3rd Gear Adjusted Torque Per Ton Chart
Now looking at 3rd gear because that's where I usually am if I'm wanting to hustle a bit through in-town traffic, and it's also the gear I'm mostly in on my favourite twisty roads, as it was in my Tiburon. It's also where I usually do freeway on-ramps, pulling from around 70 km/h or so up to 120 km/h.
This is one of the gears where the BRZ has the biggest gearing advantage over the Tiburon, with the Tiburon being 12.5% taller (5th gear is the only one taller, at 12.9% taller than the BRZ).
3rd gear performance is a pretty big deal for me, all things considered.
Again, when looking at the charts, remember the Tiburon will be 300-500 rpm lower in the powerband for any given speed in 3rd.
I generally cruise around town at about 70 km/h, which is 10-20 km/h over the posted limits (
for what it's worth for those judging my speeding habit, I haven't had a ticket in over 20 years, and I ALWAYS slow down to the limit for playground and school zones). When working through traffic, speeds may yo-yo back and forth between about 40 km/h and 70 km/h, so that range is important. On my favourite twisty roads, it'll be as low as 40 and as high as 90.
So first, the bad news - stock BRZ vs Tiburon.
The stock BRZ kind of falls on its face as you pull through the 60 km/h mark in 3rd, as it dives deep into the torque dip. This makes any deviation below my usual 70 km/h around town feel pretty painful as I try to recover speed, even though objectively it should be stronger than the Tiburon up to that point according to the chart. Subjectively, from about 50 km/h on up it just feels kind of flat.
At 70 km/h, the stock BRZ is at rock bottom, so it actually feels like it pulls OK from there on up because the torque is increasing as revs build. Because of this, freeway on-ramps don't feel too bad, but they are actually slower than I was in the Tiburon because they're starting from a much weaker starting point and torque isn't increasing as quickly and stays below the Tiburon until we're already at freeway speeds.
From about 63-96 km/h in 3rd, it is WAY behind the Tiburon, which explains how unsatisfying it is for me on my favourite roads in stock form. If I can manage to carry more speed into and through the corners to stay in the 70-90 km/h range, it would probably feel OK but would still actually be slower, similar to the freeway on-ramp scenario.
Now the good news - EVERY modded option is better than the Tiburon in 3rd gear pretty much everywhere.
Only the HKS Header and "stock" 2.4L swap fall slightly behind the Tiburon's curve from 3750-4250 rpm. When you account for the difference in rpm at various speeds due to gearing, those options are still better than the Tiburon at any road speed in 3rd.
With that in mind, it goes without saying that an ACE header, 2.4L Swap with HKS Header or either of the supercharger options would absolutely destroy my old Tiburon at any speed in 3rd gear.