From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Report comparing acceleration with a Hispano, with proposed modifications for a sports car including springs, shock absorbers, tyre pressures, and gear ratios.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 18\3\ Scan041 | |
| Date | 4th January 1930 guessed | |
| -3- GENERAL. We admit our snap acceleration is not as good as the Hispano. This is realized, and designs for a new carburetter have been got out. At the same time we are carrying out tests on one of our Expl. cars with twin Solex carburetter which is the same carburetter as they use on the Hispano and we can with that, approximate to the Hispano results. We have not so far developed Phantom 11 to make it suitable for a Sports car, although it has been discussed at W.W. and some of the points agreed to were as follows:- (1) We should use stiffer rating road springs all round. This would have the effect of lowering the car slightly and reducing the flexibility. (2) We should use twin shock absorbers. During the discussion it was thought that we might use twin hydraulics, but it was agreed that we could not expect our present shock absorbers to fulfil all the requirements. (3) For a car which is to be driven fast, we should recommend higher tyre pressures. Actually in our Instruction Book we recommend 40 lbs. for the front tyres with a proviso that for town work this can be reduced to 35 lbs. We believe it is a practise that trials cars should be run with 35 lbs. (4) We expect shortly to have a higher gear ratio rear axle which would be an advantage to a driver who uses his car like Sir Henry Seagrave. As Sir Henry Seagrave appears to be a very good friend of ours and is an exceptionally good critic on the Sports car. | ||