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Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

> that still puts it on par with 1000 HP dedicated drag cars

I think you'll find it's past those. Even 1200hp GTRs don't run eights.

The OP is right that 8 sec 1/4 is extremely impressive, but he is wrong that there are few production cars that can run 8s. No production car runs anything close.

The fastest 1/4 mile production cars are supercars such as the Veyron and 918, which are at or just under a 10seconds.

Remember, an increase from 20->18 seconds is roughly a 10% increase in acceleration; 10->8 is roughly 20% increase over an already ludicrously fast million-dollar supercar.

It's frankly ridiculously fast.

You're right - I can't find any other car that can run 8's without modifications. There are some that can achieve those numbers with under $10,000 worth of modifications, but that's kind of irrelevant since we're talking about stock cars.

That's also why I am skeptical of this Tesla running an 8 second pass in stock trim. Is there a video of the pass?

Most of the 8 second cars I've seen are running slicks or drag radials, and usually weigh a lot less.

I'd be curious to see how Tesla managed to make a car that probably weighs over 4000 pounds have enough traction for those numbers using regular tires. Even with all wheel drive, 8 second Nissan GTRs usually have to resort to slicks.

> There are some that can achieve those numbers with under $10,000 worth of modifications

Can you provide links? I seriously doubt you can get anything into the 8s with only $10k.

If we're talking about anything, you can build a turbo Gen 4 LSx swapped Foxbody Mustang for very cheap (check out the sloppy mechanics group). The same goes for an automatic AWD DSM. Both of those have the potential to get into the 8's with little money, but it does take some fine tuning.

However, I'm assuming you are interested in brand new production cars. The cars I listed above are all old and do not compare to the Tesla in anything other than drag racing. If you're interested, let me know and I can go into a more detailed breakdown of the last car I tuned (LSx swapped Mustang).

As for new cars, it depends on how much work you're willing to do yourself vs paying a shop.

Here's a link to a newer 5.0 Mustang with a completely stock engine and a ~$8500 twin turbo kit. He does have other supporting mods (tires, suspension, torque converter) that likely put him over the $10k mark, but you can also save a few thousand on the turbo kit by piecing it together yourself.

"He estimates the car makes over 900 horsepower at the tire, but what really matters is the stock Coyote engine paired with an off-the-shelf Hellion turbo kit added up to an 8.6-second e.t. at over 150 mph."

https://www.svtperformance.com/2015/04/13/feature-quickest-s...

>The fastest 1/4 mile production cars are supercars such as the Veyron and 918, which are at or just under a 10seconds.

Except for the Dodge Demon, which does the 1/4 in 9.65

The 9.65 time is impressive, and the engineering team design as well. However, the claim is arguably disingenuous. Consider one needs a long time to go through a list of impractical things to prep the car to actually achieve that time, such as laying down what is literal tire glue to the road.

Since D=0.5at^2, going 10->8 would need a 50% increase in acceleration.

True. GTRs are not the best for drag racing. I think the Alpha 12 (~1200 HP) GTRs are actually dipping into the 8's, but I was thinking more along the lines of a Mustang, which is one of the most common cars used for drag racing and is usually much lighter.

Many cars in the 1200 HP range are much faster, such as the "Red Demon" DSM which is somewhere in the 7 second range.

GTRs are not the best for drag racing? Do you mean not the best to go slow in drag racing?

Because at the top of the ladder of the 1/4 (excluding top fuel making 4000-8000hp), you only have Lambos and GTRs.

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