Quarter mile times can be estimated from a car's weight and engine horsepower.
If you would like to know how much time it would take your car to travel down a quarter mile strip, pedal to the metal, without risking life and limb by actually doing it, a simple calculation will give you a good estimation. The two most important factors that determine a car's ability to accelerate over a short distance are its weight and the horsepower in its engine. If you know those two characteristics of your car, estimating its quarter mile time is easy.
Instructions
1. Look up your car's weight and engine horsepower in its manual. For example, consider a car that weighs 2,500 pounds and whose engine can put out 300 horsepower.
2. Divide the weight of the car by its engine's horsepower.
Example: 2,500/300 = 8.3
3. Take the cubed root of your answer from the previous step. All scientific calculators have a cubed root key; it looks like a square root symbol with the number '3' in the upper left corner.
Example: Cubed root of 8.3 = 2.02
4. Multiply your answer from the previous step by 6.29 to complete the calculation.
Example: 2.02 x 6.29 = 12.7
This answer tells you that a 2,500 pound car with 300 horsepower would have quarter-mile time of approximately 12.7 seconds.
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