Club 80-90 Forums

geez....I started this and now forgot what my question was.......erm, oh yes, ok erm right,

I have a high top which on motorways can be rather disconcerting when hit by a side wind, would extra weight at the lower end of vehicle improve the handling....doh

Oh yeah... Forgot about that question!

I wouldn't have thought so to be honest. Compare the weight of your van to a little extra added weight and I'm sure it won't be very noticeable.

Same as Mark, no difference in cross winds or being sucked in by the Juggers

if you filled up the water tank though the extra weight ...........

Wear Sunscreen wrote:
I have a high top which on motorways can be rather disconcerting when hit by a side wind, would extra weight at the lower end of vehicle improve the handling

err no, driving a lovely box as I do I can say it dont matter if you are on rails the wind will shove you if it wants, I drive a truck for work as well and 10 ton dont help either

kevtherev wrote:

Citizen Smith wrote:But anyway if you do the sums you will find that rolling resistance is almost unaffected by the difference in vehicle weight due to full or empty tank.

I don't care how you drive, Gravity pulls objects to earth at 9.8ms2 and as gravity converts mass to weight, the energy needed to move mass away from the point of gravity will be exponentially higher with a larger mass
or..
up hill you'll need more energy to move more weight : thus more fuel .

Come off it Kev while quoting those figures from your Science and Technology course book you completely omitted to mention that you get it all back when you go down the other side. Plus I don't think the relationship is exponential. Doh!
Cheers
Wolfie

Having a hightop I just see a full water & leisure tank as lowering the centre of gravity

Ian

.......you only claw it back if you freewheel down and doing that was generally given a thumbs down on a previous thread. Your engine is less efficient on the over run than when actually driving it. Look at any ECU programm and see what happens to the mixture on over run, it leans out! Simple fact, you need more energy to move a greater mass and Kevs basic argument is correct. However, how much difference having a full or empty tank compared to the overall weight of the vehicle is debatable. it probably doesn't make a fat lot of difference but there will be a difference even if very small.

AngeloEvs wrote:. Simple fact, you need more energy to move a greater mass and Kevs basic argument is correct. However, how much difference having a full or empty tank compared to the overall weight of the vehicle is debatable. it probably doesn't make a fat lot of difference but there will be a difference even if very small.

indeed

just quoting the findings of most rocketeers.. that's all.