Tom Gentry wrote:
> I agree, a late model 5.0 V-8 should kick my tail. Now, do the
> math, a TR-6 is a lot lighter than the Detroit iron I mentioned, so it
> needs a lot less horsepower.
Yes, agreed, if we did the math and said "piece of crap muscle
car has 400 hp, you've got 1xxhp, muscle care wins".
But my original data was from 0-60 times, which are sort of
the grand unifier. It takes into account overweight cars, bad
launching suspension geometry, crappy tires, the whole deal.
The weight might explain why it takes the 'stang most of 6
seconds rather than 3 seconds, but the fact is that whatever
weight and other penalties the stang engine is up against, it
gets to 60 in under 6 seconds.
> There is a human factor to consider, not to mention other, I drive
> cars HARD.
Hehehe... well, that helps on the street I suppose. But those
"performance numbers" are usually written by automotive journalists
who not only know what it's like to drive hard, but are driving
cars that they don't own and will never see again after the
test. So they don't have any qualms about driving it hard. Damn
hard.
(not to mention it's in the best interest of the car manufacturer
to have them drive the test cars hard. The price of a test car is
nothing compared to the extra sales that they get if Road and Track
or Car and Driver post a rave review)
By all means, enjoy your car and whatever you do with it, if
it's cruising or stoplight racing. It was not my intent to try
to accuse you of lying. But to take 0-60 times from 11 second
stock to sub-6 seconds normally takes incredible horsepower
tripling modifications.
My chum added 60 dyno-tested hp to his Talon TSi and only shaved
0.5 seconds on 0-60, or about 8% less time-to-speed. You'll have to
understand my skepticism to hear a british engine that dropped
50% off it's 0-60 time and still retains the original engine and
is streetable without engine rebuilds every race.
--
Trevor Boicey
Ottawa, Canada
tboicey@brit.ca
http://www.brit.ca/~tboicey/
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