0-60 mph - forget handling ability for 5.9 seconds

[tranzformer]

Originally Posted by bedabi

I'm having trouble identifying the tire brand and name. Do you know it?

Michelin Primacy HPs.

[bedabi]

Originally Posted by tranzformer

Michelin Primacy HPs.

Thanks!

I see they're graded at 240. Not very sticky, compared to my RE-11's (180).

I really do wonder if putting stickier and wider tires on the BRZ/FR-S will change the driving character the reviewers have raved about so far?

Oops, looks like I'm going OT and talking about handling! Sorry.

[dsgerbc]

Thread-wear rating these days is only tangentially related to grip/stickiness of the tire.

[jor8888]

sooo the GTI with same HP and heavier is faster? the Japanese are falling behind.

[Allch Chcar]

I didn't realize that the Miata was that fast. I always thought it was a 7 second car.

[SUB-FT86]

Originally Posted by jor8888

sooo the GTI with same HP and heavier is faster? the Japanese are falling behind.

TORQUE!!!!

[serialk11r]

Originally Posted by jor8888

sooo the GTI with same HP and heavier is faster? the Japanese are falling behind.

Small turbo, likely restrictive turbine housing choking off power at high rpm. Move the boost to high rpm and the HP number will look VERY different.

[ahausheer]

Originally Posted by SUB-FT86

TORQUE!!!!

Not really. The S2000 weighs about 2,800 lbs, has about 155 ft/lbs of torque and it will get to 60 faster than the BRZ and the GTI. I think its more a function of gearing, tires, manual shift times and Hp.
Read this, http://www.vettenet.org/torquehp.html check the Corvette comparisons. You want Hp, not torque to win a race.

[dsgerbc]

He meant lotsa torque in lower rpms, aka fatter power curve. GTI basically has more HP across rev range required to get to 60mph.

[Sasquachulator]

Well a GTI is boosted if im not mistaken.
That tends to kick torque up a notch.

[SuqMadiq]

Originally Posted by ahausheer

Not really. The S2000 weighs about 2,800 lbs, has about 155 ft/lbs of torque and it will get to 60 faster than the BRZ and the GTI. I think its more a function of gearing, tires, manual shift times and Hp.
Read this, http://www.vettenet.org/torquehp.html check the Corvette comparisons. You want Hp, not torque to win a race.

You couldn't be more wrong. For straight line performance torque is going to be the determining factor. HP is essentially torque measured over time. What you want for acceleration is torque. Let's recall high school physics days... F= MA, or Force = Mass * Acceleration. Now to solve for Acceleration we get A= F/M. Toque is a force measured in lb-ft.

So ultimately that leaves us with Acceleration = Force (torque) / Mass (of car). Now if you're wondering how HP and gearing are part of the equation. Well, HP measures the amount of power over time. So high HP will net high speeds as it is an extended period of torque to the wheels. The gearing is also very important because it derives how much force is actually being sent to the wheels. The reason a high revving engine is good, is because the car can maintain the high torque being applied to the wheels. So having a high revving engine will also help your acceleration.

[Sport-Tech]

The reason a high revving engine is good, is because the car can maintain the high torque being applied to the wheels.

^ I 'm neither engineer nor physicist but even with mostly-forgotten high school physics something smells oversimplified or just plain wrong with that statement, simply on the basis of dyno charts.

Lots of cars have near-flat torque curves these days. So keeping things simple, if you have a CVT car with a flat torque curve, according to your explanation it would never have to rev faster than say 2000 rpm where the torque curve levels off since reving any higher would provide no additional torque. But of course we all know that is not what happens in practice - stomp on the gas in a CVT'd car and the revs shoot up and stay there until you ease off the gas. That obviously is necessary to get more power to the wheels or the engine would not be programmed to do that (it burns gas more quickly in that state) so torque alone is not the explanation for acceleration. Something about horsepower's (force X distance)/time must come into play here making hp important.

Can anyone offer a more complete understanding? Wikipedia on horsepower was not directly on point.

[dsgerbc]

Can we please ban people with obscene screen names? Thanks.

[Khyron686]

Originally Posted by Scion FR-S

Can anyone offer a more complete understanding? Wikipedia on horsepower was not directly on point.

It's torque * gearing/RPM which is why a big garbage truck with tons of torque is slow, or why diesels can feel fast but usually aren't. I like the explanation on one of the Vette pages, but here's a snip (read the bit about the 12,000 tq waterwheel which is really only 6 hp) :

http://www.vettenet.org/torquehp.html

L98 with 250 hp @ 4000
LT1 with 300 hp @ 5000

Both 340 tq.

First, each car will push you back in the seat (the fun factor) with the same authority - at least at or near peak torque in each gear. One will tend to *feel* about as fast as the other to the driver, but the LT1 will actually be significantly faster than the L98, even though it won't pull any harder.

The L98 is making 328 foot pounds of torque at its power peak (250 hp @ 4000). The L98 is probably making no more than around 210 pound feet or so at 5000 rpm so driver will shift earlier.

On the other hand, the LT1 is fairly happy making 315 pound feet at 5000 rpm, and is happy right up to its mid 5s redline.

So, in a drag race, the cars would launch more or less together. From somewhere in the mid range and up, however, the LT1 would begin to pull away. Where the L98 has to shift to second (and throw away torque multiplication for speed), the LT1 still has around another 1000 rpm to go in first, and thus begins to widen its lead, more and more as the speeds climb. As long as the revs are high, the LT1, by definition, has an advantage.