RE: Fast should mean scary: Tell Me I'm Wrong

RE: Fast should mean scary: Tell Me I'm Wrong

Author
Discussion

ZX10R NIN

27,490 posts

124 months

Thursday 6th November 2014
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MC Bodge said:
fullleather said:
If every member on here could be taken down a regular road whilst sat in a GT2 RS....third gear all the way to the red-line...
Interesting article. If you provide the car, come to a convenient venue and leave it with me for a few weeks, I'll give my opinion.

Will it feel more impressive in a straight line than a 1000 sports bike?


No it won't then add some bends & roundabouts etc and your GT2 RS will feel quick but average in comparison to my 2010 ZX10R 187.3bhp at the rear wheel.

Also holding it open in third & you'll be trying to control the wheelie whilst guiding it where you want it to go.

Even a 600 will make most cars feel average but will make their riders feel scared/elated within fractions of a second of pulling away, I've yet to find a car to match the scary fast feeling of a bike.


I think that scary feeling is more accessible on a motorbike than a modern performance car.






Edited by MC Bodge on Saturday 1st November 17:09

SamC63

5 posts

139 months

Tuesday 11th November 2014
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I agree. I always say I prefer to be doing 100mph feeling like 175 rather than the other way round. That's why I loved my Cobra.. and my two bikes. Next purchase; 996 GT2 the last car (nippy) to come from porsche without electronic aids. Tell me I'm wrong.

BTW a couple of years ago I had a go in a 80's something carrera that had a 993 engine transplant. Bit of dog, but really, I can't remember the last time a car made me smile so much. It just felt fast all over. Not video game fast all cosseted but visually, aurally and seat of your pants fast. Just sayin'

TorqueDirty

1,500 posts

218 months

Thursday 13th November 2014
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Have not read the whole thread but I did see one post about overtaking that made me think.

The best driver's car that I have ever had - by a long way - was a lotus Elise 111R. Utterly fabulous handling, near perfect steering, a phenomenally communicative chassis and on most occasions just about enough power and torque to make driving it a genuine joy.

When driving it on a great road with no one else in the way you could almost enter driving Nirvana. HOWEVER - come up behind an estate agent in a cheap suit and a chipped Golf Diesel and the car simply did not have the ooomph to effortlessly overtake, thus allowing you to continue to enjoy the sublime handling of the Lotus through your chosen series of challenging corners.

That's when you want another 100bhp (or more precisely another lump of torque). The Lotus was superb tool for precise, fast, balanced and rapid driving, but it was not really any use for breezing past other traffic. People would always pull over on motorways to allow me to blast past, and frankly I couldn't - without dropping at least 2 gears and revving the nuts of it.

Problem is that if it had had 300 bhp instead of 200 I suspect it would have lost a lot of what made it so great to drive. Drive a 300 bhp Elise in the same way as a 200 bhp one and I suspect you end up going very very fast.

I think I am quickly talking myself in to an Exige S! Enough extra punch to pass other traffic without ruining the purity of the driving experience.

Or I could be talking complete bks as usual.






Gary C

12,313 posts

178 months

Thursday 13th November 2014
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TorqueDirty said:
Have not read the whole thread but I did see one post about overtaking that made me think.

The best driver's car that I have ever had - by a long way - was a lotus Elise 111R. Utterly fabulous handling, near perfect steering, a phenomenally communicative chassis and on most occasions just about enough power and torque to make driving it a genuine joy.

When driving it on a great road with no one else in the way you could almost enter driving Nirvana. HOWEVER - come up behind an estate agent in a cheap suit and a chipped Golf Diesel and the car simply did not have the ooomph to effortlessly overtake, thus allowing you to continue to enjoy the sublime handling of the Lotus through your chosen series of challenging corners.

That's when you want another 100bhp (or more precisely another lump of torque). The Lotus was superb tool for precise, fast, balanced and rapid driving, but it was not really any use for breezing past other traffic. People would always pull over on motorways to allow me to blast past, and frankly I couldn't - without dropping at least 2 gears and revving the nuts of it.

Problem is that if it had had 300 bhp instead of 200 I suspect it would have lost a lot of what made it so great to drive. Drive a 300 bhp Elise in the same way as a 200 bhp one and I suspect you end up going very very fast.

I think I am quickly talking myself in to an Exige S! Enough extra punch to pass other traffic without ruining the purity of the driving experience.

Or I could be talking complete bks as usual.
Best overtaking car I ever had was an Evo v with about 320-350 hp. The active yaw plus 4wd meant almost nothing could beat it in anything but perfect conditions, but it was no sublime sports car. A mk3 mr2 I had was a great handling car with fantastic grip and just the right amount of power for the chassis but overtaking a car that didn't want to be overtaken would have been difficult.

End of the day they were both brilliant, but in completely different ways. The Evo made a great daily driver, the mr2 a great weekender.

TorqueDirty

1,500 posts

218 months

Thursday 13th November 2014
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Gary C said:
Best overtaking car I ever had was an Evo v with about 320-350 hp. The active yaw plus 4wd meant almost nothing could beat it in anything but perfect conditions, but it was no sublime sports car. A mk3 mr2 I had was a great handling car with fantastic grip and just the right amount of power for the chassis but overtaking a car that didn't want to be overtaken would have been difficult.

End of the day they were both brilliant, but in completely different ways. The Evo made a great daily driver, the mr2 a great weekender.
True, have had a few 300+ bhp cars (350 bhp Scooby, an M3 and a well tuned Audi S4 Bi-turbo) and overtaking was always easy and fun. None of them were that great to drive but I never got stuck behind a wannabe Schumacher in a Golf TDi in any of them though!

It was no Lotus but I still miss my Audi - 4WD, quiet, smooooth, sophisticated stealth weapon; well compared to the mental tin can Scooby.

TD

Alex

9,975 posts

283 months

Thursday 13th November 2014
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TorqueDirty said:
.... - without dropping at least 2 gears and revving the nuts of it.
Nope, don't see the problem.

smile


Alex

9,975 posts

283 months

Thursday 13th November 2014
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havoc said:
Hmmm...Becs runs a MkV Golf GTi - 197bhp 2.0 turbo-petrol. I run an FD2 Civic Type-R - 222bhp 2.0 n/a petrol.

Guess which of us gets better daily mpg and better long-run mpg?!? Yep...the n/a engine with the more power!!!
Someone should tell the people who are responsible for the EU emissions test cycle. Small capacity turbo engines do well in the stop-start test cycle, but in the real world, their emissions are often higher. In the meantime, we PH'ers are being deprived of high revving and/or large capacity NA engines.

havoc

29,920 posts

234 months

Thursday 13th November 2014
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TorqueDirty said:
The best driver's car that I have ever had - by a long way - was a lotus Elise 111R.

When driving it on a great road with no one else in the way you could almost enter driving Nirvana. HOWEVER - come up behind an estate agent in a cheap suit and a chipped Golf Diesel and the car simply did not have the ooomph to effortlessly overtake...
Really?

I drove one back when I was running a DC2 as a daily-driver - virtually the same engine, but 200kg more weight and of course very different platform (although IMHO equally fun and rather similar in character, hence why I didn't get the Elise). And the one area where the Elise DID shine over the DC2 was straight-line pace, albeit it was even peakier than the 'teg.

...and to be honest, as long as I used the 'box in the 'teg, I never found overtaking diesels to be a problem!

OK, you say 'effortlessly' - but then how often does an overtakee play silly beggars? Especially silly-beggars BEFORE it's too late for them to make a difference?

TorqueDirty

1,500 posts

218 months

Friday 14th November 2014
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havoc said:
TorqueDirty said:
The best driver's car that I have ever had - by a long way - was a lotus Elise 111R.

When driving it on a great road with no one else in the way you could almost enter driving Nirvana. HOWEVER - come up behind an estate agent in a cheap suit and a chipped Golf Diesel and the car simply did not have the ooomph to effortlessly overtake...
Really?

I drove one back when I was running a DC2 as a daily-driver - virtually the same engine, but 200kg more weight and of course very different platform (although IMHO equally fun and rather similar in character, hence why I didn't get the Elise). And the one area where the Elise DID shine over the DC2 was straight-line pace, albeit it was even peakier than the 'teg.

...and to be honest, as long as I used the 'box in the 'teg, I never found overtaking diesels to be a problem!

OK, you say 'effortlessly' - but then how often does an overtakee play silly beggars? Especially silly-beggars BEFORE it's too late for them to make a difference?
In every day driving when I overtake I like it to be drama free and effortless. I'm not saying the 111R is slow, far from it, but 99% of the time when I overtake I just want it over and done with. It is safer for one thing. On a long journey where you make lots of overtakes dropping 2 cogs and red lining it to get past every car becomes a bit if a drag after a while. In other words having to go into "race mode" every time loses its novelty quite quickly. When you are out for a blast it is absolutely fine - in fact its brilliant, but you are not always out for a blast.

And don't underestimate how often seeing a fast approaching Elise in the rear view mirror awakens the inner ahole of the "overtakee".

But hey, that's just a personal opinion. I owned one for a year or two that was my experience, but I did also have a much more powerful car at the same time so maybe this highlighted to point.

TransverseTight

753 posts

144 months

Tuesday 18th November 2014
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My "fastest" car I ever owned was a 330ci. Nothing special. but I found it frustrating to drive as everyone gets in your way. Porsche should spend the money developing "Inspector Gadget extending legs wheels" instead of gearboxes, horsepower and stability systems.

I'm currently driving a 1.6 Nissan Juke (non turbo), and the high centre of gravity, low power and late starting traction control, make it much more "fun" to drive than something that will be doing twice the speed limit before it starts to encounter traction difficulties. It seems to be faster than 95% of other cars on the road.

The other things that could make cars faster and more fun to drive is something like Google maps intelligent routing. My weekly trek takes me up the M3/A34/M40/M42 and several times I've been overtaken by a performance car on the start of the A34 only to beat them to the M40 as google took me down a few back roads to miss the section by Oxford. Now - that's where I would see the benefit of a Porsche with scary levels of grip. Becuase getting stuck behind the 45 mph drivers on the back roads is more frustrating than being stuck in a 5mph jam.

MORE POWER!

vrooom

3,763 posts

266 months

Tuesday 18th November 2014
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this is complete spot on.

LuS1fer

41,083 posts

244 months

Wednesday 19th November 2014
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It's true. I "want" something else but the truth is, my "daily", a Fiesta ST150 is about perfect in terms of power, handling, grip, chuckability and parkability that I would be mental to give it up. it's also one of those cars that one day I would look back and wish I'd never sold.