Well, this thread got hijacked to heck and back, so it’s time to bring out the ponies, and see how they run.
Why have all 'stangs sucked since the last Camaro?
Hot Hatch versus American Muscle?
Torque curve of a GNX versus the torque curve of a STi… paying attention to the limit of the tires…? (Anyone got that?)
Is it better to race one quarter mile or one apex at a time? Do you drag, rally, or autocross?
I would still like some corroborating data showing that a stock Buick Regal Grand National could do 0-60 in 5 seconds flat.
I don’t care how wide your torque curve is, 235 HP and 330 ft. lbs of torque moving 3700 lbs does not translate into 13 second quarter mile times and 0-60 in 5 seconds.
Either those vehicles were dramatically under-rated in horsepower for insurance reasons (possible - GM did that with its LS-7, which made at least 100 HP more than ‘book’, and Dodge is doing it today with the neon SRT-4, which is dyno’ing about 245HP at the rear wheels), or the Grand National has a little bit of hype floating around over it.
I can believe the extreme performance of modified cars, though. Twin turbo engines have the potential for serious performance gains by dialing up the boost. Often, they are power limited from the factory for emissions or the need to run them on the worst grade of fuel available around the country. For example, the WRX engine is 227 horsepower, but in Japan it puts out 271. Slight change to the timing, slight increase in boost, and voila’.
But you’d better put some good slicks on that Regal if you want to run 11 second quarters.
**1987 GNX Number Built 547
Horsepower 276 hp³
0 to 60 mph 5.5 seconds
Quarter Mile 13.43 seconds
Top Speed 125 mph²
Miles Per Gallon 23 Highway/15 City
Fuel Capacity 18.1 gallons
Weight 3,454 lbs.
**
http://www.geocities.com/gnxlover/gninfo.html
Ok… So 5.5 sec.
*Note: the GN and GNX are rated differently in power.
What do you mean, all the 'stangs sucked since the Camaro? They’ve gotten better each year. You don’t think 390HP, 390 ft lbs of torque is reasonable? Just what is wrong with an SVT Cobra? Or the GT, for that matter, which now has over 300HP?
In 1994 we looked at the Mustang and the Camaro. The Camaro SUCKED (and I’m a big Camaro guy - Owned a '67 and an '83). I really wanted to like the Camaro, but man… Who was the rocket scientist who put that catalytic converter hump where the passenger’s legs go? How about that raked windshield that is a sea of reflections? I’m 6 feet tall, and in a comfortable seating position I was staring at the top frame of the windshield. The semi-reclining seating position was awkward, the back seat non-existent, and there was almost no cargo capability. My '83 was much roomier, had better visibility, was easier to get in and out of, and had more cargo space.
The Mustang, on the other hand, was very usable. Reasonably large trunk. Reasonable rear seats. An upright, comfortable seating position. Much better stereo. The chassis felt tighter. Visibility was better. It wasn’t an ergonomic nightmare like the Camaro.
There’s a reason why the Mustang chalked up record sales while the Camaro went out of production. The Mustang was a better car. Yes, the Camaro had more horsepower and better skidpad numbers, but in the real world that doesn’t matter nearly as much as the little things in a car that you have to drive to work every day.
I hope the Camaro comes back. I hope GM learns a lesson from Ford and brings back a pony car. A slightly retro-styled coupe patterned after a '69 Z-28, with about 400 HP. I’d buy one in a second.
ParentalAdvisory: See, the problem is that all the links I’ve been able to find to corroborate GNX performance are things like that Geocities cite. Forgive me if I don’t consider ‘GNXLover’ to be an unbiased source.
But actually, those results at least sound a bit more realistic. There’s a HUGE difference between 5.5 seconds and 5.0. And the claim in the other thread was that a stock GN (not GNX) could do it in 5.0 seconds, with 40 less horsepower than a GNX.
It has to be said however, unless you’ve driven a true open wheeler with 300+ horsepower and some serious wings, well, in all honesty, most conversations regarding mass production road cars tend to be more about fanciful wishful thinking rather than true reality. And it’s worth noting that this is true of all road cars - regardless of which country they’re made in.
Consider this, for example… name the number of road cars in all of history which could sustain greater than 1G in lateral cornering force without losing grip and sliding out?
Or, for that matter, the number of road cars in history which could achieve greater than 1G in braking deceleration - let alone, laugh of all laughs, forward acceleration? You don’t see many manufacturers quote such specs, do you? And yet, ultimately, they are the empirical specs which no-one can fudge.
Believe me, the list is very small, very, very small - and almost all of them were exotic boutique cars - certainly, as much as myth would have us believe otherwise, a contender wasn’t Steve McQueens Boss 429 Mustang in Bullit.
Sure, some muscle cars (in a straight line) can give 1G of acceleration a slight nudge for a while. But the true test of a genuinely great handling car is to achieve greater than 1G in ALL aspects of a car’s performance envelopes - that is, acceleration, deceleration, and lateral cornering grip.
Very, very few cars have been able to make that claim.
Now, consider something… if you were to believe your typical motoring press release about a road going car, well, they’d have you believe that the sucker is just 1% away from being able to win a Formula One Grand Prix at Spa Francorchamps or something… and I’m here to tell you folks - such a notion is pure, utter fantasy.
To give you an idea, about 12 years ago I was given the joyful pleasure of driving a true 1979 Formula Two car for about 20 laps at Sydney’s Oran Park. This thing had a Brian Hart 2 litre F2 engine in it producing 330 hp. Sure, it was a 1979 F2 car… sure it was old… sure it was only 330hp and the wings were MUCH smaller than an F1 car…
Well… trust me dear readers… nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING on the road today comes within light years of the performance of that 1979 F2 car. In every respect, that little open wheeler shat on a road going car from huge, HUGE heights. To be going through big sweepers at 130+mph and being able to twitch the steering wheel and realise that even a quarter inch movement of the wheel was instantaneously moving your car up to 3 feet on your steering line was just breathtaking.
The amazing throttle response, and the braking power. And the cornering grip. There was no way I had the balls to take that car to it’s limits in terms of cornering speeds. Quite frankly, I was simply nowhere near being a qualified race driver in terms of talent. Not a chance.
And that was a 1979 F2 car! Imagine what it’s like to get your hands say on a former 1991 Formula One car? Holy shit, I say… Holy shit. Those suckers could pull up to 5G in cornering grip, -4G in braking power, and 3G in acceleration… such specs are purely unimaginable to most of us - purely incomprehensible.
Accordingly, as I said… road cars are all about compromise… and anyone who makes outlandish claims regarding performance truly has never genuinely been in an open wheeler with wings. The latter is the real deal. Road cars are just toys, ultimately.
Of course. And so are Indy cars. We can talk about the performance of road cars without fretting that they don’t perform like Indy cars, just like I can talk about whether I can get another 10kts out of a Grumman Tiger without being disappointed that it’s not an F-18.
And F-1 cars have crappy stereos.
I’m not going to call what I said trolling, Sam, because I saw the thread developing this argument and lifted it for this thread. It was a bit disingenious and requiring further explanation.
First, still Fox platform after how long?
Second, more seriously, head to head, for every year the last model of Camaro was made, the equivalent Camaro and Stang, head to head, the Camaro would beat the Stang in track time… while the Stang would be a more comfortable daily car. I’ve got nothing against a more comfortable daily car, I’m getting the SVT Focus for that reason… well, that, and the suspension… mmmm… so pretty… ahem.
Personally, I believe that if a car is a boy racer, ESPECIALLY if it’s against the vile and hated competition and you know what they can do… you have a certain duty to make it sodding well beat the competition. I agree completely on the various PITAs the last Camaro had, but it… was faster. According to my memory of various road tests, that is. The current SVTs and Cobras notwithstanding. Mmm. SVT.
The other major problem with the Stang is the preponderance of boi racers with the automatic and V6… that my Beetle, unmodified, can beat off the line by accident.
On the other hand, I heard a Bullit Stang the other day. I started looking around for the classic car… the gorgeous lumpety lump sound of a V8 at idle… and then I saw this green modern Stang. They got the sound right on that one.
Anyone remember the first car to beat 1.0G laterally? It was about ten years ago… A McLaren, maybe? There’s maybe ten or fifteen of them now.
As far as 1.0 braking… you know, I’d suspect quite a lot of them can do it with ABS these days, specially with the sticky, hot, thigh-meaty contact patches. What would be a good rule of thumb, assuming a 3,000 pound car from 60 MPH? (Or is it from 70? No C&Ds around to check with)
As far as Camaro? Hell yes. Rebuild the 69. Though what I want is a return of an even older name. Hot hatch or even crossover wagon… with enough power to yank a stump the size of Texas.
Nomad.
Tell me that wouldn’t sell. I double-dog-dare ya. Provided they don’t mess it up like they did the Marauder.
Have to pick a nit. It was 68 GT 390 (sorry).
I don’t think it would take much to pull over a lateral G in a car today. My 88TurboCoupe pulled .88 G’s from the factory with stock 225 16’s. Certainly the newer models have improved.
I would have to say the Boss 302 (small valve) would be my engine of choice for motorcross racing.
I don’t like the lines on either the Camaro, Firebird or Mustang as of late. I liked the subtle lines of the Pontiac line but they seemed to be missing from the Firebird. Definitely don’t like GM’s location of the engine. It may be great for weight distribution but it is 1/2 way into the passenger compartment.
Ford had a nice thing going with the SVO but they dropped the 2.3L program like it carried the plague. It was a great engine for modifying and the car was great for motorcross racing.
Actually, may I respectfully suggest my American friends cast a cursory glance over the Australian made and designed Pontiac GTO?
Now forgive me if I don’t quite have the names correct here, and I understand that Pontiac make a number of coupe’s - but I strongly recommend to you Sabbath and Sam that you check the Aussie made muscle car out. I reckon you’ll be really, really surprised. I’d describe it as a perfect marriage of American 350ci V8 muscle combined with German finesse.
And due to the weak Australian dollar, it’s an absolute steal for you Americans. All left hand drive and total GM Factory warranty etc. Check it out.
Down here the car is known as the “Monaro” - and yes, at first that seems like quite a plagiaristic homage to “Camaro” - but in actual fact, it’s named after a very famous stretch of highway which runs north-south near Melbourne, called the Monaro Highway and it was famous in the late 60’s as being a true bit of 140mph bit of highway. The “Monaro” name goes all the way back to 1968 and it was a coupe then fitted with a Chevy 327.
There’s a Nomad concept car already.
Nomad concept car
Might still see production. My brother had a '56 Sedan Delivery (Nomad platform) with a 396 in it. Lightning fast in a straight line, but it was a lumbering boat otherwise.
Last months’ Road and Track has a ‘supercar showdown’, with the ten fastest cars in the world. None of them are close to being a ‘1g car’ with the ability to pull 1g in all dimensions. All of them fall way short in acceleration, even though they are monster cars that run 4 second 0-60 times and quarter miles in the low 12’s high 11’s. Lotsa Maseratis and Lamborghinis and such on the list. And interestingly, a Mitsubishi Evo, which they tested to a 13.08 quarter mile and close to 1 g in all other dimensions, putting it in the middle of the pack with the fastest cars in the world. Not one of them was less than twice its price.
The Monaro is going to be here as the GTO in 2004. I’ll bet it will be a big hit. 340 HP supercharged V-8. That’s a pretty powerful car.
But it would have been a real killer five years ago. But now, 340 is still good but not fantastic. Honda Accords have 240 horsepower. A Maxima has 285. And the big boys like the Vette, Viper, and Mustang SVT are up in the 400’s now. 510 for the Viper. Hopefully, the Monaro will find a niche for itself in the tier below that.
Oh, I can’t wait for the new GTO. Truly, we are in a golden age of car goodness.
Sam: Happy! I’d change the front a bit… not thrilled with that grille, but other than that, perfection. Especially the rear quarter panel.
And what 50s car… especially a station wagon… wasn’t a lumbering boat? It still had the name of being fast. Nowadays, we can pull a bit more performance out of it.
As far as the Evo goes… it’s those tenths of a percentage that cost the money. That, and supercars tend to focus on going fast. The Evo focuses on the other performance qualities. Not that I’m complaining at all.
Oops! Dopey me!
Well, you know, I reckon you’d be surprised actually.
Once you start getting to 1G of lateral force, you’re really starting to push the upper limits of what’s known in the trade as “mechanical grip”. On an open wheeler, depending on your wing settings, “aerodynamic grip” starts to kick in between 70 and 100 miles per hour. This leaves a magic “sweet spot” of fine tuning between 1 and 2 lateral G’s which are met by a mixture of upper end mechanical grip and low end “wing grip”.
By and large, most open wheelers - from F2 to Indy to IRL to F1 - well they’re all capable of 3+G in lateral “wing grip”. After all, they’re all incredibly light, and they have enough horsepower to run wings like barn doors (as Alan Jones used to say of the 1980 Ferrari F1 car).
But as for a road going car pushing the 1G lateral barrier? It’s very hard to do. The abscence of “aerodynamic grip” means you have to rely on mechanical grip alone. And yes, I recognise that a lot of youngsters nowadays are fitting wild body kits with rear wings etc, but honestly, they’d be lucky to add maybe 300kgs of downforce in toto to the suspension pakage. And why do I say this? Well, Australia has a pretty wild racing formula known as V8 Supercars which allow road going cars with a 5.0 litre V8 to morph into race cars with quite sophisticated aero packages and the like. According to their specs, maximum front end downforce is 350kgs, and maximum rear end downforce is 600kgs. And they’re really wild skirts and wings let me tell ya.
But compared to a dedicated open wheeler, “aerodynamic downforce” on a road going car really is mostly for show, as averse to go.
Contrast that with the legendary specs given by McLaren in 1990 of their then F1 car, which stated that in Monaco wing trim, that above 70mph the car could basically drive upside down on a ceiling. And that further, at 185mph, just lifting off the throttle resulted in -1.4G in deceleration - such was the drag being induced by the wings.
In essence, “mechanical grip” really is hard to push beyong 1.2 lateral G’s. To go beyond that, you seriously need to be considering a vehicle below 1000kg’s in weight. Along with some serious rubber. A really good example of such a current vehicle is the Lotus Elise. A very light car, at only 850kgs with 17 inch wheels and 225’s on the front, and 245’s on the rear and a sweet mid mounted 2 litre engine. You have to ring it’s neck to push it in terms of acceleration, but cornering wise it’s arguably the current road going champ. And it truly does fit into Colin Chapman’s theory’s regarding power to weight ratio.
So, what I was trying to get at earlier is that most road going cars start out as quite heavy beasts. The Lotus Elise is quite a dedicated purpose built little jigger, but it’s overall usefulness suffers as a consequence. The heavier your vehicle, the less likely it is that it’ll ever be a legend.
I honestly believe that while your .85 lateral G’s was indeed very impressive, that final 0.15G to take it up to 1.0 G’s is really hard to achieve. Even an F1 car, minus it’s wings is hard pressed to push 1.6 lateral G’s. The slightest bump or undulation in your road surface breaks your grip at those limits and whoosh! Off you go…
And that’s why the “sweet spot” of suspension tuning in open wheeler cars is between the 1 and 2 G lateral region. Above and below that range, the car’s natural ability takes over. But it’s the in between where track times are won or lost.
As a final bit of trivia, apparently the legendary “skirted F1 cars” between 1978 and 1982 pulled greater lateral G’s than any other car in history - still, to this day. It’s the advances in other areas which have lowered the overall track times.
Not quite. http://www.fordvehicles.com/Cars/mustang/features/specperformance/
The GT is still rated at 260hp (about 225rwhp), the Mach I is at 305hp (uses the DOHC 4.6) and the new Cobra is off the charts (375rwhp, using a 20% drivetrain loss that equals 468hp).
I know there’s a huge difference betwee 5.5 and 5.0. Who ever made the claim that a GNX could do a 5.0 in the 60 was just flat out wrong and probably never been to the track. Also, their are #'s out there for the GN, it was just so long ago and finding a C&D, or any other car magazine source to say so online is very scarce. I’m still looking for a valid source, they’re just hard to come by for older cars.
Yeah, I know. I’ve been trying too.
From an earlier thread:
http://home.att.net/~buickGNX/GNX/perf.htm
Calling the GNX a production car is probably a stretch. “Limited production car” would be more fair. It was jointly designed, (primarily) assembled, sold, and warranteed by Buick. Only the enhancement modifications were warranteed by ASC/McLaren
and
"…I can fill in a little on the comments you made about testing of prototypes vs. production cars. …the prototypes generally are tweaked. Even full-run production cars have prototypes for the press that often have different chips, engines built to close tolerances, etc.
Oooh! Update! The comparison site has the STi now!
http://www.car-videos.com/performance/view.asp?ID1=13&ID2=169
Hey Frank #2 wanna provide a cite for that 375 at the wheels for the Cobra? AFAIK, stock 2003s are running around ~320 at the wheels. That’s a long way off.
Also, I know that the Ferrari Enzo pulled a 1+ on the skidpad (1.03 IIRC), and I think the Saleen did similarly.
Also, Sam, I assume you know why the JDM WRX is rated what it’s rated? If you don’t, check out the spats on an R-34 Skyline Vspec II and then compare the specs. 
Plus I believe they also get a twin-scoll turbo, and AVCS. So, a little more than just the timing/boost allowed by their lovely 100 octane.