LAMBRETTA PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS SERIES AERODYNAMICS

Tuning the engine to gain more speed and acceleration is probably what every Lambretta owner wants to achieve. The problem is the quicker you accelerate up to your top speed the more wind resistance starts to slow you down. It is often called the drag coefficient and to put it in easy terms is a force that works in the same direction as the airflow. The faster the vehicle is travelling the stronger the force gets. This is where the amount of power an engine creates helps to overcome it but the problem of a Lambretta is the limited amount of power available. As an example, a good sprint Lambretta with 35bhp can accelerate as quick as, quite often even quicker than, a large cc motorbike over the 1/8th of a mile. By that time the Lambretta is travelling in excess of 80mph but as the speed increases, the rate of acceleration decrease as the drag coefficient gets greater. Whereas the motorbike has more power to battle the force, hence why it will win over the full quarter mile distance. And the motorcycle has another weapon in its armoury to combat this, in the form of a fairing to cut through the air more efficiently. Streamlining will help a Lambretta accelerate quicker, certainly at higher speed, and allow