Acceleration Estimate
BOPIII said:
Does any one know how long it would take to accelerate to 60 MPH in a 1988 Vette with an L-98 engine Automatic Trans if you were driving at a steady 40MPH and went to wide open throttle. Any personal experiences or if you have any Acceleration data i would apprecieate it. Thanks
Car and Driver used to publish acceleration graphs from 0 - 60. If you could find one from 87 - 89, then you could pick off the time from the curve.
Physically, once you get to 40 mph, you can maintain that velocity as long as you want, and then resume the acceleration to 60 mph. The acceleration from 40 - 60 should be essentially the same when measured from a constant 40 or from the standing start (after you get to 40).
That would be about your best estimate (unless you instrumented the particular car of interest, which wouldn't be an estimate, anyway).
A second (and less accurate) estimate would be to find the 0 to 60 mph time, and estimate the average acceleration.
For example, if the 0 to 60 mph time was 6 seconds, then the average acceleration is 10 mph/s [(60-0mph)/6s = 10 mph/s]. Your velocity change of interest is between 40 mph and 60 mph, a difference of 20 mph. If the average acceleration is 10 mph/s, then it would take 2 seconds to make that change [(60-40 mph)/10 mph/s = 2 s]. This is a less reliable estimate because in fact the acceleration is not constant from the start to the finish - it is more likely that acceleration is less at the end than at the beginning.
In any case, these two methods are probably accurate enough for most street applications.
Any particular reason why you're interested in this range?
Steven