How fast a 500?

[George 500]

I've had a look for info on this but can't find anything so here goes:-

Exactly how fast is a chim 500?
From the figures I can see Top Gear managed 13.4 to 100 and 14 dead for the 1/4. This seems awfully slow given that autocar managed 13.2 and 13.8 in a 4-litre.

Furthermore Autocar also managed 10.2 to 100 and 12.8 in the 1/4 for a Griff 500 which is supposedly the same weight (maybe a different box since it was a '93 car though?)

Then I see that there was a fella up at blackpool in the TVRCC sprint who managed 13.54 in the 1/4- was his car standard though?

If my car has a 218 cam/cold air induction kit does that make any difference??

There's plenty on here about how fast 4-litres go but confused and bemused about the real pace of a 5.....

[mak]

my handbook for the 5ltr tells u it'll do 0-100 in 10.1 and 0-60 in 4.1 but i too have yet to see these figures in the back of car mags that for some strange reason have the 4lt doing better times! with traction control it might get there but the 5ltrs a sod for getting off the line without spin, those figures might be a bit optamistic me thinks.

[Dave 500]

All I can say is mine will do low 13's 1/4 mile all day long but never got it in the 12's yet.

>> Edited by Dave 500 on Monday 13th February 17:59

[GreenV8S]

How fast? Plenty. And if it's important enough for you to need to go into the numbers, you should know better than to take random magazine results at face value.

[george 500]

To be honest car is still plenty quick enough for me. More just a case of curiousity killing the cat (and bar room chat material of course- need to put the bloke at work with the E46 M3 in his place!)

[_Neal_]

george 500 said:

need to put the bloke at work with the E46 M3 in his place!)

That should be easy enough. Just park your car next to his

[s5tvr]

George 500 said:

Exactly how fast is a chim 500?

The answer much depends on who's driving it. In the right hands they are ing quick - there's not much out there that is quicker under normal driving conditions, unless you take it onto a track.

I would imagine that TVR's performance figures are achievable in the right hands. Top speed wise, I've seen 155 mph out of mine, with 2 in the car, with a boot load and with the roof down and without the pedal being floored, so 167 mph for a well sorted car seems reasonable. What did surprise me was that the faster I went the more planted the car seemed - I'd be interested if anyone else has experienced this.

>> Edited by on Tuesday 14th February 00:15

[Painey]

I've never had reason to not believe the figures for a Griff 500 like mine so a Chim 500 should obviously be the same. Reason being is that I took it to the VMax event at Bruntingthorpe a couple of years back and came away mightily impressed. In case you're not familiar with what this event is, it's a 0.5 mile sprint from a standing start, round the hairpin and then flat out down the runway for about 1.5 miles where your top speed got clocked by a radar trap. It wasn't a competitive event, more a chance to see what your car was capable of.

Off the line I managed to outsprint a Noble (in a straght line only) Porsche 911, modified Chim 500, Ferrari 355 and several others and the top speed we clocked was 164 mph, on a damp track and with two people in the car. So for me I know the top speed is about right and judging by the performance figures quoted for some of the other similar paced cars there, I'd say the acceleration figures are on the money as well.

That said, I know my particular car puts out very good power for a 500 and they can all vary so much. But a good one is every bit as quick as they say it is!!

Alll the best - Chris

[Seasider]

Painey said:

we clocked was 164 mph,

Chris,

What does your rev limiter cut in at? I was hitting 159 6100rpm on nearly every run.

Often hitting the limiter way before the speed trap i kept trying to judge it for the trap but still couldn't break the 160

Was it Phil brett in the Noble if it was he wasn't very happy with me either

[Painey]

Seasider said:

Painey said: we clocked was 164 mph, Chris, What does your rev limiter cut in at? I was hitting 159 6100rpm on nearly every run. Often hitting the limiter way before the speed trap i kept trying to judge it for the trap but still couldn't break the 160 Was it Phil brett in the Noble if it was he wasn't very happy with me either

I never actually managed to hit the rev limiter but the speedo was hovering around the 175 mark, I think revs were around 6k but I was mainly concentrating on the track. The car still felt like it had a few mph left in it, shame the runway wasn't another couple of miles longer!!! Forgot to speak to the guy with the Noble but I know his name on here is Joust and her certainly knew what he was doing round the bends!! The way he drove that Noble round the bends corners was something else, I on the other hand was almost looking where I was going through the side window!!

[Seasider]

Painey said:

I think revs were around 6k

Wonder if we have a different diff ratio

Painey said:

Forgot to speak to the guy with the Noble but I know his name on here is Joust and her certainly knew what he was doing round the bends!! The way he drove that Noble round the bends corners was something else, I on the other hand was almost looking where I was going through the side window!!

Joust & Phil different guys but one of em has a weight handicap

[IVANHOE]

This seems awfully slow given that autocar managed 13.2 and 13.8 in a 4-litre.

Must have been a yellow one.

[Tunnelmeister]

Seasider said:

Joust & Phil different guys but one of em has a weight handicap

were you in the passenger seat then

[Tunnelmeister]

IVANHOE said:

Must have been a yellow one.

[']['![]V[] W]

we managed a 13.59@110mph in a V8S on a dusty airstrip(no special tarmac etc )

[jellison]

Seasider - no doubt you have been waiting for my post on this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chim500 - ooooO er fairly quick - 'd say [www.letstorquebhp.com/calculator.asp] abou:-

Power at Flywheel (BHP) : 260
Weight without Driver (KG) : 1080
Power to Weight Ratio (BHP Per Ton) : 244.61
0 - 60 (Secs) : 4.70
0 - 100 (Secs) : 11.52
60 - 100 (Secs) : 6.82
Quarter Mile (Secs) : 13.04 See in the right region - maybe a tad slow / pessimistic (but then it does not have 320bhp!
Terminal Speed (MPH) : 106.39
Drag Strip Quarter Mile (Secs) : 12.94
Drag Strip Terminal Speed (MPH) : 107.63
Top End - supposed to be 167 - but this is at well over 6k revs so engine not gonna last long if you keep it up for long.

With a few mods:-

Power at Flywheel (BHP) : 400
Weight without Driver (KG) : 1110
Power to Weight Ratio (BHP Per Ton) : 366.15
0 - 60 (Secs) : 3.65
0 - 100 (Secs) : 8.20
60 - 100 (Secs) : 4.56
Quarter Mile (Secs) : 11.85
Terminal Speed (MPH) : 120.17
Drag Strip Quarter Mile (Secs) : 11.75
Drag Strip Terminal Speed (MPH) : 121.56
Top end - 173 at 6500 (current limiter)

[IPAddis]

Not convinced by that calculator. My figures are:

Power at Flywheel (BHP) : 312
Weight without Driver (KG) : 1060
Power to Weight Ratio (BHP Per Ton) : 299.06
0 - 60 (Secs) : 4.09
0 - 100 (Secs) : 9.69
60 - 100 (Secs) : 5.60
Quarter Mile (Secs) : 12.38
Terminal Speed (MPH) : 113.03
Drag Strip Quarter Mile (Secs) : 12.28
Drag Strip Terminal Speed (MPH) : 114.34

I'm sure it can go from 60-100 in less than 5.6 seconds. I'll try it later

Without knowing the gearing, how can this be accurate?

Ian A.

[richb]

IPAddis said:

Without knowing the gearing, how can this be accurate? Ian A.

Without knowing the gearing and final drive ratio it can't be...

[rv8500]

I managed 13.1 at 108mph out of my old 500 with 2 of us in it. I'm going to pick up my new 500 tomorrow after 2 years without a TVR. Very excited

[JonRB]

I think there must be something wrong with my Chimaera 500 then. By 120mph it felt like it was going to shake itself to bits and I backed off, whilst I've seen over 140mph out of my Corrado without batting an eyelid.
It goes without saying that the Chimaera took significatly less time to get to 120mph than the Corrado did to get to 140mph, but that's not the point I was making.

This was obviously on a private track in both cases, of course.

>> Edited by JonRB on Friday 17th February 23:04