Re: appologies

["Graydon D. Stuckey" <graydon@apollo.gmi.edu>]

On Wed, 14 Feb 1996, Jeremy R King wrote:

> Whoops.  Looks like I'm out a million bucks.  How much is that a month, eric?
> 
> In all seriousness, I owe you a public appology.  There's a point where 
> joking and jabs get a little too serious and I crossed the line.  

Class....

> (that's why I always put the "student" part in there).  Our fomula car 
> project is teaching me tons on how the real world differs from the 
> textbook - especially when it comes to fabrication of an idea.  But it is 

Jeremy,

	I also was involved in F-SAE at GMI for a couple years.  I also 
thought when I started GMI that there were times when "real world 
differed from Text books" especially when it came to racing.  What I 
learned, was that there is a reason why many of the formulas in the texts 
are called "Laws."  There really are true!  When something that we see on 
a race car doesn't seem to jive with what we see in a textbook, the fact 
is that we aren't looking crefully enough at the car.

	The first time (there were many times:-) I learned this was when
we put big tires on the F-SAE car.  I thought that bigger tires would make
the car stick better even though I KNEW that force=coefficient * normal
force (area is NOT part of the equation at all.) What I didn't know was
that the extra area helps keep the tire cool so that it can maintain that
coefficient of friction.  In our case, the tires were staying SOOO cool,
that they wouldn't even heat up enough to stick at all.  We eventually put
much smaller tires on the car, and it turned in a lot better, and stuck
alot better. 

	I _think_ the same principle applies to brake pads.  The size of 
the pad matters not for coefficient of friction.  The pad size does help 
distribute the heat buildup so that the rotor can take that heat away.


> math to back up your empirical "results", your argument doesn't have any 
> more validity than mine.  Empirical differences can be attributed to so 
> many variables that until you do "the math" you won't know what caused 
> the differences.  You say that the carbon rotors improved your time to 

Agreed.  Eric needs to back up his claims at this point just as you have 
done.  It may be that there are other factors that make the Carbon rotors 
better?

	For my part, I have called the program manager at Team Prowler, 
and hope to hear back from her next week when she returns from vacation.  
I will also talk to the brake engineers here at Cadillac.

> I will believe your arguement as soon as you prove your empirical results 
> on paper.  I can do 0-60 runs all day and empirically show that putting 
> my change in the other pocket will make me a tenth faster.  You need more 

If you put the change in your Mechanic's pocket you will be TWO tenths 
faster, guaranteed!  :-)

Later,								
Graydon D. Stuckey								
graydon@apollo.gmi.edu								
Flint, Michigan   USA
'86 Audi 5000 CS Turbo Quattro, GDS Racing Stage II				
'85 Mazda RX7 GS 12A-leaning-towards-a-13B-soon