well, my concern isn't so much of the car suddenly blowing up or something at high speeds, or ripping apart (although something "small" like a hood latch could fail... unlikely but would be deadly if it happened somehow), its the fact you simply cannot steer (effectively or at all) when going at high speeds.

I think you all know what I'm talking about. After a certain speed, the front of the car is lifting, and your steering gets very light... at speeds like 130+, any small movements of the wheel is going to take a long time relative to the speed you are traveling at, and will cover a long distance.

It would be interesting to try, however, in a straight line with no traffic on a perfect road.

 

you would have to be going way faster than that before it rises, my brother had a 95 eclipse and did 145 mph on it. the tc does handle very good at high speeds. the times i've done it were on open highway or going thru the desert. street bikes hit around 175 and thats a few hundred pounds and dont lose control.

 

ive had no problems keeping it stable at 125, i put it on cruise control at that speed once. and i hit a certain bump on the way to work every day and it was fine going over it at that speed as well.

 

WOW you just compared 2 different worlds of autosports. I'm not even going to elaborate just cuz

 

Am I missing something here? How would you go 132 MPH @6250 RPM without the clutch slipping?132 MPH at like 5900ish RPM would be more like it.

 

At about 80, I can feel the car start to vear left to right with the ruts in the road and as the speed increases, it just seems to get a bit worse. At 115 I have a little more free play in the steering wheel. I would assume this is because the steering is so tight that just a little motion gets it all out of wack. At top end, 127, the car feels like if you were to just tap the steering wheel, it would fly into the other lane very easily. I don't have any suspension work (sway bars/struts/springs) so I'm sure cars with those upgrades handle better. Stock suspension though, quite a tricky ride to keep in the same lane without worries of wind blowing you off the road.

 

Because it would take more power and higher rpm to overcome the wind and rolling resistance. After a certain point, it takes a lot more hp to gain very little speed. As an example, you may only need 15hp to maintain 50mph, but 30hp won't get you to 100mph, it might take 3x as much.

iirc, at the 127mph limit the tC is already at 5900 rpm, so your estimate is a bit off. That's another reason I stated 132-133 @6250, as I'm confident that's all you'd get from the additional 350rpm.

 

to keep the tC more stable at such speeds not only will you need better tires, but some way of keeping the front stable. And no, no ebay lip spoiler/air deflector/reflector/your mom won't make it happen. sorry.

of course, that's a very light statement, since a lot of modifications are needed to keep a vehicle stuck to the road at high speeds.

 

Post of the year.

 

I've had some american cars that were rediculously unstable at speeds over 80 mph -- like an airplane just about to take off.

I've never been in any european car that was unstable due to aerodynamics at any speed, even ones made in the early 60's.

I really haven't had a chance to play around with a tC much over 110, but it doesn't seem aerodynamically unstable up there at all. The problem is that most of the roads in the US are either too jammed up with traffic (because of artificially low speed limits) or in terrible disrepair to make such speeds dangerous regardles of whether or not the car does well up there.

 

Nobody's going to believe me, but I have hit 129 in my stock '05 tC. It was a couple months ago, and it took a HUGE stretch of road to get there, once you hit 120, acceleration seems to take forever.

It was on I-81 heading north through VA, late night, no traffic, nice straight interstate in decent condition.

 

read the prior articles a$$, he asked about the car rising at high speeds wich weighs a couple thousand and yet a bike ways hundreds and doesnt lift off.

 

Its called Aerodynamics...

 

I understand rolling resistance and drag. And while a bone stock tC might only be able to do 132 MPH because of it, it will not be at 6250 RPM. My point is that a manual transmission has locked ratios in each gear. The ratio at which each gear spin the wheels in comparison to the flywheel doesn't ever change, unless something gives way, like the clutch slipping. So if you have around 300 HP, you should be able to hit the rev limiter (6250) in 5th gear, at 139 MPH (assuming you have stock wheels and tires).

According to the calculator:

127 MPH is hit at 5700 RPM in 5th gear

132 MPH is hit at 5920 RPM in 5th gear

BTW do you have 215/40 17 tires? Because interesting enough those tires will cause you to hit 127 MPH at 5900 RPM.

 

to kill this forum i will be topping out my 07 tc and will film it, then take final pictures of the top speed from the film and post them. the car is completly stock with only a K&N drop in filter (not that it matters) the gas is REGULAR unleaded and does not use any performance enhancements. any request or questions now is the time to do so.

 

Film both the tach and speedo at the same time.

 

i got to figure a way to mount the camera right. i want good light, and a clear view of all the gauges. this way i keep both hands on the wheel.

 

One way to get past the speed limiter (I think) would be to reach the limiter, throw it in neutral, and coast down a long, long hill. Also, it'd help to draught a large vehicle who you got for just this purpose.

If everything is arranged properly and safely (well as safe as you can get in a crazy test like I'm proposing), then you'd probably get over 130.

Of course, at the end of the day, I don't know why we'd want to do this.

 

You might want to try finding a 70 degree + hill........haha.............or a cliff.............as soon as you throw it in neutral, your car will react to the instantaneous force of wind resistance. Without the gas pedal to push it forward, it'll slow drastically. About the drafting aspect, that would also be good if you could find a truck going that fast. Highly unlikely and I really don't think you would want to try that on an open road.

 

Quick question....have you done the LED swap on your gauges yet? If you have and you hit anything just over 127, it's because the needle isn't in the exact position as it was from the factory setting. It's advanced just a bit which makes it seem like you're going faster b/c of the slightly higher reading, but it's due to a misplaced needle.