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The 2008 Chevrolet Corvette Z06. All that I see is a green hockey stick with a big zero below it followed by an endless expanse of runway with a course laid out with cones in front of me. Maybe it is a motivational statement, I will hit 0 cones this run. Or maybe it is a warning; you have driven something within 150hp of your current sled exactly zero times. The C6 Z06 is the joke about a genie that gives a man a million antlered animals when he asks for a million bucks, you see. It gives you all the rope you ask for to hang yourself. It is also a car that should be taken as seriously as a joke, it's fun and will always put a smile on your face. I wait for the starter to give me the all clear to go, the lazy, lopey idle of the seven liter v8 shaking the car. I take this time to disable the traction control. The button sits right on the transmission tunnel, but it's not an on-off switch. You can push the button all day long and just cycle the modes, to really turn it off you have to push and hold it for a few seconds. "You sure you wanna do this, bro?" the car asks as it waits. "I got fave hunnert horsepower." A message flashes across the screen, "Traction and stability control disabled". It hangs there the entire time it is disabled, a constant "I told you so". The car is massive improvement over the C5 generation. The leather is nicer, the plastics are less chintzy. The new TR-6060 is a spectacular transmission, the gear shifts are positive and easy. The T-56 was like, I don't know. Rowing a stick through rocks seems like it would be mean to the rocks. Let's call the T-56... purposeful. The new C6 Z06 has that same old corvetteness, but it's improved. A GM piece of poo poo, but it's a giant poo poo meteor burning bright through the sky. Twenty seconds have passed now. The starter looks at me and tells me I'm good to go. I thank him for some reason, I'm big into cordiality, as I bring up the revs and roll out the clutch. The rear tires begin to chuff as their 335mm cross sections attempts to deal with the massive off idle torque delivered by the seven liter v8. And it is massive. Coming up to the line, I started the car in 5th. The motor hemmed and hawed for a second and then propelled the car forward like it wasn't a big deal. The LS7, the genie motor. Praise Jesus and pass the OHV, this motor is absolutely fan-loving-tastic. The power delivery of OHV motors is a bit odd, the torque ramps up with the rpms and peaks close to the seven thousand rpm redline. The noise is not odd, it is angelic. It gets louder and more pissed off sounding in the upper rpms. My passenger gasps a holy poo poo as the needle swings past 4000rpm and the world starts to blur as the acceleration continues to ramp up. A green up arrow flickers on the HUD letting me know it's time for second. By this point we've covered maybe 100-150feet and the car is already at 60. The car will accelerate at a half g at half throttle in second gear. It is bonkers amounts of power. I've seen one running on 7 cylinders still set fastest time of the day, even over GT3s. I throw it into second and get onto the brakes for the first cone. I've driven this car with the stock brakes, they're very grabby on initial bite which is a bit annoying. The new ones in the car are a track/autox compound with very linear force and the braking setup is near perfect. I say near perfect because they also squeal, loudly. The car sounds delighted to be diving into a braking zone, "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" it seems to scream, along with you, screaming "WHEEE" because holy poo poo this thing is fun. Any items not secured in the hatch will also want to come enjoy the car with you up front, forcefully. And you can fit a lot in the hatch, four miata tires. Two dudes eating lunch.  A bottle of water launches itself into the dash from the rear. This is an amenity though, the car is hot inside. You'll need water. You'll also need very precise pedal inputs, the ABS will kick in the stop you from locking up, but there is no lack of braking force, ever. I come off the brakes and begin turning in, the steering is quick but somewhat vague. You can tell the limit but it's not a fine line, but the car is still easy to place. I brace my knee against the door for support because these seats are awful. Truly awful. Comfortable for long distance, but it is sitting on a bench seat in a car that comes capable of 1+g stock. We clip the backside of the cone, at the apex. The hard plastics on the door are textured, and act as a cheese grater on your kneecap if you wear shorts. My knee will no longer have skin at the end of the day. But you should be wearing a fire suit when driving like this anyways, idiot. The handling balance is nice and safe, it slightly understeers at the limit and gives you the confidence to push hard, immediately. If you come off throttle mid corner it will lightly start to rotate the rear. It's all very safe and easy, and the big, approximately empire state building width tread blocks give an easy recovery window. Unwind steering, roll into throttle. The nose is slightly pushing in the low speed corner but I have a sweeping exit, so the motor will sort that out. 2nd gear, 3000rpm, dial up the throttle until the rear starts to slide, then keep in there. Throttle on rotation, any gear, any time. We come out of the corner with the rear slightly ajar of the front. If I was actually looking where the HUD was, the numbers would be doing multiplication tables in 8mph increments. Wheel straight, we are go for full, the LS7 screams its war cry as it hurls towards it 85mph redline. The LS7 does everything you tell it, and that's usually where it all goes wrong. Autocross is about precision, most corners aren't particularly fast, but it's hustling the car through the g circle as quickly as possible. And the car will help you do these things, but it doesn't really teach you anything. Full stability mode uses computer magic to brake individual wheels to keep yaw in check, in this Z06 it squeaks with glee as it does it. Traction control uses spark and will uncork the power is the wheel is unturned. ABS will do it's best to stop you, unless you hit ice mode where the system reduces braking power to half and you blow your braking zone because it's kind of not a great ABS system. Maybe it's a reminder that even the best brakes in the world can't stop you if you're going too fast. But then you turn off the training wheels and the car will chew your rear end off, because you wanted it that way. Get on the throttle too quickly, the Z06 will spin the car at almost any RPM in any gear. Tail sliding and you lift? You're going for a spin. Be a sliver too ginger or too long on the throttle and that corner that has a max speed of 40mph is now coming up at 50mph. It will do everything you tell it, but you tell it to do the wrong thing and you get in trouble, very quickly. I come in, .5s up on the next fastest street tire car. This lead is blown because I hit a cone. Where did I hit it? With the rear tire, the edge of which is approximately a foot to the left of your head. Parallel parking brings in similar nerve wracking oh god where is the tire in relation to the curb moments. All in all, I'd consider this car like a game of Jenga. A lo-fi fun time that is you against the laws of physics with no help but your own skill, and an interior about as nice as a sanded block of wood. If you're ham fisted that tower will come crashing down in a hurry, but with a little precision and skill you can reach the heavens. Muffinpox fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Jul 3, 2015 |
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Jul 3, 2015 19:13
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Terrible Robot posted:
WITNESS! I have to think of everything I've gotten to car whore. Off the top of my head I'll have reviews for the BRZ, first gen Mazdaspeed3, Ap1/Ap2 S2000s, Miatas (several), E36/E46/E92 M3s, 2013 Mustang GT and V6, a stock honda civic lx, and an NSX. I might try and wrangle a drive in some of the weirder cars like a brunton superstalker/1m too.
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Jul 4, 2015 02:26
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2001 C Street prepared Mazda Miata: Or how I learned to Stop Worrying and Love Left Foot Braking Taylor swift blares on the radio. A six point harness holds me into the racing seat, the belts tightly grasping my crotch like a sex crazed significant other asking "want to have some fun?" Yes, miata, I want to have fun. Other than the snugness, the seat is quite comfortable, as are the belts. I've driven with them on several hour road trips and it's never been bad.Then it happens, it always does. A man throws himself at the car. "Can I ride with you?" he asks, wooed by open top racing experience and the roll bar. "Sure, hop in" I tell him. He struggles with the belts for a second. Six point harnesses are easy to figure it out once you've used them but people new to it need some help. "Think of it as a safety starfish, that's how all the belts should align" I tell him. It clicks, and he clicks in. We're good to go. Just me, tswift, and a man by my side. This may be a stereotype, but haters gonna hate and I'm just gonna shake it off. The starter drives an M3 with a loud exhaust, it sounds very good. I rev the Miata at him to let him know I'm the real boss around here though. This Miata has an intake, header, and catback. It puts down 117horsepower to the wheels on a good day. The miata is also relaxing inside, for such a small car they are quite roomy. The stereo quality is great for a convertible and the HVAC functions well. There isn't much else to the car aside from that. Maybe a glovebox. Two cupholders. The car is covered in carpeting and leather that you would find in a mid segment 90s Japanese luxury car. We launch hard, and by hard we are blown forward by the gentle breeze of low horsepower. 60 comes up in a staggering wait poo poo I barely hit 30 by the first left hand cone, might as well flat shift into second and keep my foot buried on the way to reaching 60mph in approximately never. I will never shift out of second, and second goes to 55mph. This all doesn't seem very special or exciting, so what's the big deal here? Well, Miata ownership is like vampires. You can read about them, be around them, you can even ride in one and you'll never really be super impressed. Then you drive a well sorted one and you're bitten, and within a few years you will own one. Everything about the driving experience is just excellence. The steering is hydraulic, and although light it offers great feel. The car is narrow and placing it is a breeze. The brakes are great, the pedal is super accurate. The handling is very neutral, and the car makes it painfully obvious how awful of a driver you are. This car has some very nice coilovers running very high spring rates, stock Miatas roll quite a bit but this one reacts almost immediately to any changes. We pass the first cone, foot still buried flat as 45mph comes charging up. I lift for the next cone into a right and roll into throttle at the apex. The car comes out of the corner and... I can go full throttle immediately. I haven't carried enough speed for throttle to even matter. The car is gently reminding me that my lines and timing blows and I'm ungrateful because it spend all night slaving away getting to 45mph and I'm just throwing all this good momentum that it took so long to build up right out the goddamn window. It is a giant neon motel flashing sign of "THAT WAS SLOW" with the arrow pointing exactly to where you sucked. The next cone I am going to push a little bit harder, which isn't difficult getting to that little bit because building speed comes slowly. The front balks and starts to scrub only slightly because I didn't blow the corner by several million mph too fast. Ok, just a wee bit slower for that one. Still, there goes my momentum. This is where the Miata becomes the Mr. Miyagi of the most important part of being fast, braking. With your left foot. Prepped Miatas handle perfectly. The only way the car is slow is if the driver is slow, so you start figuring out ways to cut time anywhere you can using any method you can. You don't have time in a Miata to transition your foot from brake to gas. That precious half second is at least .5mph that you desperately need. So you start to brake with your left foot. And then you start to brake going all the way into the apex instead of a straight line. And then you start to brake a little to transfer some weight onto the nose when you're understeering in a sweeper, and then you develop the ability to hurl the car into a corner and use minor inputs to keep the car going exactly where you want it, like a wizard. It's driving a slow car fast using every trick in the book, and it is one of the most satisfying driving experiences in the world. Muffinpox fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Jul 5, 2015 |
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Jul 5, 2015 19:48
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2013 Subaru BRZ This review brought to you by the generosity of Bsamu. This is not the driving experience we need, it is the one we deserve. Everyone wants a fast car because the car is fast. You get intoxicated with the numbers. Fave hunnert herspower. Two hunnert milesanhour. One hunnert thousndollar. You get big wings, big motors, big brakes, and big tires that are semi slicks. It is a car that lets you know it is the boss even if the driver isn't. The driver doesn't need to know how to drive fast, those tires picks up all the pebbles on the road to hurl indiscriminately at pedestrians letting them know that this car is serious business. It looks fast sitting still. I can't open her up on the street bro, the limits are too high. I'm gonna put a $100 on the dash and pin the throttle, if you can reach it, it's yours. They're the class bully. Top dog is fun but sometimes it's better to be off with the theatre kids playing spin the bottle rather than stuffing Timmy McporscheGt3s face in the mud over a few seconds. Fast cars are rewarding and fun, but they are work. They are a well trained Rottweiler that only fetches the ball when you tell it to. The BRZ is a Golden Shepard, it happily trots off to get the ball and it is wagging it's tail in delight the entire way. I'm sitting next to bsamu playing with the rotary dials for the climate controls, because rotary dials are the best kind of dials. Those and toggles. Everything should have those. The interior is typical subaru, I don't know how else to describe it. Sit in a WRX sometimes, it's a uniquely Subaru feel. That means it's pretty nice and the seats are comfortable. It feels like sitting in a bathtub despite not being a super low car. I'm still playing with the toggle and decide I need to stop being weird. Then again, I think the first time I met him, I was dressed as a crayon. Whatever. "What RPM do you launch at" I ask him. "Well, normally 3000-3500", Sike bro. I'm not launching your car. Maybe destroying body work but blowing up a differential is just rude. This car is decently quick, not super slow but not what I'd consider really fast. The torque is very flat aside from the little dip, but once you're past the dip, it picks up speed quite well. So no, no one is going to be slapping a $20 on the dash unless you already owe that money to your passenger. The speedo is pointless and I'm not really sure why it's there, but the digital display is easy to read. The stock tires are also not that great. I turn in for a chicago box and the front goes.. straight. For about a quarter second the tires are flexing and still putting us on the path dead ahead. This car will not be hustled hard like ones on razor sharp race tires. A loud thunk is heard as his left bumper consumes a cone. They still have surprisingly decent lateral grip once loaded up, but transitions are not their strong suit. I apologize for being a horrible person and doing that to his new car, then mention the tires. He tells me someone at the last event had the same feedback when they drove it, so they just started tossing it around to see what it did. I decided to do the same, this run wasn't going to be that fast. Tires really are the first modification that anyone should do to a car, good tires change everything. I am the high school jock, the BRZ is the ugly girl who takes off her glasses and is suddenly Rachel Leigh Cooke. This car really has it going on underneath those tires. The chassis and suspension are really, really great. The car does what you tell it to, and it slides and wiggles the entire time you are doing it. You're not putting down blazing fast lap times but you turn in too hard and the car will oversteer, like any car would, and then you catch the lazy slide and you are sideways and you're already slow so you turn the slide into a power slide and you have a big smile on your face when you do it. You don't need reactions honed by hours of sims or racing go karts either. It's not like cars on race tires when you're doing 80mph pointed off a runway and you're thinking "I hope there isn't anything hiding in that tall grass over there" and leave skidmarks in your underwear almost as long as the ones on the ground. It low, it's accesible, and anyone and their mother can hop in and have fun. Because it is a good car, and it has the foundations of a good car. You know the it can handle another two hunnert horsepweor and maybe another hunnert millimetter of tire and if you took the glasses off, it would be prom queen and kick dirt in the face of Stan Supra. But it's really just a lovely little thing the way it is. InterceptorV8 posted:Nice Starbucks® G-meter you have installed there! I was testing out the Takumi method of driving smoothness! Muffinpox fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 01:05
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Ether Frenzy posted:Great writeups, Muffinpox. Ive ridden in BRZs with real tires so I have an idea, but I like car whoring so I'll save it for when I drive bsamu's again. And hit stuff, again. There are a bunch of cars that handle surprisingly similarly, I haven't driven a BRZ on good tires but it reminds me of the E46 330. You think "this car could really handle another 100hp and be perfect", lo and behold you get in an E46 M3 and it's pretty much perfect. The Z06 handles like a giant prepped miata oddly enough. The only real difference is the width and horsepower. Getting the rear slightly ajar trail braking a corvette at 70mph scares people. In other news I got to drive a NSX again this weekend, so next one up is either the AP1 S2000 or that. Lots of work this week so it might be light on reviews  Any preferences?
Muffinpox fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 17:03
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2002 Honda S2000 Remember that movie where there's that loving family? They've been together for a while and the dad gets a job offer off in a remote location and brings the family with him, promising them a good time. Then the father eventually goes insane and tries to murder his family with an axe. You know that one? Yea, welcome to AP1 S2000s, buddy. S2000s are very unique cars, even for cars. It sounds like a sewing machine at idle. They're also about as big inside as a sewing machine, it's a very small car. It has the same wheelbase as a Honda Del Sol. The engine sits far, far back in a engine bay far, far too big for the motor. With an intake, you can perform an oil change through the hood. The rear shocks have a detached reservoir. It has a unique smell that only S2000s smell like. The power top goes up and down in 9 seconds. It won't let you do it unless the handbrake is up though, the car won't even think about it. It wont put up with your poo poo. The door panels are wide, as is the door sill, and have a leather patch where your knee will brace you. You can wear shorts all day and feel the soft touch of supple leather. The transmission tunnel is tall and wide, with leather where your knee meets it as well. There is lots of very nice leather, everywhere. It is a very liveable and very well put together car. The interior is better than any 30-40k car I have seen, but I suppose that's easy to do when there's about 5sq.ft of total volume. You feel safe, secure. This is great for when you target fixate on a tree. Did I tell you about the time I bought some parts off an S2000 wreck and the frame was pushed into the middle of the passengers seat? S2000s can be tracked without aftermarket roll bars if you pass the broom test, and the windshield hoop can support the weight of the car. Lots of people have found this out. That gearbox? That gearbox does not disappoint in the slightest, the only gearshift I have ever driven that is better is in an NSX. And this is fortunate since you will be rowing like an olympic team because that motor doesn't make a ton of power below 6000rpm. This is not a problem though, the gearbox is an absolutely joy. The intake noise isn't half bad either. The car has a bit of a bipolar feel to it, drive it slow and the car is rather sedate. In fact, you can drive it very, very hard, almost to the limits, and it will still be sedate. Then you get to that last tenth and it becomes a complete madman. I get the go ahead. The F20 likes revs. I don't mean that it can be revved high, it wants to be at redline. It's not terrible down low but the motor wakes up the higher the revs go and it does not let up until it hits 9000rpm. There is no torque drop off, only a single minded charge into motorcycle territory. You feel a bit uncomfortable at that range, like something is going to fail and put a rod through the block. You're Billy Crystal and the car is Meg Ryan, screaming "YES YES YES" with it's demonic mechanical wail in the diner. Everyone is staring, the car is content, you're trying to figure out if this is really happening and order the bread sticks. I turn in for the first cone, the steering is a bit strange; it is very quick on turn in and a bit slower off center. It has electric assist and doesn't provide a ton of feedback. It's not great, but it's not the dullest thing I've ever driven. The nose is very pointy and has a lot of steering lock relative to the short turn to turn ratio. You will need both of these. The handling is the definition of completely neutral, the car will understeer or oversteer depending on your inputs. On coasting, you can push right up to the limit without any issues. It gives you confidence. I'm overconfident in my steering input, and it begins to oversteer. Fortunately, thanks to the quick steering this is easy to catch. But you have to be fast. Very fast. Or you do this.  I recover, we've scrubbed speed so I roll into throttle, even with 140ft/lb it still proves to be a bit too much. Now the car begins to slide. Again. I back out a bit and catch the slide, lifting too much will spin the car. I'm being sloppy here, I'm not being deliberate enough. We're in the middle of a fast sweeper. I am not dedicated, I lift a bit and the rear comes around. We go into another fast sweeper, I am learning to trail brake and the rear starts to rotate. I panic and I slide the car. I'm in the ring with Mike Tyson. It is perfect. It knows all my flaws and is hammering me relentlessly when I open myself up. I am not good enough for this fight. S2000s are lauded for their handling, they handle like a real race car. Stock, and even once setup, they are very very fast cars. And they require you to know your poo poo at the limit, like a real race car. It is not a car to tolerate the inexperienced, it will punish you for any mistake you make and it will do so in a very brief manner. It will not tell you your mistakes either, you must figure it out. That is not to say it will do it without warning, it gives ample warning, but the recovery window is more like a quick time event. You will not be deliberate enough with turn in and the car will say "Pop quiz hot shot, where are we going now?" You better have "sideways" drilled into your head because that is exactly where, and it wont wait long for your answer. The AP2 generation had the rear suspension tamed down, a bit easier to drive. But for as difficult as it was to drive, it is just as magical when you really got it right. Muffinpox fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 01:52
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E36 M3 I dated someone for close to three years total. At the end of the relationship I thought the grass might be greener on the other side, I wanted to experience the world. I wanted to be single. So we broke up and I got everything I ever dreamed of. Then I found my illusions of grandeur were just that, illusions, and that I had what I wanted all along. But then it was too late to get it back, and as my life turned to ashes in my mouth I went on a year long bender trying to fill the hole in my heart with a back loader filled with drinking and sex only to come out emptier and more alone than I ever was. That's kind of what stock E36s are like. Now, don't get me wrong here, the E36 is a good car. There's a reason they're as prolific as the miata. Driving cars fast is fun and the BMW is no exception. But I sit in the Vader seats and it's just that immediate feeling, like when you first meet someone whose Okcupid profile is amazing and seems like everything you want and then the first half hour of conversation is a shambling mess about your favorite flavor of Orbitz gum while you desperately try to get a flow going, only for her to excuse herself to the bathroom and then crawl out the window. You silently curse that you didn't do it first. The 90s German interior is a 90s German interior, nice materials, functional layout. It is a classic style that will never age out, the stern German dials are easily readable and the driving position is good. I'm going to be American as hell and complain about cup holders but nothing gets between me and enjoying a nice Starbucks® Delicious Iced Coffee G-meter. These cupholders did. Curse you, Germany. Visibility is good too, the hood drops off and it looks like there is no car in front of you. That front is barely even there. This is also partially due to the high seating position, which coming from normal sports cars, feels like sitting in an SUV. You also sit very far forward, it's like being in an mid engined car except the place where the engine would be is maybe taken up with baby seats, or a cage, or ikea funiture or whatever you put in back seats, I haven't driven something that isn't a two seater in ages. Friends? No. Not me. I'm a lone wolf. The lonliest wolf. Someone hold me. But not from the backseat. It's time to go and I stall the car. Again. I stalled it earlier too, because the gearbox and clutch suck. You'll get used to it over time, but you also will get used to your clumsy date stepping on your foot in stilletos. The starter laughs at me. My street cred is suffering. How is the gearbox so terrible? The clutch pedal is springy, the bite point is high and comes up unannounced, and the shifter is okay but in a car like an M3 it is like your dates profile pictures being 4 years and 40lbs earlier than what you get. I'd take a T-56 over this. I'd take an early Audi CVT over this. In terms of burns, that is throwing someone into a thermite pyre. Once I restart the car, I get on it hard. The S50 is a good motor, it's smooth it pulls hard up in the rev range. The car is pretty fast but it's also lacking 100hp from the European version. Maybe if I hadn't driven an E46 M3 prior to this I would be ok with this lot in life but I did and I'm not. It is going out with a younger sibling only to find she has an older sibling that is better in every way, and is available. One that also keeps flirting with you and saying it could be. It could never be, not now. You've committed, and you've committed wrong. I also never particularly cared for the sound of BMW I6s and this is no different. It doesn't sound bad, it doesn't sound great, it just sounds ok. That's right, just Ok. I've driven an LS7 and S2000, I can judge whatever motors I want. Secretly, I'm the devil. Let me gloss over the good parts quickly so I can continue hating this car. The E36 does what all M3s do and is a benchmark of handling to every car in the world. There, I said it. I turn in and the steering weights up with great communication. It is extremely linear, there are no hiccups or gotchas. You know how much grip the front has left and what it is doing at every moment, it just goes where you point it. The rear suspension is no different, there is no toe change induced over steer or understeer, you turn in, the suspension loads up to the max, lets you know, and you go on your merry way. Most cars take me a bit to get used to but I am hurling this thing at corners at maximum attack 2 cones in without any errors. It is good, it is linear, it is the no nonsense stern German driving experience and it deserves to be king of the hill. The long throttle makes exiting easy and putting down the exact amount of power you want a breeze. We clip cones, hang out the rear on tight corners to balance out understeer, and generally just drives amazingly for the entire run. Okay. There. That's the good stuff, the core mechanics. Back to hating. Did I mention slow stuff? Did I mention the steering in this thing? It has 8 billion turns lock to lock. I could shuffle a Peterbilt through the tight stuff faster than this thing. I fly into a slalom and do my best impression of being a Canadian lumberjack slaying the worlds largest red oak. People tell me to shuffle steer and I tell them to buy a real steering rack. While I'm at it, I hate this steering wheel. Early 90s steering wheels with the 4 spokes are terrible. Anyone who ever approves a 4 spoke wheel needs to be fired. The handbrake is unpleasant. Harman Kardon is a dumb name for a company. Estoril Blue is a great color but it isn't Laguna Seca Blue. I hate the way the ignition feels when you start the car. I'm complaining about little things that have nothing to do with driving because I hate this car. This is a great car to drive and I just hate it so much. Muffinpox fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Jul 11, 2015 |
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Jul 11, 2015 02:12
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Sadi posted:I've got a Miata and an e46 m that I autocross and I test drove the poo poo out of a C6Z06 and I agree with you on everything you've said. Wish I would have had the pocket change to pick up a z06. That was an awesome car. I keep wanting one but can't justify it, they're surprisingly great all around cars. Human Grand Prix posted:Keep 'em coming. Anything for you, baby.
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Jul 11, 2015 02:26
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1991 Acura NSX: Forget the rest of the engines, midengine is the best engine Do you even lift, bro? I do and it's not doing me a slight bit of good here, my long gangly arms lack the mechanical advantage to turn this unassisted steering rack as easily as I want. The front strays from my desired course as the grid worker points me to the starting line. I silently curse the God King Ayrton Senna and his smaller build. Let's get a few things out of the way first. Top four automotive designs: 1) Wedges 2) Phallic shaped cars 3) Phallic shaped cars with convertible tops 4) Boxy cars If you are a child of the 80s meeting your hero car will never let you down, because no matter how it drives, a wedge shaped car is always the best car ever. F40, Countach, Vector, MR2, Esprit, Stratos, the list goes on forever. When I was 17 I worked at an Acura Dealership and we had a bright yellow targa 2004 NSX. I was never able to drive it, but I sat in it and it was like a space ship. I owned a Legend GS at the time, the dash pod was intimately familiar. But the sloped back center console, the bare bones and fantastically finished interior, the two weird control nubs sticking off the steering wheel column behind the stalks; it was all the coolest thing in the world. I coveted that car, I barely ever see them. 11 years later I got to meet my hero, and my hero had pop up headlights. I bowed to this car as I entered and sat in the wonderful seats. Literally bowed though, Honda doesn't particularly make their sports car with people over 5'10" in mind. I cursed God King Senna again for his stature. I can fit in the car fine without a helmet, but they add quite a bit of height to your dome and mine was caressing the headliner. Unfortunately my helmet has no tactile sensation beyond "something hit my head", but if it did I imagine that it would not be the worst feeling place to have your head jammed against. Old Acura interiors really are great. I sit at the line waiting for the car infront of me to go. I am revving the motor because the raspy V6 sounds amazing, and the mechanical roar behind my head of the motor is intoxicating. I play the sitting still but powershifting game because the gearbox is absolutely the pinnacle of car gearboxes. The gearshifts feel like they are the width of a matchbox. They are crisp, clean, and I hate the rifle bolt analogy but it really fits. I would write this thing a Shakespearean sonnet to this gearbox and my next entry might actually be one. Yes. I watch the car round the corner onto the back runway, I will be released soon. It is not hard to watch him either, the hood does not exist looking out of this car. It is an uninterrupted widescreen view to the world in front of you. Three seconds, rev the motor up to 2000rpm. Two seconds, turn off Katy Perry. One second, hide erection. "Go" the starter says, go meet your hero. The power isn't bad, but not a blazingly fast car on par with most of todays offerings. This made 270hp stock and weighed in around 3000lbs. It has good torque across the 8000rpm range, and it shrieks all the way up to that redline. Into second, I will not be leaving second. Second hits 80mph. This is a very long gear. The first cone comes up and I get onto the very good brakes, then I miss my apex because my weak baby arms aren't used to turning a real mans steering rack and goddamnit why does this take so much effort to turn. Manual racks offer a lot of feedback but they have their little idiosyncrasies. Turning under braking becomes harder, turning on throttle becomes easier. Turning in general is just hard. I miss my hand holding. Slow through the next corner, I lack the confidence about how much effort is needed to turn, and then I enter the slalom and the magic of rear midengine appears to be like a Jesus with a beard growing out of his lower back. Let's talk about weight an handling. Weight makes you wait, and waiting is slow. A light front engined car that goes where you tell it usually has at best a 50/50 weight distribution, and how long it takes the front end to settle is how fast you can make it through slaloms. Midengined cars with the rear weight bias do not wait on the front end. You point the front end and the rear eventually comes along. Going through a slalom becomes a hilarious game of how fast can I turn the wheel. The entire car becomes a game of fast can I go before the rear wants to come along too much. My frail build was forcing me to build up to this, but midway through the slalom it clicked. Boss that front end. Get on that accelerator. Free your mind. I drop the hammer, Senna has touched me through the headliner. Midengine cars are capable, they are on a whole other realm of handling once you get into it. They rotate, they rotate, and they rotate. It's like going from being able to jump on skates to pulling triple salchow. And then you fail as spectacularly as missing a triple salchow. I hit a bump on a fast right hand sweeper in the back section. The rear is overdampened and I feel it heave up. I feel the chain of the anchor that are the rear tires break free. The rear rotates. It continues rotating. Oh boy it's rotating a lot. I instinctively turn into it, with instincts honed on power assist cars. Did I mention manual racks are hard to put steering input into? Ayrton certainly never had this problem, but he was used to midengined Hondas. I hit that point, the point you know there is no return. I have not put in enough steering lock fast enough; my grabbing hook clasps the stuffed bear and it slips away at the last second. Fortunately I have honed my art in an S2000 which constantly tried to murder me, through some black magic I keep the car from looping itself and only lose almost all of my speed. The run is blown, but it is still a fast time. Like the S2000, this is a car I would fear playing hard with on the street. And like the S2000, it's not much like anything else I've ever driven. It is a hero that lives up to all expectations. It is a good car, a pinnacle of the past. A relic of the days when sub 6s 0-60 was still supercar fast and you were at your own mercy. It is analogue, it is a wedge, and it is an everyday wedge. Muffinpox fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Jul 16, 2015 |
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Jul 16, 2015 07:16
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Terrible Robot posted:If I was really, truly honest with myself, the Acura NSX is the car that I would have over basically any other car. Thanks for doing nothing whatsoever to diminish this feeling. I was told buying an NSX is like this: 10 Look at NSX. Think "that is expensive" 20 Look at other, faster, cheaper, newer cars 30 Realize they are not an NSX 40 Go to 10 kimbo305 posted:If I got an AW11 or NSX, I would pretend it was an A-wing 100% of the time. Ditto SquirrelGrip posted:the only way i will replace my sw20 is if i get a nsx because mid engine best engine Rear engine is pretty cool too, they rotate even more than MR cars. The first time I rode in a 996 911 it proved it was a real 911 by going off into the grass rear first.
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Jul 17, 2015 16:57
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BlackMK4 posted:I have a friend that got a rebuilt one for $5k. A+ deal, would buy myself. (I was going to but he swooped it out from under me) I'd avoid them like the plague if they have even a whiff of frame/suspension damage. AP1s are very finicky about the rear suspension set up, even if it aligns right sitting on a rack it will drive like slamming your dick in a drawer if the suspension geometry is out of synch under rebound/compression. Disgruntled Bovine posted:I'm curious how something like a Cayman compares to an NSX. I'm guessing favorably simply because it's newer, but they're both small, (relatively) light, mid engined cars renowned for their handling and driving feel. I'm sure the Cayman doesn't offer the same feel as the NSX, being so low and having such a great greenhouse, but if you ever get the chance to drive one I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter. I'll try to wrangle a drive, but most modern cars lack the feel compared to 90s stuff but also inspire a lot more confidence immediately. I had to feel the NSX out for a bit and even then the car was somewhat unruly. Compared to the C6 Z06 which is monumentally easy to drive even balls out in a downpour as long as you keep your throttle in check. blk posted:Do an Elise? I doubt I'll ever get to, I haven't seen one in at least two years. They're awesome though, they change direction like nobody's business. 88h88 posted:Have you driven one? They're seriously fantastic cars and I was reading that 'review' just nodding my head. I feel that autocrossing an S is almost blasphemy as the car screams to be wrung out on twisty roads with you smashing up and down that gloriously slick gearbox and mashing your foot to the floor while the engine just revs up and up. It's a good place to get used to them and their behaviour, but they definitely came out of the factory with backroads/tracks in mind. A lot of setup involves inducing understeer so the rear end is more manageable in autocross. PaintVagrant posted:Awesome thread! Thanks! I havent seen anyone review how cars feel at autocross so I figured I would try something different. I might try doing a in car video review at the next event. I'm also going to try and wrangle a 2.5rs with a 2004 STi drivetrain swap for the next event 
Muffinpox fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Jul 20, 2015 |
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Jul 20, 2015 20:09
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E46 and E92 M3: Stuntin like my daddy HEY! HEY! WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN E46 M3 OWNER, AN E92 M3 OWNER, AND A PORCUPINE? THE PORCUPINE'S DAD DOESN'T OWN A DEALERSHIP. Some cars change over their model lives but not really, the recipe remains the same even though they make continual improvements. The Viper was an unrelenting gently caress you to owners from the first to the previous generation, until Dodge was finally forced to add traction control. Sure the car improved, it went from literally being built in a shed to only being a facsimile of a car built in a shed, but it still kept the same character of a big honking motor that felt like the world was exploding while you were trapped in a shed that was also exploding. The door sill was like playing a game of "the ground is lava" except it was actual lava that would burn the poo poo out of you. You didn't really need to read several reviews to understand that every generation was a car that hated you. And this is why I'm reviewing a bunch of different M3s at once. Despite my raging hate boner for the E36 M3, BMW basically ruined the sports sedan for the rest of the world. Back to back to back, the cars are like meeting Charles Windhouse Nettleton Sr, Charles Windhouse Nettleton Jr, and Charles Windhouse Nettleton the 3rd. They all work in finance and enjoy yachting. All of their favorite drinks are rum and cokes. They all share the same Golden Retriever. Their houses differ but they are all multistory sprawling waterfront property somewhere in CT. Charles Sr. likes swing music, Charles Jr. grew up with Phil Collins, and Charles the third takes molly every weekend and hangs out at EDM festivals in between posting to instagram and snapchatting doing lines of blow off of some girls rear end. The E92 is a friendlier car than the E46. I don't say this because it's easier to use, but because a little arm pivots forward to hand you the seatbelt when you get in. It's more modern, while the E46 is still very pleasent, the interior is a bit dated. They're both immediately BMW though, well laid out, nice leather, nice wood or metal trim pieces. The gauges are large and easily readable. The E92 has a chime to it that is annoying as poo poo but once it shuts up and you fire up the V8, the noises are much more pleasant. The E92 has the loud tick of modern direct injection while the E46 just has the low thrum of a BMW I6. Like their E36 brethren, the seats in both are great and the driving position is perfect. Both hoods drop off and offer excellent visibility through a wide view greenhouse. The E46 has a power bulge but the E92s plays a part in your view more like David Bowies Cod piece in Labryinth. It has it's own billing and make up trailer. Unlike its E36 father, the E92 M3 manual gearbox isn't the most terrible piece of poo poo in the world and is mostly just ok. It still has a weird rubbery shifter feel and a notchy engagement but I hate it much much less. I could live with it, maybe even learn to love it after some Stockholm syndrome. I pull up to the line and don't stall it once. The E46 has the much hated SMG. I've heard awful things about the SMG, mostly that it feels like someone first learning to drive stick and having no idea what to do when the car starts bucking. I've also heard it slams shifts home with more vigor than a submariner on his first night back from patrol docking in the port of a lady of negotiable affection. This sound bad but, it's still not that E36 gearbox so it's a loving saint to me. I get the go from the grid worker to pull up to the line, the SMG does it's duty normally. It is still a manual after all, drive it like a manual car and it will be smooth. No creeping along on the brakes at parking lot speeds. Three, two, one, go. For their power differences, the E92 doesn't feel much faster than the E46. They both have great amounts of power for street cars, they're solidly fast without the "oh poo poo I'm going really fast" realization that comes up very quickly with cars in the mid single digit power to weight figures. You can really enjoy the noise of the motors winding out. Mostly the E92, because the E46 I6 still sounds a bit tinny to me. While were at it, lets just talk about how amazing that V8 is. It sounds obscenely good, especially with an exhaust. Time for second gear. The E92 motor is really a wonder, the torque is completely flat for the entire powerband. It's also responds to inputs instantaneously. I had a problem being janky with gearshifts puttering around because it picks up and drops off revs so quickly, shifting with anything less than a 3000rpm gap or slamming the shifter into the next gear as fast as possible makes you miss your target RPM. No, this car is set up to be wrung out, and should be. All the time. I click the up paddle in the E46 and the stadium goes wild as big Pappi nails one out into Landsdowne street. It shifts hard in the most aggressive setting, which might get annoying in traffic but it's pretty awesome while racing. The feeling of fast is relative, smooth torque curves feel nice and serene and are easy to drive, but violent is more fun. I actually quite enjoyed the gearbox. You lose the satisfaction of a perfect shift, but being able to trail brake in with your left foot and let the car sorting out downshifts is undeniably faster. I tend to run in one gear at autocross because rarely is there a good spot to downshift into a better gear, but I would go into whatever gear I pleased in the E46. It's that moment where you hate something, but it proves you wrong, but you still hate it on principle. It's like listening to your grandparents unpolitically correct opinions, they're going to die soon so let them hold onto that belief for a little while longer. It was nice knowing you manual enthusiasts, but this is how the stickshift ends. Not with a whimper, but with an E46 SMG gearshift going BANG. The steering improved from the E36, which while communicative was also somehow vague. Maybe overboosted. I don't remember, I blocked it from my memory. The E46 has great steering weight and feel, while the E92 has good weight but you have to pay attention more to get the road feel. The handling doesn't really change from the E36. They both have that same characteristic M3 obedience to commands, they're sure footed with a bit of push at the limit to let you know you're at the edge. Like the E36, within the first two cones I was at maximum attack with a well defined limit. The cars do handle inputs a bit differently though, the E36 and E46 like smooth inputs and will wiggle around if you try to ham fist it. They wont bite you, but they also won't be that fast unless you're deliberate. The E92, on the other hand, has some devil magic in that diff because you can go absolutely buck wild on that car and it just does not give a gently caress. With TC off, you can do your best Irish river dancing impression on that gas or brake pedal and it is still scorchingly fast. The other difference is weight. The E36 and E46 are not really lightweight cars, but they don't feel heavy. The E92 has a bit heft to it, you can feel the mass of the car in transitions. It's a different feeling, and in a way that's what the M3s are all about. Since this is a bit of a comparo review; I liked the E92 the most. It feels the most complete out of the three, the final product of decades of prototyping. Cars evolve, the driving experience evolves, but these 3 M3s have the same principle at the core. They're a Mario video game; you're always going to be stomping Koopa, but it's up to you decide if you liked that the most on the NES, N64, or the Wii. Muffinpox fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Jul 24, 2015 |
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Jul 24, 2015 18:41
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Larrymer posted:Gen2 MR2 requested. Turbo, if you can get your mitts on one. I saw one at an event but I wasnt signed up so I could only ride in it, not drive it They said they'd be back though!
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Jul 24, 2015 19:19
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Next review up is a dissertation on why wrong wheel drive cars are somethig everyone needs to flog at least once.Ether Frenzy posted:Great writeup on the M3's, man. Dig your sense of humor/ability to put it on a page. Yea, its a wonderful car. I guess one thing that I left out is that the earlier M3s drive the same way either slow or fast. The E92s driving experience is a lot more akin to a big S2000 than an M car, it can be driven slow but it feels the most harmonious when you're driving it hard. HotCanadianChick posted:You mean SNES, N64, or Wii. I blocked super Mario world out of my memory as well, so that's very fitting. NitroSpazzz posted:What area are you in? I might be able to provide or find a REAL M3 for you to drive. Boston, MA. Is it an E30 M3? Please say it's an E30
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Jul 26, 2015 18:45
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2009 Civic LX: Wrong wheel drive is the most fun wheel drive It's always the end of the day when things go wrong. You're tired and ready to pack it up, when trouble comes looking for you. My trouble came in the form of a short raven haired girl. She peered into the door of my car where I was catching up on the latest "Wait Wait don't tell me" pod cast. "You've gotta help me" she said. "What's the problem ma'am" I asked. "My time. It's missing. I know there's some time out there but I can't find it. They told me to come to you, said the other instructors were busy. They said you could help. Please, you're my last chance, I only have one run left." A familiar story, I've heard it all too often. But I'm a sucker for helping out novices, maybe it's the way I was raised. "I'll take the job." I told her, "What have you got." She tells me a Civic. It's parked over there. I tell her I'll drive. I strap on my Bell as a precaution. You never know how hairy things will get out there. I get in, the seat is comfy and cloth but the interior is still econobox. Honda econobox, so it's still pleasant, but with these kind of jobs you always end up in something a little dingier than a Ritz. There's a bit of style to it, it's not just purely functional, which is a plus. But it's never people with the nice things that need your help, they're always too proud. A menacing 0 sits in my vision. Maybe it's a bad omen, maybe it's just a readout of the cars current speed high on the dash. A big tach stares at me from between the spokes of the steering wheel. No, it's nothing I tell myself. This will be fine. I look at the deep dash, and I mean the extremely deep dash. It looks like the window almost reaches the front of the hood. I get that feeling again, maybe something is wrong. I'm not in a sports car. We're slowly creeping along and I notice gentleman standing alongside our path, watching me and my client intently this entire time. She is silent, he stares at me. Then he points at us. I've been set up, it's a double cross. I slam the shifter into first to get out of there. It has a typical Honda snick snick but the leverage is long, very long. It feels like an evo8 shifter. I bring up the revs and let out the clutch and I stall the car. "Damnit" I curse under my breath, the pointing man pulls something from his pocket and begins to approach the car. I should have known this was going to happen, every Honda with an ethrottle does this. You tip in the gas, the revs come up and stay, but the throttle position doesn't really get held. The revs fall off faster than the distance between me and the pointing man. I hit the ignition again and clamber away. The pointing man is next to the window, he has an iphone in his hand now. A sharp barb about how he remembers his first time driving manual skims across the hood and the 185mm Primacys scramble for traction. That was a close one. This case suddenly got hot, now we're running out of time. I have to find those seconds. It's my only hope. Maybe it's around the first cone, I think, I turn the extremely vague, yet well ratio'ed steering. The front axle has a weird feeling when you turn, I can't describe it but the front wheels feel like they're next to you instead of in front of the car. The car is mushy, it's not made for this, it rolls like a boat. it's slow to react. It's more like tacking, just like all the time time I spent racing before I was into cars. Just the serene sound of wind and water. None of this. None of the screaming. This case was never about the seconds, she knew the entire time. This was a murder case, and I'm being framed. No, not framed. I'm doing it. And I'm enjoying it, I'm murdering those tires. I cock second gear, the screams grow louder. I feel my rubber blood lust grow, I push harder. I don't have time to register the morality of what I'm doing to these tires. I have to keep going through this, if I let up for a second this case will be blown. Me and the dame, I wont get to the bottom of finding those seconds. The motor in this car is weak, I have to drive it like a momentum car. I throw it at the next right cone, the tires shrieking for mercy as they go past their grip threshold and hope they settle in the desired location on the other side of the apex. We enter a slalom, the car is not fast through here. The body is well controlled but with the soft springs it still wallows like a boat and the front keeps pushing. I can't afford to lose time here, I pull out the oldest FWD trick in the book. It's been a long time since I've driven this drive train but I remember it's secrets; it's like an old bike. When in trouble, hit the gas and let Jesus take the wheel. We come into the slalom, I'm trail braking with my left foot. Dive past the first cone in a straight line to set up for the second under braking, turn the wheel and push the brake pedal harder, harder, harder. There's not much feedback through the pedal, but it's a brake pedal. It does it's job. Finally it happens, the rear tires give up and the back slides, "Oh no! We're done for now!" she says. "Not yet, not if I can help it" as I grit my teeth and slam on the gas. The car gets the correct amount of rotation and I straighten out the steering wheel. The cone is coming straight for her door, closing the distance like the pointing man. "Not like this!" she says. At the last second the front pulls the car into the intended trajectory and saves us from the slide. The rear settles and continues on like a pendulum from the momentum, setting us up for the next cone in the slalom. "There we go, that's how you do it" I tell myself. The car is going to try and push so you have to use weight transfer to rotate the car any way you can. I come into another cone, a bit too hot on entry, I lift off the throttle abruptly and the nose dives. Weight comes forward and the car changes it's line, sailing past the backside of the cone with the tires bleating for help. We're gonna do it. We're gonna find those seconds. I don't want to remember the rest of the run, the tires. The screaming. I washed it all away with a stiff whiskey later. We found her time, a good two seconds of it on her next run when she saw how to manage the front. But I saw what I was capable of, liking FWD. Funny as hell, it is the worst thing I can think of. But the dynamic is so good, rotate the car with the rear, save the car no matter how deep you're in it with the front, and all the fun of a RWD momentum car. "Trouble" I mutter to myself as the Z06 waits parked outside "always comes looking at the end of the day." I close the craigslist tab of civics. Muffinpox fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Jul 31, 2015 |
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Jul 31, 2015 02:28
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The Midniter posted:This was easily your best one yet. Awesome thread! I don't know how auto journos write the same thing over and over, I tried writing this in the normal style for a week and just got bored. Then I watched The Naked Gun and wrote that in an hour. What I'm saying is everything should be written under the influence of Leslie Nielson. Wrar posted:I can't stand the throttle lag on my fiancee's 08 Civic. It's vile. Is it an auto? I don't remember the manual being bad enough to ire me. Then again, eThrottle is kind hit or miss in terms of implementation. The C6 Z06 was extremely responsive in the upper rev ranges, but below 3k you could let off throttle and you could count the seconds until it began engine braking. Then there's the E92 M3 and Gen V Dodge Vipers which beat out even S2000s for throttle response. Sadi posted:If you haven't yet you should try one of the 2015 mustangs. I can't believe how loving fast they are at autocross. I've heard, from someone who races a Boss 302. There's one at the next event, I'll see if I can drive it. NitroSpazzz posted:No luck on finding a E30 M3 for you to beat up yet, still waiting to hear back from a couple guys. I promise not to break it. Much.I really want to drive an E30, one of the instructors I rode with when I first started had an S54 E30. It's been 3 or so years so I don't remember exactly what it was, but the E30 rear end felt a lot less surefooted than later 3 series, maybe that the geometry wasn't as linear in compression? Maker Of Shoes posted:THIS. Holy Christ I thought I was going crazy. I've driven manuals my entire life but some moons ago I borrowed a buddy's Civic in the same vintage for a small road trip. I have never had a more difficult time driving a stick my entire life. Like, it seriously made me doubt buying anything but an automatic. Stalling, couldn't get a smooth gear change to save my life, jerky engine braking. The car was brand new and something told me that a brand new car couldn't be the problem and it was somehow me. Every single Honda I've driven with eThrottle is absolutely terrible like that. My dad has a 2004 TSX and I stall it every single time I have to drive it. It takes several miles to finally get a smooth gearshift.
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Aug 1, 2015 03:27
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I'll be watching you: 1959 Brunton Super Stalker pt 1 Hold on excuse me for a second  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHOH MY GOD!
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Aug 1, 2015 03:50
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Seat Safety Switch posted:One of the Seven clones at my local autocross has a warmed-over 302. I got to take a ride along once as long as I promised to close my visor and keep my hands crossed on the restraint belts like a rally driver preparing for a rollover. Nah, I don't want to step on the toes of the review too much but there's a certain threshold that you hit with cars that rely on mechanical grip. It can be super lightweight or have a trillion horsepower, but you're still taking that corner at pretty much the same speed as anything else. Aero is what ruins everything for you. I rode in a 599XX and have not chased the dragon enough to replicate the experience of my brain struggling to comprehend that we weren't going into a wall at the end of a straight at 150mph even though it's like five feet away because the car can pull 2+g under braking. NitroSpazzz posted:If you were more in the NY/CT area or TN it would be easier... I'm down in NY pretty frequently, I could attend a MetLife stadium event pretty easily. I would also definitely fly to TN for an E30 M3 and some grand olde oprey. Muffinpox fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Aug 3, 2015 |
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Aug 3, 2015 02:55
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Sorry, this has been a busy week! Part 2 is coming soon, I deleted the draft by mistake but it wasn't that great anyways. Titanic just didn't fit the character of the car, really. I'm gonna try sticking with 1-2 per week, although this weekend involves a snake so I might write like 80 while I'm high on adrenaline.Tremek posted:Yup, also the duration can be modified in HPTuners and other tuning software. When I had my g8 tuned this added a bunch of burble and pop on decel which you can't argue with. Must have feature.
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Aug 6, 2015 23:12
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Sadi posted:Because the BRZ has newer engineering (lol jk wrx suspension) and its 100lb lighter for about the same hp. The twins are designed to be fun to drive and handle well. They're really quick with good tires and respond to modification well because of that, but S2000s are just outright faster cars. Crustashio posted:S2000 is the only car I'd consider trading my e36 m3 for...but the ap2s are still balls expensive and the ap1s are apparently not as good at autoX which is all I do these days. They're pretty much the exact same speed wise. AP1s werent going to beat AP2s in B Stock but in STR prep the difference between the two is mostly the driver. Solkanar512 posted:I'm still having way too much fun in my BRZ after two years, am I doing this wrong? Yes, you need to be complaining about the torque dip.
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Aug 11, 2015 21:31
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There was one there this weekend, but we were in seperate run groups and I couldn't really hand him the keys to what I brought to trade runs.
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Aug 11, 2015 21:42
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dandaman posted:If you're ever in South Florida and there is an autocross going on, let me know. I'll let you co-drive my 350hp supercharged 06 S2000. I've been meaning to kill some cones again. PM me, I'm willing to fly around to drive any cars people want to offer up! I'm gonna try to make it to TN in sept for some M3s. Phone posted:I didn't feel any positive engagement when putting it in gear, just an extra two seconds of questioning if it went into the right gate. I BET YOU'RE THE ONE WHO DESIGNED THE E36 M3 MANUAL YOU SICK SON OF A BITCH.
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Aug 12, 2015 03:16
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Brunton Super stal... what's that.... OH GOD SNAKEBITE 2014 Dodge Viper: But it's a loving Dodge I pull up to a stop light. A Supra abruptly stops next to me and a blonde man with lightly tussled hair and with a bald man next to him look over. "Nice Car" he says, "Whats the retail on one of those things?" "More than I can afford pal", I snarkily reply as I rev the V10, "Dodge."  Before I dive into the review of the Gen V Viper, we just need to talk about the Viper. The Dodge Viper. What can you really say about the Dodge Viper that is not understood by saying "Viper." It is not a car, it is an idea, a classification. It had a TV show in the 90s because it's just that cool. A Dodge Viper is not a model, it is a type of car. It is something that hates you and you buy one because you revel in masochism. Because of this, not many people buy them and occupies a weird super car niche where it is more exotic and eye catching than a Ferrari, but it's a Dodge. They're not a really a beautiful car, but it's also hard to not just stare at them. It has all the stupid gills and vents and wings that people think make cars look dumb, but at the same time it just has such a nice, curvy shape. It's like a lion. It's athletic, it's powerful, it's majestic, and it is built for one purpose; to chase things down and eviscerate them. I picked up camera gear to document this review on Friday night. On the drive back I came across a pack of 15-20 early 20 year olds at a stop sign. Every single one of them became transfixed on the car. The first one to speak was a gorgeous blonde girl that walked over, leaned down so I could see her through the window, and asked "How tiny is your dick?" Snakebite. As I've mentioned earlier, the old Dodge Vipers do one thing and they do it well; they are fast through pure, brunt force and it feel like the world is exploding while you're in a shed that is also exploding. They are not nice places to be. The handling is more of an afterthought. The car hates you. It's the most raw and visceral experience you can even imagine in a car. Everything about them is absolute, unadulterated savagery. It is absolutely magnificent. I get into the new Viper the same way you get into all Vipers; carefully. A big sticker warns you not to touch the wide door sills in case you're a little baby that's going to cry because you're bothered by things like first degree burns on any exposed body part that may touch it. I knew of this risk and still ended up with a first degree burn on my kneecap. Once bitten, twice snakebite they say. There's still that character but then you get in the car it's a bit worrying. The cabin is really nice, actually fitting of a 80k+ car, for once. The cabin is covered in rich leather and nice shiny plastics. The sabelt seats have the perfect amount of bolstering to be unobtrusive like a race seat but keep you in place while driving hard. The rear hatch is carbon and aluminum, the front hood is all carbon. There's carbon and aluminum everywhere. The coilovers use articulated mounts rather than a pillow ball top. You don't see any of this from the driver seat though, just hood. And roof. Then some of the outside world. I'd say 40% hood, 40% outside world, 20% roof. Looking out the rear is approximately 80% hatch and 20% outside world, there's a backup camera to help you out though which is extremely useful but also feels weird to be backing up just staring at a screen. The infotainment system doesn't have menus upon menus, anything you need can be accessed from the first screen. There's some customization options buried in it a bit deeper but everything needed to drive the car and be comfortable is immediate and obvious. The flat bottomed steering wheel is small and has a great thickness to it. The buttons on the wheel make a lot of sense and do everything you want or need to while staying out of the way of hand placement for driving.  The car is big, the hood has three pairs of air extractors running down it from the front, there's approximately two or three feet of car from the front splitter to extractor closest to the cabin on the hood. That closest extractor is the last part of the hood you see before it drops off completely. It's a big car but doesn't feel particularly massive. The gauge cluster is digital and has a bunch of customizable menus. Most are standard vehicle information; do you want the digital speedo in MPH or KMH? What's my current fuel mileage? How far did I go on Trip A? How many hours does the motor have on it? What is the instantaneous G load? What is my peak g load? How fast did I do the 1/8mile? How fast did I do the 1/4mile? What is my 60-0 braking? Ralph Gilles isn't the Dad who tells you to have his daughter to have you home by midnight; he's the Dad who gives you a 12 pack of condoms, a bottle of wild turkey, the keys to his car, and tells you that he doesn't want you to bring his daughter back, he wants a phone call to come post bail for the both of you.  The new Viper, for as nice as it is, is still a clown car. It is not a vehicle, it is an experience. Lighting off the motor sounds like the high pitched whine of a lambo V12 starter followed by a huge PHWOOOM as the V10 explodes into life. I accidentally had my foot partially on the throttle during start up and it emitted a huge backfire which sounded awesome and probably woke up everyone in my building. It has traction control that makes things easy and livable, like a rain mode that cuts power, reigns in the slip angles, and makes it even easier to manage. And even normal mode is unobtrustive but there's a button on the steering wheel that disables it when you hold it for a little bit. But you hold the button down for a few seconds, a message flashes up that ESC is off. From then on, there's no big sign. There's no "Whoa can you handle this?" Every run I left the car idling and before I went out I had to remember to look to see if ESC was still off. Right below the oil temp there was a little Dodge Viper leaving flaming burnout lines behind it. That is the ECS off symbol. There's a launch control button on the wheel too, it's closer to your thumb than the ESC button. If you don't bring up the revs fast enough or disable it, the car calls you a pussy. You should feel bad. Why would you push the button and not do it? Huh? Scared? I've been told the launch isn't particularly fast using launch control, mostly smokey. The engine backfires a lot. It is tuned to backfire even on small rev blips. The motor constantly backfires off throttle from 2000rpm to idle. Every time you drive a Gen V viper like an rear end in a top hat, Ralph Gilles gets his wings doing the worlds sickest burnout in a daycare center parking lot in a HellCat. I get the point out and away we go. The shifter is the same TR-6060 unit as the Z06 but it has a different configuration as it's not running into a transaxle. The already spectacular transmission feels even better in the Viper, much tighter and crisper. The pivot point for the shifter is off center of the transmission tunnel, the height of the shifter changes depending on the gates you are in. It seems weird when you're not driving but feels right at home when you are. They're still tightly spaced and I attempt to start the car in third again. The Viper clutch is also a bit different, it has a very long engagement which clouds if you're in the wrong gear or just being a doofus. It doesn't matter though, there's still prodigious torque and starting in third or fifth are trivial. The starter reminds me to keep the car pointed in the right direction this run. I spun within the first 20 seconds of my second run out when I decided to see how the car would fare in first gear and it didn't go well. It's the engine braking. It's absolutely mental. It is complete and utter savagery with how much there is and how quickly it ramps up. I was told by a first gen driver to stay in the throttle and just brake with your left foot when you need to, otherwise it will spin the car. The first time he learned that was on an offramp in 3rd gear. Every generation does that, he tells me. That's some DNA right there. Snakebite.  I get the go ahead, the long clutch pedal makes launching a bit interesting as there isn't really a bite point as there is a bite zone. Instead of doing what you do with most cars and setting an RPM and controlling the wheelspin with the clutch, the viper is the opposite. You set an RPM, begin engaging the clutch until full engagement, and manage wheel spin with the throttle. Get it right and you will wonder if you latched the hood down correctly because it looks like the engine is trying to tear its way out as the clamshell shakes violently while the 355mm rear tires start scrambling to deal with the amount of power coming through. Coming from the Z06, the OHV motor in the Viper feels odd. The power doesn't swell, it surges. While you have all the torque in the world from idle to 4k, once you hit 4000 and start approaching 5000 there is a noticeable torque ramp up as the car switches from obscenely fast to warp speed ahead. It feels like going into plaid. The intake starts dominating the cabin with the sound of the worlds most pissed off snake hissing. An agricultural V10 blat is screaming from the exhaust a foot below your head. A big red snake appears in the the tachometer to tell you it is time for second. You lift for the gear change and a giant backfire erupts from the exhaust. The 8.4L is insanely responsive, and I don't mean "wow it revs fast for an 8.4L motor", it's the most responsive motor in a street car I have encountered in terms of throttle and eagerness to pick up revs. It is fantastic. I turn in for the right hander and then an immediate left, the steering is heavily boosted due to the 295 width fronts. The steering is sharp, and very fast. It weights up but it's more of a "this will stick" than any actual road feel. There is prodigious amounts of grip. There is prodigious amounts of everything. I'm under instruction to take it easy on the car, not a Sunday drive but not a full 10/10ths. I keep wide on cones and don't try to pile it in but even when I begin to probe, it is just sublime. The car has no real handling gotchas aside from the engine braking. The rear doesn't aggressively oversteer, the front doesn't have terminal understeer. It is easy to be very very precise in this car. Sweet jesus this thing handles really well. It's a Viper that doesn't want to kill you. It doesn't feel like your in a shed while the world is exploding, more like sitting in a Penthouse on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan watching the world explode outside while you're sipping on a Martini. We come off the rear runway with a hard right hander; this catches out all big power RWD cars. It tricks you into wanting to get on the throttle too much too early. The Viper dives forward on the brakes in a straight line, then happily points towards the apex as I trail brake it in. It has the same problem as the Corvette, if you try to drive too fast into a corner, which is extremely easy, you will be pushing wide. The Viper handles going in too hot in a much friendlier manner though. Approaching the grip limits of the car is superbly easy but managing it in transitions is where it becomes a bit tricky, mainly because the base suspension spring/damper setup is atrocious. The spring rates are actually pretty mild and the compression damping isn't too bad, so the car gets a good amount of weight transfer. After the turn we are hitting midrange RPM in second and approaching a slalom fast. The best way into most slaloms is come in hot at an angle, brake once you're past the first cone towards the second and complete braking right when you're turning for the second cone. Devens isn't particularly bumpy place but I've never felt a car skip around so much. The rebound setting is just awful. Really, really awful. Far too much rebound. The car itself is well composed but due to the rebound, it takes on a very skittish and nervous feeling at the limit which doesn't inspire much confidence for placement. I didn't trust that the car wasn't going to be skipping around at the limit. Not that it would spin, but placing it where you want it becomes questionable. This carries over into how fast you can drive it, and getting it into the slalom quickly was not easy. The car responds well to things like trail braking where it is unnervingly stable while in second. In first, trail braking is a death sentence. I suspect the car would have been several seconds faster leaving it in first with with TC on solely because it will cut engine braking when the rear becomes unstable. Once you're out of first though, the rear never feels like it's going to come out and bite you. There was a hard, straight brake zone before a low speed left that I was slowly but surely using to grind these little air flaps in front of the front tires into complete oblivion. The brakes are easy to modulate and there is apparently a never ending supply of front end grip for them. We come in, the time wasn't the best mostly due to the aforementioned suspension and unwillingness to push past 9/10ths in someones brand new Viper but every single person who rode with me said a variation of the same thing, "This thing is mean as gently caress", "This car is savage", "That was insane". The difference is now that the car is actually fast rather than just a tilt a whirl. The Viper sits parked outside my apartment on the street. I return to find a pack of guys staring at the car, taking photos of it, taking selfies with it. They gawk at it. They look at it like a piece of meat. They don't know what it is. One of them figures it out and says, "But it's a loving Dodge. I wouldn't spend 80k on a Dodge." The rest agree. "I would buy a 911 for 80k" one of them says, "It's nicer." He's missing the point of the Viper, I think to myself. I should let them know. I straighten my wife beater and tuss my blow out hairstyle. I walk over and they look down at the aluminum bat I have in my hand. "You talking poo poo bout my Viper?" I ask them, "I don't think you understand what a Viper is about. Let me show you some snakebite" as I start swinging for the fences. Muffinpox fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Aug 12, 2015 |
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Aug 12, 2015 03:30
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Das Volk posted:
Yep, even with the terrible dampers it was still really quick, the only cars on street tires that were faster all had autocross tires and suspension. The bit about the blonde actually happened, I laughed so hard when she said it. Raluek posted:Isn't a backfire when you get flame out the intake? That doesn't sound like what you're describing. It's colloquially used to refer to exhaust as well. Seat Safety Switch posted:
Except for the confrontation, this also happened.
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Aug 12, 2015 17:51
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nailed it.
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Seat Safety Switch posted:You live in a concrete tunnel? Vaultec vault, hes getting ready for the next fallout game.
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Aug 18, 2015 02:31
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drgitlin posted:If I'm reading this right, then yes: http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2011/06/blown-diffusers-so-what-exactly-is-being-banned/ No, if you can find one I would take up the challenge though 
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Aug 19, 2015 16:58
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This super stalker review is cursed. I lost the first draft and then my computer broke last night. I'll try rewriting it from memory today.Psion posted:I know, but if you read the article he didn't ask for it or anything, they practically dropped it off on his doorstep and said "so uh ... here you go" Whhaaaa, I need to sell this to as a column legit website or turn it into a carblog so I can get press credentials. drgitlin posted:I guess I sort of asked for it to drive to Watkins Glen a few weeks ago but they said no because that would have been 1000 miles round-trip, but yes, it was a bit of a surprise. Boston, that would be awesome! The Locator posted:It is. He has won XP every year since 2008 except for 2012 (I think), where the car had some catastrophic mechanical failures at the Pro (which is only a couple days before Nats) and he still managed 2nd or 3rd that year (I'm too lazy to look it up). I don't remember what the failures were, but I remember thinking at the time that most people would have just put it back on the trailer and gone home. For those of you who don't autocross, and wondering why we wear helmets in parking lots, they use a formula to normalize all cars so you can compare drivers and the time is called PAX. It can be used to figure out how fast most cars are in relation to eachother. With the same driver, that Elise is about 5-6 seconds faster than a C6 Z06 on slicks on a 60 second course. Since power isn't really a main factor in autocross, all that time is made up in transitioning so hard your head gets slammed into the door pillars with enough force to probably give you a mild concussion. Muffinpox fucked around with this message at 15:14 on Aug 20, 2015 |
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Aug 20, 2015 14:57
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Brunton Super Stalker pt2: Ohh, beautiful baby, I was very lonely till I met you on Sunday Hello, how are you doing today? Yes, it is a lovely day isn't it. My name is Muffinpox and I'm here to ask you an important question, have you heard of our Lord and Saviour The Lotus Seven? Hey. HEY. DON'T YOU CLOSE THAT TAB, YOU'RE GONNA READ WHAT I HAVE TO SAY AND YOU'RE GONNA LIKE IT. I was once like you, you see. A sinner. I wanted performance, but I still indulged in the pleasures of the flesh. Rich leather interiors. Radios. Six disc CD changers in the dash. Heated and power seats. I wanted lots of horsepower and grip and I still wanted my backseats. I wanted power windows and power steering and power brakes and powered bolstering. Then I saw the light one day, The Brunton. This thing is a car in the way Toyotas Sprint car entry is a Camry. You don't open the door and sit, you climb over an exterior rollcage and plop down into a a piece of metal welded into the shape of a seat. Before I started the motor I thought I could hear Colin Chapman slightly sobbing at the fact there were cloth covers on the seat. That's like, half a pound. Radio? No. HVAC, AC? Nope. Windshield? Get out of here. Speedometer? Maybe, I couldn't see it. But there were shift lights. Roomy interior? The chassis tube is built like a pinebox coffin, which is rather fitting as this where your previous notion of a fast car is laid to rest. The amenities in this car involve a shifter boot and shift light. I roll out to the stop, the steering is unassisted but not as problematic as the NSX. The curbweight is approximately 1500lbs so the wheels actually point where you want them without much effort, even with a very short steering rack. I relish not looking like an idiot and plowing wide again, until I tried to brake and discover they are also unassisted. That takes a lot of pedal force. I keep pressing harder and harder until I come to an extremely abrupt stop. The other issue is that, being a coffin, there is almost no room in the pedal box. I can barely press the gas with my right foot and not catch the brake, left foot braking is out of the question. There's something weird about sitting in a car and being able to see the suspension and tires, especially when you're so low that you're practically the same height. I hear something behind my right shoulder, but it's just a rock being thrown into the fender liner. The front tires won't spook you like that though, they just throw the rocks and tire chunks straight into your face. Who needs a windshield when you have a visor? I get the go ahead and.... it's happened. Great. This car has a supercharged 3800 and produces ~300whp, putting the car in the 4-5lb/hp territory. It is mind bendingly fast acceleration. And I've become accustomed to that level because of that stupid Z06. Yep, that's right, I pressed the gas pedal and thought "gee is that all?" It also may be due to a much flatter power delivery but I would get the pedal all the way to the stop, the speedometer would start spinning like the foot altimeter in a plane doing a straight dive, the cone that was half a mile away a second ago was now here, but the novelty of the intense shove has worn off. For those of you who haven't had this curse placed on them, it's normally the real world version of the world warping as Paul walker slams it into 8th in the first fast and furious. But that's ok, because it's light. You know what seperates fast drivers and slow drivers? Muscle memory. Well lots of stuff, but let's simplify and call it muscle memory. On street tires I now find myself thinking about the suspension settings and what would be better at every single stage of driving because it's all muscle memory that is directing the car. You start paying attention to little things like cracks on the surface, where the rubber lines are, why is that entire corner shirtless, or if a cone is an inch off of its box marking. Not because you're superhuman, just because your brain has finally funneled out all the rest of the sensations so you can focus on dumb poo poo like what is the next chorus of the song I'm humming. It's like Tetris slowly ramping up the speed. The next stage is when you go to slicks, your brain will start to have a hard time comprehending how much quicker things happen and suddenly you find yourself slightly off. Then there's major aero where your brain just shuts off because that one Tetris block is eighty and something is stabbing you in the balls. With that being said, this car was a full 10 seconds faster than my miata, which worked out to ~15-20% faster. This is not the size of speed gap you jump in and tame the dragon on a first run, no matter how good you are. I could not mentally keep up with this car into the first slalom. There is a much smaller window for you to hit your mark, and by the time you think "I'm late" you're at your next mark and late for that too. Even if you miss the car will still go through insanely fast since it has almost no weight, and transitions like you wouldn't believe, but I don't think I got one slalom timed correctly. Then there's the brakes. I screwed up almost every braking zone since I was formerly driving a line where I was using left foot braking. Left foot braking means adjusting your braking zones much much deeper, and I would blow those marks and have to stay wide to scrub enough speed to make corners. Except the one where I went right into a cone wall because I didn't get enough pedal pressure in time, because non-assist brakes. I really hate non-assisted stuff. And then, for the astute, there's a big rear wing and no front wing. The nice thing about cars with mechanical grip is that their handling characteristics don't really change much in relation to speed. Aero cars are the opposite, meaning low speed handling can be vastly different from high speed handling. When you lack a front wing, the car starts understeering more the faster you go. This car went from not fast to going fast, very fast. There was one particular long sweeper where you could feed in power in other cars and everything was chill. In this car I suddenly found myself with diminishing front grip and a nose that was pushing terminally into a box of cones. The question wasn't so much if the car was going to understeer, but how much. This car wasn't as satisfying to drive as I thought it would be, mostly because of the lack of a front wing. But then I saw my time and thought about how much time I left out there and realized that my first, awful run out in the car was good enough for second fastest time of the day by a second. Fastest time was set by this car, and was another 3 seconds faster. And that is absurd. Just absolutely absurd. I heard Colin through the exhaust rumble "Lightweight baby" and I have to agree because my god. All of the speed. Muffinpox fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Aug 28, 2015 |
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Aug 28, 2015 17:13
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IOwnCalculus posted:So clearly the answer is a front wing. It's getting one and they it will be a good 5s quicker which is just silly. Seat Safety Switch posted:There, you've had your fun. Nah, driving cars fast is always fun, it's just a different kind of fun when they're not that ballistically fast. Same with getting accustomed to that amount of power, doing pulls is still awesome but it just lacks the novelty. leica posted:Good thread OP. Could you rate the cars in a list, with #1 being the best car, and then add additional cars to your appropriate spot as you review them? I'd have to think about this for a while, it's pretty hard to do without an objective measuring stick. The civic is really high on my list but numbers wise it's a really lovely car. The Locator posted:Speaking for myself obviously, and not the OP - When I sold my CP car* and switched to a street tired '95 M3, it wasn't so much 'less fun', as a different kind of fun. The XP car I pictured earlier, and the CP car were a kind of fun that, at least for a while, made it worth dealing with the hassle (and $$$$) of a truck & trailer to get them to events. Eventually though, I just didn't want to deal with it anymore, so I went to a 'street' car (it was still a dedicated autocross car, full suspension, race seats and no A/C). Pretty much this, if someone says "do you want to drive the poo poo out of my car" no one is ever going to say no because it's all fun in its own way.
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Aug 29, 2015 19:45
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Tomorrow I get to drive a boost buggy  drgitlin posted:It's really disconcerting when this happens. I wonder if it afflicts Tesla owners? Presumably. They have autoxs at MetLife stadium and I've heard theyre as good as the airfield ones due to the parking lot size so Id be willing to pick up a car in NYC. I'm also dating someone in NYC so I'm down there basically every other weekend. The bigger pain in the rear end would be actually getting the car since I have no idea how parking in NYC works. Muffinpox fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Aug 30, 2015 |
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Aug 29, 2015 23:31
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I've been mulling over the subjective car list, it might be too hard. All the cars own in their own way. This was also done more as a "what is it like to drive" review rather than what is better. For instance, the viper isn't particularly fast at autox due to the suspension settings being meh, so it would rank pretty low objectively, but it's seriously one of the most hilariously batshit insane cars you can drive and it's wonderful because of that. Subaru BRZ, revisited  Cars are a lot like people. There is no perfect car, just a car that is perfect for someone. I'm only happy when it rains, the S2000 will live on in my memory as the best car I've ever had despite its psychotic tendencies. But cars and people can and do change, and Taylor swifts new single "Wildest Dreams" blares as I run into a car I previously drove. I remember that car sitting there in blue paint in the sunset. It wasn't the fast I wanted but it was fun, and it had the makings of something great underneath it all. I cherished that short fling. But something was different this time, the big "RIVAL" stamp on the sidewall was promising me it had changed for the better. Give it another chance. Let's burn bright for that one run and see if it will work. Sometimes change fixes old flaws but expose new ones that were previously hidden. But I had to know where this would go.  Inside it remains the same, same bathtub like interior, same old Subaruness, same rotary dials. It's like stepping back into an old pair of shoes. The clutch catches me off, the bite point is high and short, something that didn't immediately come to mind from the last memory of the car. I get the go ahead and in one, short summary: Yes. Yes, yes, yes. This car is so good. It is so goddamn good. I feared that the increase in grip would just destroy everything that made the car fun previously, the eagerness to play. It loses the low speed limits and the tail wagging but the driving dynamics are so solid it doesn't matter. It's taking the glasses off and letting the hair down on the nerdy girl, she's still a nerd but now she's all grown up. Not really grown up, just not wearing glasses. And her hair is down. What I'm saying is the chassis and suspension are killer. The old tires masked what is a very direct and easy to place front end. The turn in feels great and the front delivers a slight chuffing feeling through the front tires once you exceed the limit and understeer sets in. Since I could actually now set a good time, I didn't try to do my best tofu delivery run and drove the car cleanly. The power is easy to put down but gone is the easy throttle induced oversteer; RIP parking lot speed drifting. It could handle more power on stock tires and it can definitely handle more power now, but it's still great with just 200hp. It responds well to left foot braking and feels extremely stable and very confident in any situation. It communicates what it is capable of and how much grip is left through the chassis very well. The suspension also doesn't feel overwhelmed by the increase in grip, which can frequently become a problem. It's like being able to buy a prepped miata with a roof from the factory. The better tires do bring up some things I didn't notice before, mostly the brakes feel just kinda meh. I'm not sure if it's the brake setup or the pads, but there's lack of brake feel. I think I'd want some more aggressive pads in there. I was driving a 2.5RS with a 2004 STI drivetrain at that event and felt the same about those brakes. The brake placement is also very close to the throttle pedal in the BRZ, I was a bit thrown off on how I had to orient my feet to left foot brake well. We come back in. I know that the BRZ is what I want in my heart, maybe not right now, but someday. It's changed for the better and it's new flaws are only minor. It's practical, it's fun, and it's solid to the core. But I want to find myself, find what I like before really settling down like that. I want my fun, my stupid dumb cars. I want to try everything. A yellow STR prepped AP2 waits for me. I look at the BRZ and say "I will remember you" as I head back to take a run in the only model of car I've ever truly regretting letting go of. Muffinpox fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Sep 2, 2015 |
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Sep 2, 2015 20:57
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Seat Safety Switch posted:Subaru is generally dogshit at brake feel. In the Imprezas for awhile people would upgrade to the STI master cylinder or run a master cylinder brace but they always felt not good enough and that the owners were trying hard to justify the expense. I was wondering about that, I didn't like the brakes for all three subarus I've driven at events. kimbo305 posted:Someone autocrossed their Vantage, hunh. He helps run one of the clubs, he had an evora he would do events with occasionally as well. Normally he drives a type 65 or cobra, I forget which.
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Sep 3, 2015 20:04
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bsamu posted:Yea, the brake pedal leaves something to be desired. I'm still working on finding the appropriate pressure because it doesn't give a lot of feedback (and I'm bad.) You're good, you just need to drive faster. Also:  I didn't drive it but hoo boy. Front end grip for days.
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Sep 5, 2015 21:49
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Somewhat Heroic posted:Having owned all three flavors of Mazda 6 (6i, 6S and speed6) I would be interested to get you take on a Speed6 or a Speed3 if you can get your hands on the wheel. I've never taken a Speed3 out, but the Speed6 was fun for what it was (although I was in constant fear of breaking it). That thing had the most unexplained tight turning radius I have ever experienced, especially for a car that is AWD. It was like the rear inside wheel would nearly be stopped if you were flipping a U-turn. I loved how tight it was. I've driven a first gen speed3 with ground control suspension and it was really quick, on pace wih my AP1. They're really awesome cars. I'll probably have a chance to drive it again in oct, I would write a review about it but I don't remember much about the controls which means that they weren't completely numb.
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Sep 12, 2015 02:12
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2000 Subaru Impreza with a 2005 STI swap Forget the normal format, I can't describe this car in one run. Normally these reviews are just a homologation of several runs and my impressions over them in an easy to read and structured format, but there's a number that changed everything, 86. This car combines two great wonders of the automotive world; turbos and AWD. Whenever someone says a car needs or would be better with AWD, I disagree. AWD is nice but the answer to too much power is better throttle discipline or a better chassis. Whenever someone says a car needs a turbo, well, yea. Turbos are awesome. But like the first person who accidentally got chocolate in their peanut butter, the first time I experienced it long ago, they do make for a great combination. The 2.5RS is a great looking car. It's probably my favorite looking subaru except for a 2004 wrx wagon. They have great coupe proportions and they're not pretty but it's a very pleasing shape. They have understated scoops and vents and little wings. Drive an Evo or STi and you have a big loving park bench wing and huge fender flares and it looks completely retarded in a fantastic way, but sometimes you don't need to have a picnic bench on your trunk.  The interior is classic subaru. It's a utilitarian interior with a long shifter. It's not super nice materials like a bmw or Audi but it's immediately recognizable. Even the newer subarus which have strayed into Camry level of being plain still have that subaru feel. I do really love the cloth and plastics, it's purposeful. This car has an STi interior swap as well and the seats are very comfy and well bolstered. The seating position is good too. Starting the car felt somewhat strange, you can feel the interia of the drivetrain which I haven't encountered with previous AWD cars, which I chalk up to the diffs. I could talk about the rest of the dynamics of the car, how it's front heavy and it doesn't understeer a ton but you can feel the weight all being in the nose. How the steering is overboosted and vague. How I wanted to become a subaru bro. But let's talk about the diff. The magical, active diff and the number 86. First run, overdrive car severely; front pushing, rear sliding, the run is 86 seconds. Second run, drove car cleanly, kept it nice and tidy; 86 seconds. Third run, tires were far beyond overheated; 86 seconds. This car just did not give a poo poo how I drove it or any conditions, it was going to set an 86. Huge powerslides, almost spins, whatever. Point wheel, give power, set an 86. Hit he throttle too hard and have the car do a giant power on oversteer slide that fucks up your line? It doesn't care. The active diff is just complete magic. This presented a bit of a challenge, I'm used to dumb cars. I use left foot braking and minor corrections to adjust the car, but there were certain points where I would be left foot braking in and I would feel the rear lock the diff, and the car would over rotate. Lift brake, off throttle, counter steer, car gets on intended path, back on throttle. I was trying to drive it like a rwd/fwd car but there is a difference. Last run. Game face on. Dad sitting in seat next to me. I have to make him proud, I give up my need to be in control and put my trust in the diff. The car doesn't understeer much but there's a noticeable heft to the front end. It doesn't want to change directions due to all the inertia, and you can feel the front diff locking and unlocking to keep its path. The wheel will be easy to turn on some cones and like fighting a bear on others. The boost response is great, I didn't find myself with a lack of power at any point, once it was up past the spool point it just pulled strongly up to the rev line. The brake feel in the car is by far the worst part, it's just absolutely terrible. The car stops but there is minimal feedback, so you just stomp the pedal and have no idea whether you have more left in it or not. Whoever does brake feel at subaru is the worst person on earth. And then there are actual turns. You can literally do whatever you want as long as the wheel is pointed in the right direction. Come in hot, lift throttle, stay away from the brake. The car over steers and the rear starts to come around, point the wheel where you want to go and let the car figure out the slide. Get on power and the huge wall of boost throws you forward. You look like a pro rally driver. This is it. This is what it's about. You can do everything wrong and it still isn't wrong, the car says I gotcha, were good buddy. You just stay in that throttle. Coming onto the last runway and this is a fast run, I've done it. I've beaten the 86, and then... No power. High g load has starved the motor of fuel and it cuts out. I don't know that at this point and I'm scared I've blown up the motor and baby it down the last leg. The time on the sign flickers, I'm disappointed in this run. But the boost buggy God just says whatever bro. 86. loving magic. Muffinpox fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Sep 12, 2015 |
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Sep 12, 2015 02:56
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1991 Ferrari 348: MiamiViceSoundtrack.wav A Manila folder waits for me on my desk. A new case, something horrible probably. When you work undercover you see the worst of the worst. Meaningless keying of cars. People who buy super cars and don't use them except as garage floor weights. Cases of murdered out cars. I slide the photo out and the brief; an existential case. My orders are to investigate why no one loves the 348. This is a stake out.  I need to be inconspicuous about this, to observe how people react to the car without them knowing I have it. I walk in to get coffee from Dunkin Donuts. I can't see anything from behind the polarized glasses and blinding glare of sunlight off my white suit. The entire store stops and stares at me. Perfect, no one will suspect I'm an undercover. But there is no fanfare about the 348. No "nice Ferrari" comments. No one has even noticed it, they're all just staring at me. Hmmm.  The car is easy to miss. It's all white, not very loud, and it is tiny. It's almost as small as an NB Miata. The wedge shape also gives it a low profile. While it does have strakes, it is missing the shouty colors and curvy bodylines of later Ferraris. It is not a body you would describe as gorgeous, more like coke fueled. And there have been a lot of "do you have any coke?" comments.  The interior is rather spartan. Tan with nice quality Italian leather. The cabin is wide open. The only thing that is nearby is the perfectly sized steering wheel and the long, Italian stallion gearshift. The sides of the doors don't even allow you to rest your elbows. You can move about quite a bit.  The pedal box is offset to the right. The gas pedal is a long thin piece of metal with the brake and clutch tightly spaced together. No sneakers in this car, only italian leather loafers. I may be running today so I compromise for some Converses. The dead pedal is actually quite amazing in this car, it takes up half the foot well and your foot rests on it completely naturally. The seats are supportive and rather bolstered. Anyone larger than a 36 waist would not find them comfortable for long periods of time. There's quite a bit of legroom with the targa top on, or the targa top off and stowed somewhere else, but the controls are a bit more cramped with the targa top behind the seats. Practicality was not the name of the game in this car. You long Italian mane flowing freely in the wind was. I pull up next to a pack of college kids. They glance at the car briefly. The somewhat shoddy construction and low grade plastics that adorn the bottom of the bodywork must throw them off. Are those exposed screws holding the strakes on? One of them asks if it's a Lamborghini. Enzo Ferrari spins in his grave. On a flat plane. I strap into the car. The belts are weird, the shoulder belt sits in the middle of the cabin and is buckled separately from the lap belt, which is on the outside of the cabin. A crazed man runs over and asks if he can ride in my Ferrari. I forgot tubbs so I invite him in. I realize the point of this lap belt when I have to reach across his lap to do his belt for him. Mental note: take dates out in this car. Speak at them in Italian as I caress their thigh helping them. Do it how Enzo would have. Maybe this is why no one loves the car. It doesn't scream look at me. It doesn't scream flair. It doesn't scream I made it in life. But I get the go and within half a second I am screaming because porca troia. This thing is amazing to drive. The car is completely mechanical. There are 0 assists to be found on the car. It like having a friend who wont shut the gently caress up ever sitting next to you in the passengers seat except the friend is the most perfect driving experience ever. The steering, as much as I complain about manual steering, is absolutely, mind-bendingly perfect. It's heavy when the car is sitting still, but give it a little forward momentum and it become very light and without a doubt the most talkative steering I have ever had in a car. It also doesn't kick back heavily but you can feel the cracks and undulations being slightly noted by the wheel. By the first cone I was driving the absolute poo poo out of the front end and sliding the rear with throttle off oversteer. The car is obscenely easy to catch with steering. In the NSX, I was fearful of not being able to add in enough lock to catch the car. In the 348 there is no question about how much to add and being able to do it on time. I was intentionally sliding the car so hard powering out of a corner at one point it felt like the rear tires were going to pop off the beads from roll over. The next section was a charge around a left hand cone and into a right box. The car isn't absurdly powerful but deceptively quick given the gearing. Even among todays cars, it still rates as pretty fast. First runs out to around 50mph and the motor loves being above 4000rpm, where it also picks up a shrill mechanical cry that is just orgasmic to the ears even with the stock exhaust. It pushes harder as it approaches redline, and although the tach goes out to 10 and the redline is indicated at 7500, ~8000rpm seems to be the redline. I tested out running in 1st and 2nd, 1st seemed to be ideal. I had to lift in a few sections so I wasn't tagging the redline in a 24 year old Ferrari, but hitting redline does sound hella awesome as well. Coming around this cone worked better in first since you can adjust the car attitude with the throttle very easily. The throttle response isn't Viper or S2000 fast but the linkage makes adjusting the car with the throttle easy peasy.  The gated dogleg shifter is a bit of a pain in the rear end going from 1st to 2nd. You really have to think about making the gearshift, and once you get used to it, it isn't that bad, but it's a bit too involved at times. It can make gear changes seem a bit cludgy. There's drama to it, but I don't want drama when I'm racing. I just want fast. On that note, even the clutch has absurd amounts of feedback to it. The clutch is heavy with a fairly short overall throw, but there's so much feedback on the bite point that stalling is a non issue. Even launching and balancing the throttle is just first shot perfect because there's so much communication.  Around the left we go blasting up towards redline, then it's time to get into the brakes and for fucks sake these brakes are amazing as well. There is hydraulic assist but it is barely there and they just go on for days and you know exactly how much pedal force to put in and the pedal is stiff but not too stiff so your braking is always perfect and smooth and doesn't upset the car and ugnngnngnnggngng. We come into a decreasing radius left hand sweeper. All the other cars are taking it wide and coming in towards the apex. I don't need to. Stay tight, get on brake, trail brake into the corner and balance the rears over rotation with the brake pedal. It's so insanely easy in this car I didn't blow the braking zone once, I had to continually drive at the corner harder and harder. Seriously, the inputs on this car are just flabbergastingly awesome. What is not so awesome is the handling, which is a complaint about the 348. The 348 has a nice handling balance. It turns, it does what you tell it, and it is extremely confidence inspiring, but it is also soft and the front and rear roll rates are off. Coming into the slalom, I tried to drive this smoothly like something with stiffer springs and could feel the rear becoming out of sync with the front. In a MR car, this is pant making GBS threads territory because it's the beginning of penduluming. This is when the rear goes on it's own way and when I found out that the steering makes the car really easy to catch. It's just fantastic steering. The other aspect of this softness is you need to wait on the car, so even though it is a Ferrari, it's not very fast. The NSX that normally shows up does has a bunch of aftermarket suspension stuff, but it would have been almost 5-6 seconds faster than the Ferrari on this course. So, to really drive this car and have it be consistent, you either have to drive at 7/10 or go to 11 and drive the absolute poo poo out of it and manhandle the car to get all your weight transfer done immediately. Hard steering inputs are the only way, so you drive the car a lot more with the throttle and brake inputs to make fine attitude adjustments. If you're not perfect on entry, the cars springs wont react fast enough to anything to allow for any great adjustments.  We come in from the run, a time flashes up. I don't even pay attention, I'm not here to win. My passenger is in awe of how well the car actually drove considering their reputation. Everyone clamors to me for a chance to go power slide in a 25 year old Ferrari. That's it. I cracked the case. This isn't a Ferrari to be seen in. It's a Ferrari to be driven, and driven hard. It's a car about the experience, not the times. It's something that makes you fearful to drive it balls out on the road but even puttering along it is still pure driving bliss. I don't care that people aren't taking photos and asking me about the car and Giselle isn't leaving Tom Brady for me when she sees me drive by. I just want more of this. Muffinpox fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Oct 13, 2015 |
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Oct 13, 2015 22:55
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leica posted:Now you want one don't you Yea, it's so good. It's pretty much the most perfect raw, mechanical driving experience I've had. It's the complete embodiment of numbers don't tell the story. On paper, the NSX is a better car, but having driven them both, the NSX comes staggeringly close but the feedback and noise in the Ferrari is unmatched. bsamu posted:Will it be a regular feature at autocross events or was this just to see how it fared? It's probably not the only event but it won't be a regular. Drunk Pledge Driver posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X9bK1YfF0Y This was one of the runs I was trying out second. You can hear it hitting ~4-5k in some sections but the noise above that is way better.
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Oct 14, 2015 07:48
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Link to the Ferrari powerslide Muffinpox fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Oct 14, 2015 |
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Oct 14, 2015 18:14
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Adiabatic posted:My god Muffinpox you're so fast Thanks baby :bigtran: leica posted:Just noticed a pic in that gallery of an ND going through a turn and holy poo poo that body roll Yea, it was heavin over. Pretty drat quick in stock trim though.
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Oct 16, 2015 17:32
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