Wider tires mean more grip — or so every car enthusiast has been told. Engineering Explained’s Jason Fenske put that assumption to the test at NWAPA’s 2017 Mudfest, running sixty-to-zero braking tests across twenty-seven different AWD and 4×4 trucks and SUVs with a Vbox data logger. The results complicate the simple version of the story muscle car owners repeat about tire width, weight, and stopping distance. Commenters, including more than one physics teacher’s former student, dig into exactly why. Watch to see what the data actually says.
Posts Tagged: Drag Strip
WYCO Racing’s Operation Octane no-prep event turned the pit road at Kansas Speedway into a proving ground for genuinely street-driven cars, no dedicated race builds allowed. A supercharged Mustang Cobra, an Eagle Talon, and even a four-door CTS-V all took their turns on unprepped pavement. Watch to see which daily driver came out on top when the safety net of sticky racing rubber disappeared.
Ford promised the 2018 Mustang GT would be the fastest Mustang the company had ever built, and the 5.0-liter V8 jumped to 460 horsepower to back it up. But hitting the sub-four-second number required a very specific options list that most buyers never checked. Here is what was actually in that combination, why the claim needed an asterisk, and how quickly the 2020 GT500 took the title away.
Jeep’s Grand Cherokee SRT has run the quarter mile in the low 12s completely stock, and builders pushing modified versions have documented full 8-second passes, numbers usually reserved for purpose-built drag cars. A two-and-a-half-ton family SUV embarrassing classic muscle cars sounds impossible until the numbers show up on the timing board. Watch the full video to see this Grand Cherokee prove it at the drag strip.
