The SDMB Forza 4 "Gutless Wonder" challenge

The Game Room
21

Awesome! The “Gutless Wonder” doesn’t always have to be a POS!

After tweaking the stock Pinto over in the Tuner thread I was browsing cars.

Hmmm… a 1978 Ford Mustang II King Cobra!

Heck, that thing is built on the Pinto body!

And yes, you can tell. 1978 was NOT a good year for cars in the US. Ford had downsized the Mustang by slapping a different body on the Pinto and calling it the Mustang II. That went over about as well as you would expect, and by 1978 they were not only desperate for a redesign (which showed up as a 1979 model) but desperate for sales as well.

How do you sell a “muscle” car in 1978? Obviously you paint it black, put a bunch of stickers on it (make sure to put a HUGE one on the hood) and name it something scary. Profit!

Pontiac was selling every Trans-Am they could make thanks to Burt Reynolds, and everyone else wanted in on the cash flow. But what they were selling was basically junk. Thank Og I was too young to own a car then because I would have given anything for one of those Trans Ams with the reverse hood scoop over the air intake that said “6.6 LITRE”.

6.6 Liters! That’s 400 cubic inches. That thing must be a monster! Well, no. The “standard” 6.6L engine developed a whopping 180 HP, while the special T/A version got all the way up to 200 HP.

The point is that a Mustang II on a Pinto platform might actually not be awful compared to what everyone else was offering. The KING COBRA!!! had 139 HP (cranked out of a relatively puny 5.0 Liter engine) but it was only pulling 2669 lbs, as opposed to the Trans Ams 3490 lbs.

So I ran the KING COBRA!!! up the mountain.

It came in at 3:49, which is faster than the stock Pinto but slower than my tuned to 199 PI Pinto.

That time is also exactly as fast as I did that run in a Prius.

Disappointed!

The main things going against the KING COBRA!!! are fatness and then fatness.

It weighs 415 lbs MORE than a stock Pinto. Yes, it has a huge engine. It develops 60% more HP than the stock Pinto but has to pull 18% more weight. Going up a hill that matters, but handling matters as well. How well does this specialty beast do?

Not well, it turns out.

0-60 is 8.9 seconds. That is fast. Much faster than the stock Pinto and faster than my tuned Pinto (by 0.7 seconds).

Top speed is 122.8 which is MUCH higher than either of the Pintos but also useless on this track.

Braking from 60-0. Holy crap this thing is awful. 143.3 feet. The stock Pinto with a couple of Taco Bell tortillas as brake rotors managed to stop in 139.9 feet. My tuned Pinto did it in 111 feet. The new Camaro does this in 106 feet. Simply awful.

Lateral Gs at 60 mph. Surely this “performance” machine from Ford will bring the heroics!

Not so much - Lat Gs at 60mph are 0.78. The stock Pinto managed a 0.80 - the Ford guys managed to make their “sports” car WORSE!

22

Okay, I’ve realized something here…
Limiting the PI of Gutless Wonder cars to no more than 102 points limits the potential contenders, so I’m dropping the PI restriction, the only “Gutless Wonder” requirement is Class F cars, and since all you’re really doing is trying to beat your own best time, there’s no point in restricting the cars by PI, the class rating is restriction enough

On a whim, I decided to try a few more cars outside the 102 PI cap, all are bone stock, one run will be automatic, one manual

My observations on the revised contenders…

Suzuki Liana; F / 135 PI / 104 HP / 106 TQ
4:05 (auto)
4:03 (manual)
Ahh yes, the infamous “Reasonably Priced Car” from BBC’s Top Gear…
Overall, the car wasn’t too bad, overall handling was accurate, not particularly sharp or nimble, just competent, the one overwhelming sensation I got from the Liana was “heavy”, not “durable” heavy or “tanklike” heavy or “bloated” heavy, just…heavy, it felt well planted on the road, and held the line well through corners, but it just had no soul, no life, it said to me “I’ll go up this hill, but I won’t enjoy it”

The manual version felt no different, and indeed the only difference between the two was the ability of the manual to hold it in gear until you were ready to upshift, far less bogging on the uphill climbs, handling, steering, suspension, everything else felt just as dead and mediocre as the auto version
Kia cee’D; F / 158 PI / 123 HP / 114 TQ
4:05 (Auto)
4:01 (Manual)
The current Top Gear Reasonably Priced Car, this one felt far livelier and more flickable than the sluglike, heavy Liana, even with the automatic it was nimble and flighty through corners, and the understeer only reared it’s ugly head in the really tight hairpins

Yes the cee;D is a bit more powerful than the Liana, and that translated into less bogging on the brutal climbing sections, but it was also just more fun to drive than the Liana, the cee’d felt more “alive” especially in the corners
Toyota 2000GT F / 191 PI / 150 HP / 130 TQ
4:05 (auto)
4:02 (manual)
The 2000GT was an interesting looking classic Toyota, so I decided to take it up FKB, once I got used to it’s strange, custardy, “floaty” handling and started to break the tail free through the corners (once again, I loves me a good RWD car :slight_smile: ) I started to have real fun with it, the engine, while not a power monster (but hey, what F-Class car, aside from the Hummer H1 Alpha, is) did have a wide, somewhat forgiving powerband and enough torque on tap that bogging was less of an issue than expected, it was just the right balance for controllable light drifts through the hairpins

With the manual, once again, I gained the ability to hold it in gear on the brutal hillclimbs, and I had far more control when initiating a drift turn, which this car is perfectly set up for with the manual, drifts are easy to initiate and easy to control, in fact, I had my first truly great drift through the hairpin preceeding the waterfall, it was a perfect, smoky drift, and was massively fun :slight_smile:
Hyundai ix20; F / 114 / 89 HP / 101 TQ
4:16 (Auto)
4:13 (manual)
This car can be summed up in one word… Schizophrenic…
The engine pulls well and seems to have a decent amount of heart…on flat and level terrain, put a hill in front of it and it becomes a wheezy, asthmatic slug

The chassis is relatively tight, light, and the car is flickable…until you get into some hairpin corners, then the word of the day is Understeer, a major case of it

Combine that with the wheezy, anemic engine, and you have a totally underwhelming car

Then there’s the transmission, much like other wheezy, underpowered econoboxes, there’s a huge black hole between 1 and 2 that eats all your torque and forward momentum, and when you combine that with an engine that cries like a little girl at the first sign of even the slightest incline, well, let’s just say it’s Not Fun, I’d rate this one down there with the stock Totota Aygo, a completely underwhelming, forgettable car, and no, switching to the Manual version was no more fun, this one just felt soft, squishy, and thoroughly worthless, well deserving the rating of “F”

Heck, during both ix20 runs, it LOST to the Ghost Ford KA, it leapfrogged it until about 50%, at the long uphill climb, where the KA pulled ahead and stayed there, the ix20 would get close to the bumper of the ghost car, only to enter a corner, the Ford KA handles corners quite well, the ix20, not so much, it scrubbed off valuable speed, torque and forward momentum in the corners it could never make back
Just for fun, I also tried out the “Mustang” King Cobra that Pilot drove as well, I got a 3:50 with the manual, and I concur with your observations 100%

Handling; soft, floaty and mushy
Acceleration; average, given the potential of what it had under the hood, I was expecting more

My overall impression, the KC FEELS not just overweight, but OBESE, it feels bloated and imprecise, the stock anemic Pinto seems to have more balanced handling, even with that massive 4.9L V8 underhood, I wasn’t able to reliably or consistently kick the tail out in corners, it just sort of “mushed” through the corners, most disappointing indeed, with a big V8 underhood and a relatively light chassis, it should be able to kick the tail out on request
Finally, just for a laugh, I decided to take the Suzuki SX4 Monster Sport hillclimb car up FKB, after all, the SX4 MS was made for the Pike’s Peak hillclimb, and this track IS a hillclimb, after all…

SX4 Monster; R1 / 878 PI / 897 HP / 654 TQ

SX4 Monster (Manual) 2:50!
The SX4is a flighty, twitchy beast of a car for sure, but it accelerates like a bat out of hell, this thing had haw-dropping acceleration, but too much power for a paved road course, it flitted between too much grip and no grip, depending on how much welly you gave it, however I will say this, being able to hit 135 MPH within a few seconds on the final straightaway was a total utter blast, albeit a bit scary, knowing the tight right hand sweeper was coming up soon, real soon, oops, gotta brake hard…
There are a few more F classes for me to try, mostly in the Nissan dealership, I’ll try them later

23

If they could work out a deal with Disney, how about a '63 VW Ragtop that could be given a familiar livery. :smiley:

24

PUlled out the Citroen C1, which I agree is a fun car, and did 4.21.528 up the track; this was the first time I’d played Forza in a couple of months so I ran a second lap and came in 4:09.366…

25

If anyone’s interested in what the Fujimi Kaido track looks like, here’s a vid of the Suzuki SX4 Monster hillclimb car (most definitely NOT a GW, and not me driving either) going up the hillclimb side

This is the longer track, the GW track starting line is around 30% in.…

26

I wonder how a Lamborghini LM002 would fare.

27

Actually, I think a Citroen 2CV race up Kaido -B would be oddly amusing, you could measure the race progress in DAYS…

Or for true sheer terror, how about a Reliant Robin… downhill race :wink:

28

Too funny. My buddy and I had a great time about a week ago racing crappy cars up and down the mountain.

They all had no ABS, no traction control and no basic controls.

That Dodge Coronet from the 60s? Yeah, try to take that thing up the hill with no traction control. Those tires are awesome, because I did nothing put pour smoke up the hill in that car!

29

Tonight, Logan, my 9 year old nephew decided to take the GW challenge on his own

the only departure from the guidelines is that he wanted to drive in manual transmission mode (my young Padawan is learning quickly… :wink: )

First car he drove? the Toyota Aygo, he wanted to try the worst, slowest car in the game… He made it up FK in 4:35 in the aygo

His observations about the Aygo’s overall performance and driving feel…
“This thing has NO power, I actually lose speed on the hills!”
“Cmon, Cmon, go FASTER” (said in a very frustrated tone)
“Why does this handle so bad, it plows through the corners”
“The suspension feels like Jello”

He then tried a stock manual Pinto, and did the course in 4:30 on the first run, he was frustrated that he didn’t utterly destroy the Aygo’s time, I noticed that he was driving it like the Aygo, understeering into corners, I gave him a couple hints on the secret talents of rear wheel drive cars, how to break the rear end free in corners, and to keep the “slow-in-fast-out” mantra in the back of his mind

…And once I showed him the secret of not relying so much on the brakes in tight corners, but to use a combination of engine braking and downshifting into corners to break the rear end free and drift through the corners, he really started to come alive in the game, he was able to get his Pinto time down to 4:17

His observations on the Pinto;
It’s a bit slow on the hillclimbs, but I like how easy it is to slide through the corners, and it handles pretty good too

He now understands why I like the manual better as well, two reasons really drove it home for him;

1; on long hillclimbs, he was getting frustrated with how the automatic shifts you out of a torquey climbing gear and bogs the car down just because the engine RPM has reached the “must shift now” point, with a manual, he was able to hold the car in gear for the long hillclimb sections and only upshift to the next gear when he cleared the climb

2; when entering a fast corner, he discovered downshifting a gear as he approached the corner, and then hard on the throttle at the apex allowed him to preserve torque, forward motion, and acceleration out of the corner, and as an added side benefit, he discovered that with a rear-drive car like the Pinto, he was also able to kick the tail out in turns and not bleed off so much speed by using the brakes with the downshift-throttle blip-accelerate technique

Bear in mind that this is a 9 year old just discovering these techniques, the closest actual real vehicle he’s driven are the go-karts at the local amusement park (which are also rear drive (rear engine, rear drive)

30

The Top Gear pack adds some more Gutless Wonders, I’ll review them below

First, establish a baseline with the two baseline comparison cars;

The front wheel drive baseline is established by a stock (groan) Toyota Aygo automatic
Rear drive baseline is an automatic Ford Pinto

ATX Pinto time; 4:08
MTX Pinto time; 4:05

ATX Aygo time (groan); 4:16
MTX Aygo time; 4:09 (geez, does that Toyota sludgebox suck, or what?! 7 seconds slower than the manual!)

With baselines established, on to the new victim reviews…

First up, the Smart Fortwo; 4:23!!!
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the new reigning champion, the winner of the coveted (not really) title of WORST CAR IN THE GAME!
Hmm, where do I start, there’s just so much badness to cover here… I know, I’ll make a list
1; Power (or total lack thereof)
This was a given, the Smart’s anemic little three cylinder lawn mower engine is not known for power, but this sodding thing barely had enough power to get out of it’s own way, ferchrissakes! It was the only car in the game I had driven that would loose SO much power on the brutal hill limbs that the transmission would actually DOWNSHIFT during the climb, and the car was barely in second gear anyway, it would drop to first and vainly, asthmatically wheeze it’s way up the hill

Since the Smart is not available with a manual, I won’t drive it in manual mode, wouldn’t make much difference anyway, as we now come to…

2; Handling (or total lack thereof)
I’ve seen the episode of Top Gear where His Stigness takes the ForTwo around the TGTT, and as he enters the fittest corner of the Hammerhead corner, the car under steers to such an extreme that it basically drives completely off the course and into the tire barrier, I figured the TG crew must just be doing that to make fun of and tease the ForTwo, after all, it’s the antithesis of the cars they normally test…

Nope, serves me right for doubting The Stig (some say he lives on doubt), but the car handles just as badly as you saw on the screen, understeer, thy name is Smart ForTwo, if the car is under power or accelerating in any way in a corner, it basically ignores the steering input, the steering wheel is just there as a decoration only

On the other side, if you come off the throttle in a corner, you get a major case of power-off oversteer, as the rear end wants to snap around (partially due to it’s rear engine, rear drive design), handling is majorly schizophrenic

The only good thing about the ForTwo is that it’s suspension is reasonably decent, firm, and not too wallowy, then again, there’s not all that much weight to deal with

On a scale of 1 to 10, the ForTwo rates an abysmal NEGATIVE FIVE

Next up, the AMC Pacer;
ATX Pacer; 4:13
MTX Pacer; 4:05

The automatic Pacer felt heavy, bloated, slug like, and mushy, it lacked the sharper handling of its compatriot, the Pinto, however, the Pacer’s engine seemed to have a more usable torque curve, it struggled less on the brutal climbs, and had a more pleasing throaty rumble under hard acceleration to boot

The manual Pacer felt like a completely different car, sure it still had the soggy handling, but the manual allowed me to fully utilize the wide torque curve of the engine, I was able to power slide through corners and hold it in gear on the brutal climbs, and once again the superiority of the manual shows through, a full EIGHT seconds faster than the horrible sludgebox, the manual Pacer felt more alive, more fun

Now for a real laugh, the Ford Transit SuperSport van (sadly, sludgebox only) 4:03!
4:03, in a VAN, in an AUTOMATIC van! This was completely unexpected, but what was utterly amazing was the Transit SSV actually HANDLED PRETTY DARNED WELL, not just for a van, but handled pretty well period.

Being a van, I was expecting it to handle like a house on wheels, but it had nice crisp steering, minimal body roll, and firm suspension, heck, I think it handled the twisties of Fuji B better than the frakking Bugatti Veyron! And that’s something Bugatti should hang their heads in shame about, yes the V is a brilliant car, but you can’t deny that the 16.4’s handling absolutely SUCKS…

Now, on to the 1966 Lotus Cortina, as this car was only available with a manual, I won’t be testing it in automatic mode, and there was much rejoicing, YAAY!

Cortina time; 3:55, best time so far :slight_smile:
I love this car, crisp, razor sharp handling, no body roll or mushiness, a decent powerband, and a nice throaty rumble under power, this thing is just plain fun, but then again, I would have expected that from Lotus, they have a well deserved reputation for making cars with absolutely brilliant handling, and the Cortina is no exception

And now, another classic British roadster, the Austin Healy, which did it in 3:53
Take the Cortina, chop off the top, and tweak the handling a bit further, and you have the Austin Healy 3000, I LOVE this car, so much fun, and will be adding it to my garage :slight_smile:

31

I took the Smart around Laguna Seca for a hoot.

I’m glad you saw what I did MacTech - hideous lift-off oversteer. It probably wasn’t as pronounced going up the mountain, but on a flat or slightly downhill section it will snap the back around scarily fast. On my first lap I lifted before the corkscrew, the back end came out and I found myself in a huge tank-slapper that ended with me in the dirt after two cycles.

This car is by far the worst in the game - not only anemic acceleration but any attempt to drive it vigorously will end up biting you in the backside big time. Slow and gutless but dangerous in the turns - you have to work pretty hard to come up with that recipe!

The Pacer is much more fun. Stable, predictable and not horrible. Plus driving around in that ridiculous greenhouse adds to the fun factor.

My friend and I raced the Ford Transit vans around the Top Gear test track and were both impressed with it’s grunt and handling (for a van). Neither of us rolled the thing, despite numerous inadvertent attempts.

Haven’t driven the Cortina yet but I’m looking forward to it.

32

So I just purchased a Healy 3000 (in British Racing Green, of course), and the only mod I did to it was upgrading to racing tires, that brought the time down to 3:41

I did nothing else to it, as I love the character and balance of the car, the only other upgrade I might do is put wider wheels on it, to increase the size of the tire contact patch, I’ll start by upgrading just the rears, check my time, then upgrade the fronts, and do another timed run

After 235/55R15 rear tire upgrade; 3:41
No change in the time, but it changed the character and handling quite noticeably, the balance was gone, it was easier to carry speed into the corners, and to kick the tail out into a power slide at the apex of the turn, but it also introduced a bit of unwelcome understeer in approaching those corners, it noticeably reduced turn-in ability

After upgrading the fronts to 225/60R15; 3:41 again
Understeer is gone, but the larger tires make the car feel somehow “heavier” and less lively

Since there was no beneficial change from bigger wheels, I’m selling them and putting the stock ones back on

33

Ha! I beat Doors to the punch on sharing an AMC Pacer, mine’s a work in progress at the moment, working on firming up and tightening up the sloppy handling first, then will work on the power…

Drop a Javelin V8 under hood, bolt on a supercharger and all the race mods, make another insane little car like Little Crazy Horse

With my suspension tweaks, handling is coming along nicely so far, this one should be fun to tweak

34

Meguiars car pack adds more GW’s to the game :slight_smile:

Time to go up Fuji B…
First up, Original Herbie, an original VW Beetle;
Manual; 4:52, the ability to hold Herbie in a climbing gear was critical here, as the air cooled VW powerplant is incredibly anemic, otherwise it handled nicely, crisp, reactive steering, minimal body roll, overall a nice handling little car
Automatic; 5:05! I’m not sure if original Beetles Even had an automatic option, I just wanted to see how truly pathetic an auto beetle would be …
Downshift log;
1; 15% in, 2 to 1
2; 37% in, 3 to 2
3; 54% in 3 to 2
4; 57% in, 3 to 2
5; 95% in, 3 to 2
Slowest…Car…Ever! (so far)

1940 Ford DeLuxe Coupe;
Manual; 4:24
Auto; 4:30
Nice growly exhaust note, but very floaty handling, manual box has nice wide gear ratios, auto, too narrow and constantly hunts for the right gear, even with the lack of power, it’s easy to break the rear end free and initiate a slide, fun car, plus the classic retro styling is very cool, definitely a car with personality

I’ll do the other gutless wonders tomorrow

35

Just took the Peugot 107 up Fuji B in 4:14. However, I clipped a guardrail so I guess it doesn’t count. Are all these times supposed to be clean laps?

36

If you can get a clean lap on Fujimi Kaido or the Nurburgring, more power to you, you’re better than most of us. No, feel free to bang, bash, spin and flip, and if that’s something that appeals to you, join the SDMB stigs and drive my Pinto for a lap or two.