Black fd racing

[Trappy]

http://www.fd3s.net/magazine_articles/motor_trend_article01.html

Check here for original road tests of rx7 fd rivals and 13.8 1/4mile @103mph for 300zx

If you car passes the 1/4 at 96 then you should be on for a low 14 or high 13 at 100mph. That\'s about standard FD performance.

I understand the theory of turbos BTW. I\'d like to add that when two engines, one N/A, one turbo, have the same power and torque, the turbo gets it\'s full bhp and, especially, torque far earlier earlier, resulting in a faster car.

The 30-130 test is run in the best gear for that speed. It\'s basically a full 0-130mph but the clock isn\'t started until 30mph. Your turbo would be on the boil through the whole time.

[fly]

Hehe, the last thing i want to is have a pop at RX7s :spank

If i had a very considerable budget and space for a 2nd car, then an rx7 would be still be my choice of car.

Ive driven a fair few and varied performance cars, and the rex still ranks as the best handling car for me, and really i find that the steering and damping are its best points, as it is a fairly twitchy car even by rwd standards.

The reason i posted here was just to defend the coupe a little bit as tbh, anyone who thinks that its a crap car is misled/biased by badges and missing out on a very good, very fast FWD car.

When i was searching for a replacement for the rex, i decided after awhile that having owned one of the best handling rwd cars for this side of £50k, it would be pointless trying to search for a similiar replacement as i could never see any car with similiar specs living upto the rex in terms of how it feels to drive, (M3s dont appeal to me, porkas are out of my price range and TVRS are neither any cheaper to run,fix or modify than a rex).

So i decided to look at FWD cars, even though after owning a celica ST202 id vowed i would never bother with a whale like cornering, torque steering off balance tub again

I drove an integra type-r which had alot of grip but i found overated in the handling stakes, and its engine was so pitifully breathless after the rex i couldnt stand it, i also drove the newer shape celica, which all i can say is if you pay 20k for that new you need your head testing

So to my dismay i veered away from japanese cars and had a look at the Alfa GTV and Fiat Coupe. The smaller engines sizes didnt really do it for me so i concentrated on the V6 alfa and coupe 20vt.

Practicality and build quality/reliability won out over the 2 and i chose the coupe, and have never looked back.

In regards to FWD vs RWD, no my coupe is never going beat an evo or scooby over a bumpy B-road, or an rx7 round a track (as standard vs standard :p) the steering is heavy and can feel abit rubbery, the damping and ride height as standard are nice over bumps but give the car very average body control, weight balance is poor at 67/33 ( which is not to bad for a big engined fwd mind) and turn in is not very direct (although there is alot less understeer than you would imagine)

The coupe comes into its with a few mods, which to my great delight are alot cheaper than most jap cars.

Some pagid blues front pads change the braking system (brembo four pot) from average to confidence inspiring fantastic on motorway/b-road/sweeping a-road.

An fmic,boost controller,unichip and straight thru induction has taken me from 220bhp to 285 at under £1000.

Im having Konis fitted on the 2nd of august which should help my turn in and body roll problems.

Im also going to have a GT28RS installed for about £600 quid which should take my power to around 300-320.

This all done reliably on standard engine internals, no cooling problems aniticipated :p

After that things become more expensive with cams, injector rails, porting changing heads etc, you all know the drill.

So at the end of that i have a well built (the coupe was built by pininfarina),reliable, good looking (imo) sports car which is relatively cheap to run and mod, and is a quick car, regardless of the jibes.

Its also in a league of its own, it has no relation to the hideous breed of VAG traction controlled hot hatches,and is not part of a chain of market led moneyspinners (350Z anyone?).

For me in the end the rex, if you have an open budget, will always be the better car in performance terms, but the coupe still levels it out with all its other advantages (the viscodrive lsd is surprisingly good in the wet).

And it was chris bangles only good car by looks of it :bandit

[fly]

Also i would like to point out that i did spend a few of my early days on FCCUK extolling the virtues of the rx7 to the un-initiated, including a small but quite detailed buyers guide based on my experience which was read and hopefully used by some coupe owners who were purchasing rx7s.

[Prof]

If you car passes the 1/4 at 96 then you should be on for a low 14 or high 13 at 100mph. That\'s about standard FD performance.

Tell me about it - not sure if you can see the 2nd Gen 100Mph challenge - but on paper this is possible.

Problem is always hookup and the 3rd gear - when us FC drivers master these - then we can do the ton with our light mods !

I will be cheating and going for more grunt, because its a hoot taking other cars to the cleaners on the way to/from work :spank

Also the wife wants to go head to head in a 1/4 mile drag - and I wouldn\'t stand a chance against her 300zx TT unless I can get some more horses in there.

[fly]

Some pics of my lovely coupe :mmmm

Side

Front

Rear


She has official zender fiat skirts and front bumper, i think it gives the car a more purposeful look.

[dre]

Trappy - not too sure what your point here is unless you are trying to wind everybody up with your stupidity.

Please don\'t try to think to hard about Turbo\'s and lag and spool. You may just hurt yourself :Hammer

For the record a n/a motor producing say 350bhp will always beat a turbo charged motor with the same bhp!!

[Prof]

I\'d have to agree with dre on that one - my mates old TVR 390 SEAC was a bloody fast car and no turbo - just a lot of cubic inches and a light car.

Power was available from like 500 RPM all the way to the silly red line of 6000 RPM.  He could actually start rolling his car in 4th gear and drive around all day as if it was an automatic - that is torque - and everyone knows that V8\'s have buckets of it.

With a turbo\'d car, your peak power and torque are later in the graph - not earlier.  The only way the statement that trappy made would make sense would be if you compared 2 engines of the same make and capacity and one was turbocharged - but then they would have different power.

Anyways - looks like there\'s been a bit of reading going on between sites - which is all good stuff.  So perhaps we will see some of you fella\'s at some of the shows around and about ?

All the best

Prof :cheers

[dre]

Yes it is all good to find out about other cars etc. 5-6 years ago i had an Escort RS Turbo series 2 all modded up, around 225 fly bhp, FWD weighed less than 1000kg. I absolutely loved it. Was quick in a straight line and fun round the twisty\'s but no way could i compare it to my FD. It\'s a totally different car. Yeah it was quick, could do 0-100mph in about 14 seconds, was quick through the gears once rolling too. But now that i have my FD the driving experince is out of this world.

Come to the next Essex RX meet Trappy and i\'ll take you out for a spin :3gears-rh

Get some of the Fiat Coupe\'s to come too.

[doctorfrag]

I understand the theory of turbos BTW. I\'d like to add that when two engines, one N/A, one turbo, have the same power and torque, the turbo gets it\'s full bhp and, especially, torque far earlier earlier, resulting in a faster car.

I agree with Trappy, partly.

You cannot just make blanket statements DRE that a NA car is faster than a turbo car with the same ultimate peak BHP, because this is simply not true.

It all depends on the power band of the engine, and the \'area under the curve\' that determines the ultimate power of the engine.

For the most part, turbo engines are  more powerful, in this respect than NA engines simply because their peak torque is LOWER in the power band, and the ultimate area under the curve is greater.

But I cannot generalize, because a very large capacity engine may in fact have a larger power band, but a high revving small capacity v-tec, may have a very narrow power band.

for example comparee my car 363bhp@6600 rpm 323 lb/ft @4000rpm to the BMW M3 csl engine stats 360.00 BHP (265 KW) @ 7900.00 RPM
Torque 275.00 Ft-Lbs (372.9 NM) @ 4900.00 RPM , to see that the engines have very similar power bands, but the RR graph of the BMW engine shows it is quite peaky, with its lower torque figure, so the area under the curve of the turbo engine is a lot more.

Just have a look at the stats of many common sports cars and see where they produce peak torque and power and you will see this to be true. Its partly why turbodiesels can be so quick on the road, because of high torque and lower power.

Of course, the actual question was asked as to which type of car would be quicker and it gets a lot more difficult here, on a drag strip the turbo car with its more meaty power band would be quicker ,but round a track, quite possible the na car would be with its more predictable throttle reponse.

Joe

[Adriansturgess]

Some pics of my lovely coupe :mmmm

Side

Front

Rear


She has official zender fiat skirts and front bumper, i think it gives the car a more purposeful look.

Yes, do like that....Have always liked the look of the Coupe.....Dark colour sets it off well too.:Thumbs-up

[Prof]

Ok so did a little experiment on the way home tonight.
 
My theory is that it takes more for the car to accelerate from a constant speed rather than measuring between two speeds on an acceleration curve.
 
So with that in mind, and in true Braniac fashion, I got the car going at a steady 80Mph (that\'s miles per hour - not kph :mmmm ) held it there a few seconds and then stuck the right foot down and counted seconds - it took the car a full 10 seconds to reach 120 Mph in 4th Gear - the experiment was cut short due to someone pulling out ahead - don\'t want to go down that road :Hammer  - I had planned to take it all the way to 130 :driving
 
Gtec meter says I can do 0-60 in 5.8 Secs - which is nice.:cool
 
So we have a middle piece missing, and I would need a good long empty straight private road to do your 30-130 challenge.

[Adriansturgess]

Uhm....So seems you now just need a 0-30 time to subtract from your 0-60....Then you need a 60-80 time followed by a 120-130 time...... mix all the ingredients together bang a few keys on a calculator and hey presto as if by magic a 30-130 time....:yes

[Trappy]

So with that in mind, and in true Braniac fashion, I got the car going at a steady 80Mph (that\'s miles per hour - not kph :mmmm ) held it there a few seconds and then stuck the right foot down and counted seconds - it took the car a full 10 seconds to reach 120 Mph in 4th Gear - the experiment was cut short due to someone pulling out ahead - don\'t want to go down that road :Hammer  - I had planned to take it all the way to 130 :driving
 
Gtec meter says I can do 0-60 in 5.8 Secs - which is nice.:cool
 
So we have a middle piece missing, and I would need a good long empty straight private road to do your 30-130 challenge.

Try it from 70mph next time and start meaqsuring from 80mph. If you had your 80-120mph might have been say 9 secs?

0-30 of your car should be around 2.3 seconds.

So, let\'s assume 30-60 is 3.5 seconds (5.8-2.3)
60-80mph, i\'d say around 3.0 seconds.
So we have 0-80 in 8.8 secs.
Add another 9 (your 80-120mph), 17.8 then you need 120-130mph. This takes a while longer as most motors are running out of puff. Give it 4-5 seconds and you have about 23 seconds from 30-130mph.
Which is what we calculated for a coop with basic mods (like mine( and running around 220bhp ATFW. Both cars weigh the same so we have about your figure.

[Trappy]

Come to the next Essex RX meet Trappy and i\'ll take you out for a spin :3gears-rh

Get some of the Fiat Coupe\'s to come too.

I\'d love to come along and go out for a spin. While the coops off the road, i\'ll come in the MX5 instead if i have to. Looking to be end of August time before I get the coop back...

[Prof]

Try it from 70mph next time and start meaqsuring from 80mph. If you had your 80-120mph might have been say 9 secs?
 
0-30 of your car should be around 2.3 seconds.
 
So, let\'s assume 30-60 is 3.5 seconds (5.8-2.3)
60-80mph, i\'d say around 3.0 seconds.
So we have 0-80 in 8.8 secs.
Add another 9 (your 80-120mph), 17.8 then you need 120-130mph. This takes a while longer as most motors are running out of puff. Give it 4-5 seconds and you have about 23 seconds from 30-130mph.
Which is what we calculated for a coop with basic mods (like mine( and running around 220bhp ATFW. Both cars weigh the same so we have about your figure.

Slight problem with your calculon there chappy.:2Confused
 
My 0-30 is definitely not quicker than my 30-60. You can estimate that it would take me 15 secs to do 0-100 based on my 1/4. And from the 80-120 experiment - the acceleration here is quite linear - suprisingly - although my torque curve is quite flat and goes from 2000-6700 - so it should accelerate like that. Above 125-130 ish wind resistance hits.
 
I reckon 0-100 is 15 then 100-130 would be about 6-7 secs - so thats 21-22 on your book. This is for a 1.5 Ton car with 270BHP.:driving
 
The purpose of the 80-80-80 - 120 test was to illustrate the effect of waking up the tubby and then going hell for leather on WOT to see how quick the mph climbs. Why not try this in your coupe - it\'s much harder to start accelerating when you are off boost - would be more interested to know what a 20vt could do with that.:driving
 
I shall also repeat these tests later in the year when I more likely will have 330BHP to play with.:cool :cool