Curious about power
Discussion
Out of interest, does anyone ever feel their car is out of tune or not quite right. I have a Griff 500 and when I drive it, it feels fine, it pulls well and drives great but it never seems to be quite as fast I expect it to be when I floor it. I was wondering if im just used to the power and am clutching at straws. I have had it for a year now and im pretty sure theirs nothing wrong with it. Id like everyones views on this, am I alone in this feeling?
I've noticed on mine when trundling along at 90 ish I get a sort of cyclic vibration, very slight like something slightly out of balance, never enough to worry about but at pottering about town speeds this translates into a sort of rythmic hesitancy. It aint drive train or wheels cos when I put in the clutch it goes away, maybe it's my wallet cringing
quote:I too have these days. I have had my car around 10 months and sometimes think it could go faster but I personally put it down getting accustomed to it and the laziness that the car tempts you into. The thing is that it is so powerful that I sometimes just put my foot down to overtake instead of dropping a cog to feel the power or dropping two to fill my pants!
Out of interest, does anyone ever feel their car is out of tune or not quite right. I have a Griff 500 and when I drive it, it feels fine, it pulls well and drives great but it never seems to be quite as fast I expect it to be when I floor it. I was wondering if im just used to the power and am clutching at straws. I have had it for a year now and im pretty sure theirs nothing wrong with it. Id like everyones views on this, am I alone in this feeling?
Yep agree get exactly the same feeling, being a picky sod its been back to the dealer a few times but they can never find my "imaginary problem" either. The best I've been offered is it may be air temp', air density or a bad tank of fuel ???? It only does it once in a blue moon and even then no one else can feel it.
I too have these days. I have had my car around 10 months and sometimes think it could go faster but I personally put it down getting accustomed to it and the laziness that the car tempts you into. The thing is that it is so powerful that I sometimes just put my foot down to overtake instead of dropping a cog to feel the power or dropping two to fill my pants!
Perhaps its all in my mind, a few drop downs through my gears wont go a miss to reasure me. Then like LEE my briefs will be filled with a collection of brown objects. I must admit I tend to labour my engine a little bit, whilst crusing, which deffinatley dosent help my pull away speed if im only doing 1500 RPM in 5TH gear and decide to wizz off. I will be changeing my driving style ASAP.
As a relatively new owner I am still at that stage where I am in awe of the power and speed. However, is the 0-60 speed really 4.1??? It doesn't seem like it to be honest. Maybe, as some of you have mentioned, it is the lazy driving style that makes it feel a bit more sluggish than it should be. It just doesn't feel like the sort of car you want to be charging up and down the gears the whole time......you just end up driving it like an automatic (my God what do I sound like? I think a track day beckons to get that good old feeling back!)
Don't get me wrong mind......the speed is awesome, but I would be interested to know if 4.1 secs to 60mph is achievable in a 500?
Well if you warm up the tyres, lose weight, run it low on petrol, on a cool day with grippy tarmac.
Then you need to get lucky, the tyres hook up instantly, the clutch doesn't slip, the engine doesn't bog down, but the tyres don't spin too much.
Then you need to change into second without the clutch, just let the rev limiter act to back off the power and put the gear stick hard at the right moment.
If you don't blow up the gear box, the diff, or light the tyres then you might get close to 4.1
I wouldn't bother trying, not in my car anyway. The testers abuse the press cars and then give them back when they blow up!
Re : 0-60 times
All V8 TVRS are pretty quick. At the Curborough Sprint there is a timing beam which is about 60ft (I think) from the start beam, and that distance can easily be covered in 2.5 secs. This is with full 'warm-up' (i.e. burnout) & a proper few thousand revs before dropping the clutch.
The point is though, that the mid range accelleration is even better.
As far as the 'off day' comments on engine power - me too! I had heard that fuel looses ocatane rating, (a particular problem then for 2nd cars) and always think mine runs nicer on a fresh tank. Am I talking b****cks?
Marcus
& Ocean Haze Griff 500
Well my second car is a staggering 1.1 litre Fiat Punto, so I chop and change power levels quite a lot! Sure, if you drive a TVR for a while you can get used to it, but I do notice that mine doesn't drive as well when it's been stuck in traffic for a while.
I've chucked a can of injector cleaner in the tank, so we'll see if that makes any difference.
BTW I know that the Rover V8 has a pretty primitive fuel injection system (simultaneous injection rather than sequential, where each cylinder gets its own squirt only) Could this account for some of the oddities?
quote:Well that explains the improvement in performance on misty mornings. Anyone got any explanations for Redone's comment about cleaner cars running faster? - Something I have also always had a suspicion about - does Autoglyn polish reduce the coefficient of drag? Marcus & Ocean Haze Griff 500
Redone, that will all be down to ambient air temp - cooler in the morning.
I occasionally notice that my 500 seems a bit slow. The other day, when some rep was trying to park his Laguna in my boot, I found a clear strech of dual-carridgeway changed down to 4th at 40mph and booted it. I had to wait several seconds before I hit the red-line, clearly a tuning problem with the car 
Laguna was toasted though.
What feels like driveline shunt when pootling about at 1500-2500rpm on a light throttle is the lambda circuits constantly over-reacting to the fuelling mix (according to Mark Adams). Should therefore not happen with pre/non-cat cars. Anyone care to comment?
Ian A
Griff 500
Laguna was toasted though.
What feels like driveline shunt when pootling about at 1500-2500rpm on a light throttle is the lambda circuits constantly over-reacting to the fuelling mix (according to Mark Adams). Should therefore not happen with pre/non-cat cars. Anyone care to comment?
Ian A
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