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The Bugatti Veyron
An anonymous reader writes "OK, most /.ers cannot afford the Veyron, but reading this article at HowStuffWorks is still fascinating. How do you fit 1,000 horsepower into a compact engine? How do you keep a passenger car on the road at 250+ MPH? The article links to a set of videos on the Veyron engine that are also very good. Are there any cars out there better than this?" There's also a story by Popular Science.
Sorry, but according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the most valuable car in the world is the Bugatti Type 41 Royale, at $15 million. It's also not the fastest overall, since it's beaten by racecars and the like.
Get a motorcycle.
Most of the 1000cc sportbikes on the market today will do a nice 140+ mph quarter mile, top out at 180+ mph, and corner better than anything short of an indy car for around $10k.
Or, if insist on stupidly ridiculous 250 mph speeds, you could still get one of these and save three quarters of a million dollars.
There are tons of kit cars and one off race cars that are capable of such feats but you never hear about them because gearheads dont have billion dollar marketing budgets to get news stories written about their flagship image cars.
250 mph top speed is retarded because the only places you can really reach such a speed are on a banked oval track. Overlooking the fact that the veyron is a heavy barge of a car and has mediocre street tires... Even the fastest of close wheeled race cars (many of which have comparable horsepower, much stickier tires, far less weight and better aerodynamics) are hard pressed to break 200mph even on tracks with enormous straight sections. Mostly they keep to speeds below 150 because of having to constantly brake for curves. It would be a much lower speed if they had street tires instead of racing tires. 250mph is a useless speed until tire compounds and braking systems have advanced a VERY long way. The trick is less in getting to 250mph than it is in avoiding things going slower.
As for aerodynamics, it isnt very hard to keep the car planted, even without fancy computer desgined undercar tunnels. There are tons of books on desgning and testing over and underbody aerodymics- much of this knowledge has been floating around for decades.
As for 1000+ hp, there are a ton of big block v8s making that power all over this country. Some making significantly more. A few even do it on pump gas.
As if 1000hp is so impressive. A twin turbo-ed 302 block (a little 5.0 block for those not in the know) can easily push 1500hp at the flywheel with the proper forged parts in the lower end. Plenty of high end drag cars put out 2000-3000hp on average. 1000hp is out of the ordinary, but certainly not a feat of engineering that the text above makes it out to be.
rk
Bugatti has been renowned not only as a sports car, but a luxury sports car. It's asking the question what is the absolute best I can buy. where in ferrari for exampe is primarily a sports car creature comforts only as needed. so given the history of the car this is not unheard off. On a side note engine technology has also been pushed as far as the marine world. if i'm not mistaken the original diesign for the W16 engine was taken from one developed for speed boats.
according to Guiness book of records
is this baby
Cars are designed to use their engine at 10% of peak output most of the time.
Planes are designed to use their engine at 90% of peak most of the time.
I'm guessing you meant the G you feel at the -bottom- of the drop, which depends on the coaster, but I seem to remember is limited to under 2.5G for safety reasons. (I'm sure a coaster fan can confirm or correct this)
When you drop off the top, you get to accelerate at a little less than 1G (freefall minus any drag in the coaster), which, coincidentally, is about what it takes to make it to 60 MPH (~27M/sec) in 3 seconds.
So, in that regard you're more or less right.
Of course, the sad thing is that a decent sport bike can still beat it to 60, and some of them can give it a run for its money up to about 200.
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
A good motorcycle like the latest Suzuki GSXR-1000 offers you the same acceleration (but not the same top speed), but much cheaper! It's a matter of power/weight ratio, therefore a bike which has a 180hp engine and weighs 170kgs like the 'zuki will have you cream your pants the same way ;)
It's not so terrifying, I assure you. Just... awesome!
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
Wankel engines in the past have had dependability issues. In a aeronautical sense this isn't too appealing. The old Wankel had serios issues with fuel concumption, and wearing of the plugs, and combution linings. This engine in the Wankel rx-8 is supposed to solve most if not all of these problems. so perhaps now it will be a viable alternative.
by your logic, a honda civic could do the same thing at $200/mo and 38mpg.
i'll take the supercar, thanks. if you can afford a million dollar car, methinks gas, insurance costs and traffic fines are of little concern. =)
Tire grip increases with weight, but it is a log curve- the more you increase weight, the smaller the increases in traction are. Since each increase in weight also increases the mass, the tires have to do more work to change the direction of the car. Thus, heavy cars tend to develop less and less traction than lighter cars.
Adding downforce increases the car's "weight" for purposes of calculating the grip of the tires on the road, but doesnt increase the mass of the car that they have to change the direction of.
This is why the "ideal" race car is a stick figure formula 1 type car with a giant engine and huge wings. The downforce keeps the car stuck on the road with the force of many times its weight, but since the car is so light it can change direction with mind boggling speed. This is why formula one cars can develop over 5gs of sideways acceleration. The powerful engine helps to generate speed which in turn increases downforce. The cars actually grip more the faster they go.
Are there any cars out there better than this?"
I am not a troll, but I'm going to venture and say, all cars. High-priced Italian sportscars are designed to work for about 2-3 years and then fall apart. Their parts are ridiculously expense (I've read how some vehicles oil changes alone are hundreds of dollars.)
Cars like the Veyron are made to be purchased by an elite few who will drive them on rare occasions and keep them in climate controlled garages the rest of the time.
If you've got nothing better to spend your money on, buy out the RIAA.
. . .Bugatti demanded audio perfection. . .
No. Bugatti never put a radio in one of his cars. The very idea smacks of sacrilige.
You can paint a VW blue and put a little red oval on its nose, but that doesn't make it a Bugatti.
The very idea is like my being able to buy the rights to "brand" myself Van Gough.
KFG
Are there any cars out there better than this?
This may or may not be the best car available. However, it is surprising how much competition the Veyron has:
There are more cars in this class, but I can't remember them off the top of my head.
I don't know how the market can support all of these $250k+ cars. How many people out there can really afford these? Wish I was one of them
All this talk about horsepower and not many even know that it's actually pretty easy to get to the 1000 mark. Toyota Supras, a ricer's wet dream, can be tuned to that level realatively easy as well as the Nissan Skyline. Of course, what do 600-(~)900HP Supras have in common? The same 1/4 mile times. (not true in all cases you anal geeks)
To true car enthusiasts who enjoy driving, it's more about speed in a corner rather than straight line speed. What's the point to having a 1000HP car if you can't turn it?
Anyway, what has me worried as that the US auto companies are sell more "high horsepower" cars and cheaper than the European ones. They're "fast cars on a budget." A good example would be the Dodge Neon (SRT-4) or the Pontiac GTO. Since they are cheap and the Neon pretty much being a "girls car," it would be purchased to be given to inexperienced teenage drivers and many accidents will follow. I've seen at least 4 SRT-4 roll-overs, all by teenage drivers.
The European companies such as BMW or Mercedes, their "performance" cars will be pushing incredible figures, something along the lines of 500HP for the new M5 and 600 some for the CL65. These cars are out of most people's budgets, but what the point is that BMW and Mercedes are putting in many safety gadgets that help the driver with traction in many conditions and BMW's Dynamic Stability Control system will even put the brakes on individual wheels when the car senses a slip so you don't go skidding out of control. Merc has a similar system. I haven't heard of any such things from Dodge or Pontiac.
In the end what I really want to ask is, will Bugatti be responsible as to whom they sell the cars to and also add as many safety features as they can? If you have something that fast and add an inexperienced driver, a horrible wreak will ensue.
Bugatti was bougt by Audi in 1998?. Audi is part of the Volkswagen AG.
They have tremendous problems with the gearbox. The 1000hp is only a marketing thingy. But now their problem is that their gear box breaks after about 3 months with the power of the 1000hp. Their solution: A smaller version with only 800hp to match the gearbox.
Their problems:
- customers ordered the 1000hp version not the smaller one
- producing a gearbox to handle all that torque that 1000hp produce.
Are there any cars out there better than this?
Porsche Carrera GT At Porsche the don't design for top speed for driving straigt ahead, they design for top speed in curves!
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
at 250 mph, that means he is traveling 4.17 miles in one minute, or about 4 times what you do in a normal minute when on a highway.
I come up with 3.13 mpg at 250 mph for the thing. Thats damn good.
But if he is crusing it won't take all that power, remember that fuel number was at full power. The driver would only be pulling full power with foot to the floor. A SUV may come with a 300hp engine to get it moving good, but it only needs ~18 hp to cruise at 55mph, and a car only needs ~15 hp to go 55. So most the time this car will be getting much better milage since like any vehicle it will only take ~15 hp for it to go highway speeds (if he goes that slow). so you could multiply his milage by 4-5 times. Also the car is very areodynamic, so it very well could do better then most cars out there.
Big powerfull engines only give you the potential to waste full, they do not cause the full usage. If you had 2 identical cars, but one has twice the HP they will both get the same mileage, but people being people many would get worse mileage with the more HP version since they would use it more and accel. faster. But for a driver who knows what they are doing they would get the same either way.
Still to say this thing sucks fuel based on peak power is not correct.
Oh and if you live in the US, gas is cheap, it's one of the cheapest substances on earth. Cheaper then milk, cheaper then water depending on how you purchase water, and gives you more of a return on your investment then damn near anything. Try going 30 miles (to and from any location) in a decent time frame for less then 2 bucks, only a car with a gallon of gas can do it that cheap.
Actually, they got Bentley in the divorce. BMW now builds Rolls-Royce motor cars. VW is now comprised of Seat, Skoda, Volkswagen, Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, and Bugatti, not to mention their plans to collaborate with Ferrari on future Maserati models.
So there must be a car for the proletariat in there somewhere. :-) Theoretically, that's the Seat and Skoda brands, as well as the VW Lupo and Polo. Unfortunately, out of all those cars, none are available in North America except the Polo, and they're only sold in Mexico. As long as they keep nudging the Golf and Jetta upscale, they'll drift farther away from their legacy. Maybe if they could find a way to import Skodas without driving up the price, they could get it back. From what I hear, the Czechs are building VW's best cars right now.
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Eh, this is a bit of a peeve of mine. Hitler did NOT design the beetle. While Hitler was instrumental in getting the Volkswagen into production, he in fact did not create the beetle as those links would claim.
Ferdinand Porche had been designing automobiles for some 10 years when WWI ended, and as Germany's economy collapsed he realized the need for a family type car would be developing. For the next 15 years he pushed the idea, but at the time car makers were more interested in high-dollar luxury vehicles. It wasn't until 1934 he actually got a prototype built, an aircooled flat four-powered vehicle that almost anyone would recognize as a beetle. He had been working on the plans for several years prior.
In 1933/1934 Hitler came into power and started vocalizing his plans for the autobahn and the Volksauto. When Porche's employeer exited the automobile industry in that period, Porche basically panicked because he did not want his pet project to die. He did the letter writing campaign, and eventually Hitler heard about it. Through 1934 Porche and Hitler met, and found they both had similar views about building a "people's car". In the course of several meetings they settled on the specifications of what the car would be capable of.
From there Hitler funded Porche's prototyping and research.
There was a lot of simultaneous development going on here, Hitler had read much of Henry Ford's success, and was quite a car enthusiast. Hitler's idea of the volkswagen was his own, as much as it was Porche's own.
The design and engineering, however, is almost exclusively Porche's (though there are some allegations he stole some of the body design from another designer, I don't rightly remember who that would be though).
Later on, after WWII, the US saw the value of Volkswagen to rebuilding Germany's shattered economy, and put significant effort into rebuilding the destroyed factories and getting cars built again. In some ways, the US was as instrumental in VW's success as anyone else was.
In a straight vertical drop you will be accelerating at G (9.8 m/s^2), and the g-force you will feel is zero (yes it may be slightly off due to wind resistance and such but you can assume zero). If this car can accelerate to 60 mph in 3 seconds its average horizontal g-force will be about 1G. So if we are traveling on a flat surface you will have 1G down (gravity), and 1G horizontal. Add the two together and you will end up with a max G of 1.4 at an angle of 45 degrees down from horizontal. In summary, accelerating in this car in a straight line your body will feel a max g of about 1.4, in a freefall vertical drop your body will feel 0G. So the poster was incorrect.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
VW (or more accurately VAG - Volkswagen-Audi Group) don't own the Rolls Royce name, BMW owns it (along with Mini). VAG does have Bentley and Lamborghini though.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Actually a lot of supercars get bought by super-rich oil sheiks of the Middle East, who are probably part of the Ruling King's family that they can get away with driving as crazy as they want. Then again, they take the cars out to the desert roads where there are no pedestrians to hit.
I think it must be fun, wouldn't mind having a go if I had the chance.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
It's not even new vapourware, it's just the (abandoned) W16 Bentley Hunadieres with a new badge and some turbos, which in turn is just the (abandoned) W16 Audi Rosemeyer with a different badge, which in turn is just the (abandoned) W12 Audi Avus with 1 extra cyl per head, which is just the (abandoned) Volkswagen W12 with a different badge, which is just an old (abandoned) Audi W8 concept car (the name escapes me for now) with 1 extra cyl per head, which is a rebadged (abandoned) Seat W8, and so on.
See the pattern?
If Piech hadn't gone, we'd be drooling over a succession of fake W24 volkswagen/bentley/audi/lamborghini/seat/skodas by now, but since he has gone, the bait and switching has stopped and people are actually expecting the last of the line to be built.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Big powerfull engines only give you the potential to waste full, they do not cause the full usage.
Correct.
If you had 2 identical cars, but one has twice the HP they will both get the same mileage,
Incorrect. Fuel consumption is based on a few variables, horsepower is not one of them. It is possible that two engines with widely different horespower ratings will have the same mileage performance but that's a matter of coincidence not science. As an example consider the highly efficient 100HP/liter powerplants in the S2000, 911 and M3 compared to the 5.7 liter (and that's a key number) powerplants of American muscle cars of a generation ago (Mustang, Camaro, Corvette etc.).
In general, mileage is a combination of compression ratio, engine size, gearing, torque curve, aerodynamic and mechanical (especially tire) efficiency, valve train mechanics and a host of other factors. Horsepower is simply not one of them.
but people being people many would get worse mileage with the more HP version since they would use it more and accel. faster.
Again, generally true
But for a driver who knows what they are doing they would get the same either way.
Again no, the largest factor in mileage these days is engine capacity. To run an engine you need to maintain stoichiometric balance of the fuel to air ratio, typically between 12 and 14 parts fuel to air by mass. The larger the engine capacity the worse the fuel efficiency at equivalent rpm and compreson ratios. Some manufacturers experimented with shutting down fuel flow to cylinders at cruise in order to make the engine effectively smaller. Emission problems due to accumulation of oil in deactivated cylinders, poor engine life due to thermal stress and pumping losses made that a failed technology. The next big thing in fuel efficiency for conventional piston engines is the variable timing and lift technology now available in BMW's 4.5liter V8 and soon to come form other manufacturers. Fully variable timing and lift allow optimization of pumping losses across the rev range, as well as improved combustion efficiency for higher torque at equivalent RPM, at the price of potentially larger valve train mechanical losses. Total power may also be limited by a lower RPM limit compared to other engines in the same class, although Formula 1 powerplants, which use a different but related valve control system, can apporach 20,000 rpm.
Still to say this thing sucks fuel based on peak power is not correct.
True, but the turbocharged (= high compression ratio at high rpm) 8! liter capacity of the engine doesn't help.
I have to take issue with one point you make here... 'Grip' or friction between the road surface and the tire is linearly related to the normal force or weight. Your other point regarding inertia increasing with mass is correct though and a good point.
Having a more powerfull engine can be useful for accelerating faster even if you don't get it all the way up to its maximum speed.
So I'm jump'n up and down screaming show me the money.
Bzzt. You're _mostly_ right, but you've got a few critical things wrong.
Mileage is partially caused by the efficiency of the motor, and partly by the efficiency of the package it's wrapped in. my 89 Corvette could easily get 30-32mpg (or 3), my PT cruiser, with it's smaller motor attached to its more efficient manual tranny, gets 26-28 depending on A/C use.
My _98_ Corvette, while it has much less drag than the 89 - has a much more advanced motor but gets 4-6mph worse mileage. Why? because they weighted the variables towards performance, rather than mileage. it's also immune to heat soak, and has fewer parts, in light of the throttle by wire system removing ASR, Cruise, and throttle mechanicals.
Several manufaturers are releasing a displacement on command feature. making the V8 a V4 by shutting down four cylinders and removing the oil that keeps the lifters filled (and hence, lifting valves.) GM, Porsche and IIRC BMW have motors announced.
The next really REALLY cool tech you'll see is a camless motor. Lotus has done a LOT of research on solenoid actuated valves. If there's no cam, there's no limitation to valve timing! You can tune the motor to optimum fuel efficiency, max low end torque or max upper end hp.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
You obviously are watching a different F1 championship to the rest of the planet. BMW have, along with Toyota, the most powerful and reliable units in F1(excluding Schumacher's Ferrari, it just won't break). MB, now they ARE building crap at the moment, but that is as likely to be the McLaren chassis twisting the engine too much.
:)
As for Ferrari building interesting cars, not likely. The don't need to, the have the name behind them and only need to sell 3000 cars a year, that's all they build.
The W engine doesn't need to trickle down to Audi, it started with them, as far back a 1991. That was with three banks of cylinders and in a VW as the current VV four banks since 1997.
VW have owned Audi since the 1960s. And as a side note Bentley too, that is why as soon as Audi pulled out of LeMans Bentley started winning, an engineer/designer swap over to the Bentley factory and a quick bit of rebadging.
Bzzt. You're _mostly_ right, but you've got a few critical things wrong.
Fair enough, let's try it point by point because I'm feeling peevish.
Mileage is partially caused by the efficiency of the motor, and partly by the efficiency of the package it's wrapped in.
I believe I mentioned aerodynamic efficiency. Mechanical efficiency, like properly inflated tires, low rolling resistance tires (which is generally synonymous with low traction) and other effects also come into play. However I believe the message I was replying to was focused on the relationship of engine horsepower to mileage so I wanted to ignore packaging issues. Furthermore the original point was that horsepower cannot be used to infer mileage, but high horsepower does imply large engine displacement, holding the redline and compression ratio constant and allowing for similar engine material and component technology. Engine displacement is a large component of fuel efficiency and the Veyron's engine is huge in terms of displacement. There is simply no way (including caveats about red lines, compression etc.) to make an 8 liter engine as fuel efficient as a 3.5 liter engine.
My _98_ Corvette, while it has much less drag than the 89
I'd be surprised if that's really true, but I don't have anything at hand to answer that definitively. Suffice it to say though, Corvette's have generally gotten larger with each generation and whatever wind tunnel work has been done on the C5 may be offset by its increase frontal area with respect to the C4.
Several manufaturers are releasing a displacement on command feature. making the V8 a V4 by shutting down four cylinders and removing the oil that keeps the lifters filled (and hence, lifting valves.) GM, Porsche and IIRC BMW have motors announced.
Two nits to pick here: first of all what you are talking about is a variable number of active cylinders, a variable displacement engine actually changes the engine displacement without changing the number of active cylinders. Secondly, the idea of varying the number of active cylinders for efficiency is almost as old as the piston engine itself. No one has made one work reliably yet, so I'll consider it vaporware for now. For an idea as to how difficult this is to implement in practice, consider that we've got fully elctronically automated engines, hybrid powertrains and even Miller and Wankel designs all developed in the last 4 decades with no commercially produced variable active cylinder engines for automobiles yet.
The next really REALLY cool tech you'll see is a camless motor. Lotus has done a LOT of research on solenoid actuated valves.
While I appreciate the work of the wizards at Lotus as much as the next guy, this is more blue sky technology for the Popular Science "Aurora exists" crowd. Camless engines may become a regular production item someday, but at this point someday is no less than a decade or two away, just after they put the finishing touches on their fusion reactor. On the other hand, the existence of all these technologies makes GM's claim of producing a competitive fuel cell car by 2010 pretty silly. If you were working on technology that won't be productized for 10 or 20 years would you still do it if you knew it would be obsolete?
You can tune the motor to optimum fuel efficiency, max low end torque or max upper end hp.
Horsepower is torque times angular velocity, times a proportionality factor to take care of units. Thus max upper end HP is the same as max upper end torque. In general, current cam designs necessitate a trade off in the torque curve, although that is less the case with new engines, but that's a pecularity of the engineering not a fundamental difference between power and torque.
I don't even know why I wased my time writing this, like I said, just peevish I guess.
Just for the record, the article claims that F1 cars use a ground effect like the Bugatti. These days, actually, F1 has a few regulations to prevent that. The car bottom is flat and has a wood plank underneath that is 10mm +/- 1mm. If the plank is less than 9mm at the end of the race then the car is judged to have been riding too low.
See FIA 2004 Formula One Technical Regulations sections 13.2 and 13.3 for details.
"Where quality is like a dead stinking rat - you just can't miss it."
The next big thing in fuel efficiency for conventional piston engines is the variable timing and lift technology now available in BMW's 4.5liter V8 and soon to come form other manufacturers. Fully variable timing and lift allow optimization of pumping losses across the rev range, as well as improved combustion efficiency for higher torque at equivalent RPM, at the price of potentially larger valve train mechanical losses.
Can't mention dynamic valve train management for air/fuel optimization without proper credit to the pioneer: Honda's VTEC.
Introduced way back in 1989 on the Integra in Japan and on the NSX in 1990 in the US. Elegant engineering genius.
The Rocket III to be specific.
k eI D=83
http://www.triumph.co.uk/site/bikes/page.cfm?Bi
2.2l engine in a motorcycle, yes, it is insane, but it accelerates faster than a sportsbike. To get the best acceleration out of it you need to be carrying a pillion, though on thinking about it maybe that wouldn't be necessary in the US.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
The next big thing in fuel efficiency for conventional piston engines is the variable timing and lift technology now available in BMW's 4.5liter V8 and soon to come form other manufacturers.
Toyota have been putting their variable valve timing and lift engines in several of their lines for over four years now. Branded as VVTL-i (i standing for intelligence), they're fitted in MR2s, Celicas, Corrolas and all sorts.
More info here
At speeds approaching 200mph, a modern F1 car generates 2100kg of downforce. enough to stick it to the ceiling 3 times over.
It's a common misconception that the ground effect era of the 70's was the pinnacle of racing car downforce. The aero enginnering on an F1 car today is so advanced that the downforce they generate is way ahead of where they were in the 70's.
What *is* true is that ground effect gives more *mid corner* downforce when the car is going slow, so it pushes cornering speeds up. And if you lose the ground effect mid corner from hitting a kerb or something, you can get lift or at the very least lose all that lovely adhesive low speed downforce. This directly lead to the deaths of a couple of F1 drivers, hence ground effect aero was banned.
--is not to be confused with user #672982 - Bame Flait
If you live in the U.S. and you routinely drive half that speed your driver's license is going be gone in a month.
I am living proof this is not true. You just have to be careful, and spend a lot of your time driving around at 4AM on empty highways. I very frequently drive most of the way to work at around 140 MPH. Where I live, we have LONG stretches of highway with no on-ramps, and walls/barricades on both sides, and long flat sections where you can literally see for miles and miles. And my car is usually race-prepped. I can do a 140-to-zero stop faster than most cars can stop from 70.
However, I do not drive at high speed in or near traffic, and I don't street race.
There is simply no reason to even allow a car with this much power to be licensed for highway driving.
Who died and made you queen?
If you buy a car with this much power, and then drive anywhere close to the speed limit you are just a retard compensating for your absence of a penis and or brains.
*Yawn.*
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
not to mention the 1cm of ground clearance on a modern F1 car and no conventional suspension. also radiators that need to be moving at high speed to avoid overheating. an F1 car on an autocross track would not work, just as an autocross car on an F1 track wouldn't.
>True, but the turbocharged (= high compression ratio at high rpm) 8! liter capacity of the engine doesn't help.
Actually, the compression ratio is unaffected by turbocharging. The compression ratio is a static number which represents the ratio of largest cylinder volume to smallest cylinder volume, depending on where the piston is.
If you add a turbocharger into it, you haven't changed the volume of the cylinders, just how much air is filling them. The Ratio is still the same.
Point of interest though, there are some manufacturers out there that have been developing variable compression ratio engines. This is useful in turbocharging applications, because when off the boost, you can run a nice, high, efficient compression ratio, for good gas mileage. When you romp on the happy pedal, and the turbos spool, the compression ratio will drop, allowing a higher boost pressure, because a lower compression ratio is less succeptable to knocking. It is generally the case that more power is available from turbocharging than from compression ratio.
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
Except for the fact that the Japanese makers have been moving towards high-revving 4-bangers.
Seen the power curves and redline on an i-VTEC or Toyota VVT engine these days? 8-9000 rpm redline, peak power at over 7000rpm. Much higher revving than anything they put out in the 80's, where they were preferring higher-torque lower-revving blocks.
Of course, some Japanese makers are still using the same blocks they were in the 80's (Mitsubishi and their 4G63 block most notably).
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
So your eclipse might not be able to do it, but an RX-7 like mine would be able to (my particular model would need some performance work first but a stock thrid gen would do nicely). A lightly-modded turbo Eclispe should also have no problem keeping up to 30 MPH.
In any case, my point was that the "acceleration" of this car isn't a stronger force than you could achieve with a decent car up to 20 or 30 MPH, it's just that the veyron is able to sustain 1G acceleration for longer.
The original post was acting as if this car was going to push you against the seat back harder then you've ever been pushed before.
Life is too short to proofread.