I just took the car out tonignt, (only on weekends, otherwise covered during the week), anyways, I had to make a quick run to the store and on the way home, turning down my street, I remembered this post. So I made my right turn onto the street that leads to my street, which is about 150 feet of flat roadway, then at the end a quick 90 degree left, I looked down real quick and saw 42mph. Second gear, with power on, right after the turn I had to get out of the gas as not to **** off my neighbors with the exhaust note.

 

bull**** aside i still have my front wheel drive eclipse and like i mentioned before i cut the springs myself and i swear i it was at least 90mph and i could of kept going i also had my friend in passenger side and i told him dont take your eyes of the speedometer and when i told him this i was going into a really really tight exit off the free way i had my eyes on the road the whole time when i got out of it i asked him how fast was it he told me that i didnt go 1 mph under 90. honest truth and there were many other situtations that was equivalent to this. the top of the cars roof was as up to my waist and im 5' 9" and also im my other thread about me hitting the fire hydrant was that it was in the pouring raing with traction control off going around the rotary when i went to exit the third exit on the rotary the car went straight into it. i took the same rotary in a dryer enviroment and it was more managable. if you look at the stats of a stock 1997 eclipse gs front wheel drive you will find out that the aero dynamics of the STOCK bumper alone is 0.99 i believe its called the coefficient drag or something like that not that has to do with anything but what other cars had that for stock bumper. it was no transformer but i mean it from the bottom of my heart that car was like that construction guy that superglued his helmet on the bottom of a steel i beam. i love everything about my crossfire . its faster then the eclipse and looks better but man.. and this is my interpretation of the exit






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No Offense intended my friend but,
My 1975 Oldsmobile Starfire had a coefficient of drag of 0.33. It was considered the lowest coefficient of any production car at the time.
Any production car.
As much I loved that little GT coupe, it's coeffecient of drag had nothing to do with cornering. I would suggest the laws of physics haven't changed much from 1975 to 1997, despite all the liberals in congress.

Down force can affect cornering but I doubt the bumper on your favorite ricer had much to add to the turning performance of the car.
I've been on a few rotaries in the Boston area. Some I could easily take at 90 MPH in my wifes minivan and some you couldn't do at 25 in a LeMans racer with a rope tied to the signpost.
Again I suggest that without knowing the radius of the turn in question your 90 MPH is a useless boast.
I do not dispute your claim. I just can't reference the quality of the performance you have suggested. It's like saying you can do a city block in 13 seconds.

roadster with a stick

 

Get a large nail, 200 feet of string and a spray can of yellow paint.

Drive the nail into an empty area of a parking lot, tie one end of the string around it and walk in a straight line to the other end of the string. Holding the string tight walk in a circle around the nail spraying dashes of paint as you go.

Follow the spray painted line as fast as you can. Don't get arrested.

Report the results here. One of our math mavens will be able to calculate the G force you achieved.

Rod & Truck's original road test of the Crossfire put this at about .8G. If you know the radius of the turn you are going through and the G force you can generate you can derive the speed at which you can go through the turn. Look up the formula in your Machinery's Handbook.

 

I agree... my first car was 98 Eclipse. Man, wat a bucket lol. Everytime I took a corner I could just feel it wanting to slide off the road. But I have to say, even though they are very cheaply built cars, I never had any problems with the major components (engine, tranny)... and it was easy as heck to work on and fix.

It will not compare to a NA crossfire, much less an SRT.

 

Looks like the skidpad number is .92 g. Not a Lotus Elise but way more than what my nerves will handle. Here is the 2005 Car & Driver comparison road test.

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/...on+id-262.html

 

well, I had our old eclipse out tonight, before it goes to the body shop, and it will not corner as well as my SRT...no way...just the torque of the front wheel drive can be hard to handle if you aren't ready for it...I can ease in and power out w/ the srt, I just power in and out with the Mitzi, cause it doesn't have the power of the srt...fun car, but, wouldn't own another one...lucky this one is getting saved...

 

I was wondering if the originator of this thread (Supercrossfire) has any experience with RWD? If you aren't used to it, maybe that would explain his opinion? Just a stray thought...

No 'dissin' - just wonderin'...

 

body roll and lack of supportive seats make a car feel like its flying around corners, could have something to do with that too. He also may have some kind of suspension or tire pressure problem.

 

IF YOU HAVE A 6 SPEED AND ARE DURING A MPH OF 65 MPH YOU CAN DOWN SHIFT TO 4TH GEAR AND STOMP IT TO THE FLOOR AND IF YOUR TIRE ARE WITHING SPECS MEANING THAT THERE NOW WORN,, THEN YOU CAN TAKE A CURVE AT 100MPH.......... I DO IT ALL THE TIME,,,,,,,,,BUT YOU HAVE TO HAVE THE REV'S UP WHILE TURNING.................HEY PEOPLE THESE CARS WILL FLY.....

 

LOL! I know exactly what you mean. When I test drove my SRT, I nailed as I entered the on-ramp, and by the time I got around the curve to the bottom I was doing 120mph! I had to lean on the brakes heavily to merge. Of course, I bought the car.

Guys don't be too hard on the guy with the Eclipse. The 2nd generation Eclipse was well known for its cornering ability. No, it wasn't a Ferarri, but it had the best off-the-showroom-floor skid pad numbers you could buy for less than $20k, especially the AWD version. I had one, and I have a 3rd gen Eclipse. It is no comparison. The 3rd gen is a sloppy boat compared to the 2nd gen. I've test driven the 4th gen Eclipse, and it wasn't much better than the 3rd. Compared to the SRT, the 2nd gen probably doesn't stick as well, but it is close, and the steering response in the Eclipse was much crisper. That car was a great canyon carver.

 

thank you, dont get me wrong i love my crossfire but that eclipse did not make sense that it could take corner unlike anything else i've driven. i've had a couple 300zx turbos and few different front wheel drive cars like rsx etc. and the crossfire has the best package overall. but my dropped 97 eclipse man. the roofline was right at my hip bones and im 5'9 . like in my original thread i was just curious as to how fast?

 

My last car was a 94 prelude si with some 17 inch 215/45Z Pnero zeros on it, honestly the prelude out handled the srt-6 on most corners by well over 15mph. After reading how well everyone elses crossfires handle I am begining to think these conti's i have on her must be absolutly terrible tires!

Since its getting cold out maybe i'll sell my conti's and try out the BFG super sport A/S tires or some Yoko advan S.4's What do you guys think?

 

To answer this question, the fastest a stock NA crossfire can take a turn is 150.

 

I am trying to figure out how could a thread with one of the most unusual questions with no obvious answers gets so many views???????????????????????????????????????

Steve

 

cause its cool

 

You've said this twice now and something just didn't sit right with me, so I did some research and took some measurements. Stock overall height for the 1997 Mitsubishi Eclipse is 50.2" (http://autos.msn.com/research/vip/sp...pse&trimid=-1). You state that you are 5'9". I'm 6'1" with a 35" inseam and the top of my hip bone is 42" off the ground. One must assume that since I'm 4" taller than you and have a fairly long inseam, my hips should be approximately 4" higher off the ground than yours. To drop the Eclipse from an overall height of 50.2" to 42" (my hip height) you would need to cut 8.2" out of the springs. To drop the height to the level of your hips you'd need cut an additional 4" out of the springs, or a full 12" or more. Needless to say, I find this more than a bit difficult to believe.



Drag coefficient on the '97 Eclipse is rated at 0.29, not 0.99. That figure of 0.29 is an excellent number by the way, indicating a very slippery shape indeed. A coefficient of drag at 0.99 would be something akin to my house. For the record, even something as horribly un-aerodynamic as a PT Cruiser has a coefficient of drag right around 0.39, and the difference between that and the Eclipse is HUGE. But drag coefficient really doesn't mean squat when it comes to how a car handles, just how efficiently it moves through the air. A Formula 1 car actually has an extremely high drag coefficient - right about 1.0 - partly due to the enormous downforce they generate, partly due to the open wheels and exposed suspension bits. Of course this number is highly variable since the wings are highly adjustable. Nonetheless, this drag coefficient ultimately limits their top speed but the downforce generated by the wings, and the super-glue like consistancy of the tires allows them to pull in excess of 5g laterally. Yet, even with all this, a Formula 1 car doesn't take every corner presented to it at full speed. Turn 1 at Silverstone may be taken flat out in 7th gear at around 170mph, but the hairpin at Monaco is taken at something closer to 30mph. Every other corner is somewhere in between.

 

Both the first and second generation Eclipse GSXs were and in some cases, are still monsters. AWD along with a fairly powerful 4-cyl turbo motor made them pretty stout cars and a favorite among drag racers looking for some cheap power and stick off the line. The turbo motors however, do have a reputation for crank walk, but I'm not sure how much of that is reality and how much of that is simple internet BS.

However, the poster has a fwd GS, which I believe is the base model. And the guy cut the springs in the car. Sorry but his whole post about taking corners at 90mph and possibly confusing lateral acceleration with aerodynamic drag coefficients sounds like a ricer's wet dream story. Cut springs aren't going to make a fairly slow (which is fine, that's what the car was about) and soft handling stock vehicle into a slot car. The car wasn't even a GST, which was the fwd turbo version of the GSX. Besides, the most critical part of the story was left out--what kind and size of tires was this guy using. If he had some huge meaty DOT-legal slicks that were properly warmed up, I could maybe believe his story--even with a crappy suspension. However, based on the "cut springs" I'm will to guess the tires were less than stellar.

 

^^^^24 posts and i like this guy already! welcome to the forum

 

Putting numbers on this: R&T shows the following for the SRT-6 in their 2005 Road Test Summary

SRT-6 Lateral g on skidpad 0.84 Slalom speed 67.6 mph

For comparison:

Mustang GT 2005 skidpad 0.84 slalom speed 64.9 mph