3 things: Even after reading many reviews, I still can't fathom these...

[russv]

Originally Posted by fatoni

calling people spoiled brats for having an appreciation is at the very least as ignorant as they are for liking the power they have been exposed to. the frs is slow relative to its competition. you can say its fast for your standards but then its competition is just faster. the mustang can be had for much less than five thousand over the frs. in fact i had offers from dealers for cheaper than ive ever seen an frs. if there is a giant killer in this conversation, its the mustang and not the frs. anecdotal evidence that one time a corolla beat a skyline isnt proof of anything.

the frs is a neat little car. its design philosophy speaks to my personal values and that doesnt happen much in todays industry so im excited. im sure there are going to be isolated situations where an frs will surprise some people but it isnt close to being a giant killer.

You say the FRS is slow compared to its competition- which cars are its competition? Perhaps the Miata or some Kia/Hyundai variant but certainly not the Mustang except in perhaps cost. The Mustang is in an entirely different classification with more weight, V6 or V8, prehistoric differential and most certainly a different target market. I certainly didn't consider the Mustang.

Edit: after rethinking my comment about the Mustang not being in the target market I'm going to restate my hypothesis from a different perspective. I think, initially, Toyota/Subaru didn't consider potential Mustang/Camaro buyers to be in their sights, but rather these potential buyers realized they had another alternative essentially becoming part of the target market.

[Melody]

Originally Posted by Mad_Mike

1) If you are the first person sitting at a red light and you gun it when the light changes green, it feels a little slow. My old 1995 bmw 325i with CAI, engine chip, lightweight flywheel, cat back exhaust (189HP stock - don't know what it really was) felt faster. I don't know if it was actually faster. HOWEVER, the more you drive this car, the less you care that it feels a little slow in a straight line. You end up just loving to drive it.

I feel you... Not revving aggressively, I get overtaken by Priuses at stoplights (and they're not even trying). My other car is a 98 Civic. It feels faster off the line for some reason. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong

[MVJ1975]

Originally Posted by Melody

I feel you... Not revving aggressively, I get overtaken by Priuses at stoplights (and they're not even trying). My other car is a 98 Civic. It feels faster off the line for some reason. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong

Prii have instant torque from their electric motors, so they'll pull on a lot of non-EVs unless you go WOT. Once their anemic ICE kicks in, you'll blow right past, though.

[wbradley]

Engineers=strange people (in many cases)

Thank goodness we have them.

[naikaidriver]

My wife's 2005 tC has more low end torque than my FR-S and we drag race each other at stoplights all the time!

***When it's safe to do so and a whopping 0-35mph! boo-yah!

The story is pretty much the same every time. She can beat me in a very short sprint but once the FR-S gets up in the RPMs, I roll right past her.

I don't think this can be said enough and if I didn't like my sig so much, I would change it to;

"If you bought the FR-S to drag race, you may as well take it back to the dealership before a Hyundai Sonata blows your doors off!"

Scott

[Melody]

Originally Posted by MVJ1975

Prii have instant torque from their electric motors, so they'll pull on a lot of non-EVs unless you go WOT. Once their anemic ICE kicks in, you'll blow right past, though.

LOL... Point taken. The Prius thing happened again last night, but I've also found myself lagging behind vans and Camrys, starting from a standstill. Doesn't take away from the fun of the handling though.

[SubieNate]

@circuithero-I stopped trying to argue when I read "zero unit vector."

That's completely contrary to the basic definition of unit vector. If you can't get that right I'm not going to bother arguing.

[naikaidriver]

Originally Posted by Melody

LOL... Point taken. The Prius thing happened again last night, but I've also found myself lagging behind vans and Camrys, starting from a standstill. Doesn't take away from the fun of the handling though.

I wouldn't get too discouraged.

Yesterday on the way home from work I had some large redneck in a new"er" Mustang 5.0 GT with a body kit and exhaust try racing me on the freeway on the way home from work last night. I won't give any of the details but I will say that when we came to the 270 degree off-ramp I caught up to him MUCH faster than he pulled on me in a straight line!

Scott

[Jahdai42]

What we have here is a blank canvas to be painted on. The handling dynamics are spot on and a simple tune with better breathing will make this car fly. Paint on your canvas how you like.

[jadewbj]

It makes me laugh when people say the New Camry will blow it away. The sad truth is that the new Camry runs 14.2 which is as fast as the "hot hatch" Mazdaspeed 3 which runs a 14.1.

We have seem the car run a 14.7 stock with a descent driver on a few occasions.

The "fast" Acura Integra TypeR in 2000 ran 14.8's or so. I think that is where people say it is slow, a car from the early 2000's is just as fast.

[Mr.Corvus]

Originally Posted by Jahdai42

What we have here is a blank canvas to be painted on. The handling dynamics are spot on and a simple tune with better breathing will make this car fly. Paint on your canvas how you like.

This x 10000000000000

[ZDan]

Originally Posted by wu_dot_com

You just describe what I've said and what Wikipedia said.

hardly...

When calculating COM, gravity does not come into play because its a relationship of volume and density distribution.
When you calculate COG, you need the sum of moment of each respective volume and density and apply gravity.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Again, repeat after me: For *any* car discussion, center of gravity (c.g.) is *the same* as center of mass. THE SAME. There is no other calculation to be done. Find the location of the center of mass, done, that's it. No need to apply forces, moments, torque, gravity, anything. You *have* the center of gravity. The two are identical.

It is you who clearly have a half baked understanding of both COM and COG. Also put on your critical thinking cap before posting again. Dispute what you believe, you really don't know what you are talking about

Projecting much?!

Here is what you originally said:

actually no, lowering a car with correct shock does not alter COG.

WRONG. Lowering a car 1" will lower its center of gravity by slightly less than 1".

Then you added:

COG is a force(COG=COM(M)x Gravity(A))

Utter bullshit! Center of gravity is NOT a FORCE! It is a location in space.
And center of mass is NOT a MASS! It is *also* a location in space. For our purposes it is precisely the *same* point in space.
Your absurd and meaningless equation above takes the cake! You do not calculate "center of gravity" by multiplying "center of mass" by gravity.

Utterly ridiculous...

[motofan]

Originally Posted by lemonspeakers

1) When people say this car is slow. How slow am I talking? Can you put it into perspective of a 1998 Honda Civic SI or a 1999 Acura Intega GSR?

To your first question: I personally drove a 10 GTI with stage 1 ECU (250hp, 300ft-lb) 100 miles to the dealer and jumped in an auto FR-S for the first time. I drove several hundred feet and merged on a ramp. The first impression was when I pushed down the peddle and there was nothing.

But don't get me wrong. I mean when you jump in to another car with such big power/torque difference, you sure feel quite different. But the car is very very good. (I later drove that FR-S for hundreds of miles and loved it.)

[fatoni]

Originally Posted by DarkSunrise

Only true if your definition of "giant killer" is track times, and nothing else. If you're looking for the most enjoyable car for the track and street, the FR-S and BRZ are certainly giant killers. They've taken down plenty of cars above and beyond their price range.

if you look at the context of the little debate that transpired, you will see that he keeps bringing up speed. he even used the example of an ae86 beating a gtr around a track. since enjoyment is subjective, im just not going to argue from that standpoint. ill speak my opinions, but i wont state that as fact.

Originally Posted by russv

You say the FRS is slow compared to its competition- which cars are its competition? Perhaps the Miata or some Kia/Hyundai variant but certainly not the Mustang except in perhaps cost. The Mustang is in an entirely different classification with more weight, V6 or V8, prehistoric differential and most certainly a different target market. I certainly didn't consider the Mustang.

Edit: after rethinking my comment about the Mustang not being in the target market I'm going to restate my hypothesis from a different perspective. I think, initially, Toyota/Subaru didn't consider potential Mustang/Camaro buyers to be in their sights, but rather these potential buyers realized they had another alternative essentially becoming part of the target market.

the target demographic and the competition are two different things. the only thing people buy cars with is money so the only thing i really use to assess competition (not to mention its the only qualification that is not up for debate).

im not saying that the frs isnt a great car or anything like that. im just saying taht 25k will get you a faster car if you look elsewhere. relative to its price, it is slow.