfish, doesn't even sound aerodynamic
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[EquatorHeat00]

If I were to raise my rev limiter from the stock 5800 rpm's to 6100 rpm's how much more mph could I get out of the car?

[Craig 94 TA GT]

If I were to raise my rev limiter from the stock 5800 rpm's to 6100 rpm's how much more mph could I get out of the car?

If you're talking about top speed, you'll gain nothing at all. I believe you won't even hit 5800 RPM when doing a top speed run in 4th. You'll probably be between 4700 and 5000 RPM, then hit the "aerodynamic wall".