[trumanhw]

If horsepower to weight ratio were all a car were about, and raw handling - there are better choices. The Viper. It'd stomp any of our cars . The stupid live axle GT500 ... My old Supra.. and all these cars smoke ours, CHEAPER than our base model. Here's the point; when you want style, drivability, control, elegance, status .. and yeah, some performance too. The way I see it - the difference between a standard car at 34k which is 200hp and our 74k car with 420 is ~220hp ... so, 200hp for 40k isn't exactly a great investment if thats all you're targeting. If I could drop an M5 engine in my M3 for 10k, I would - but 10hp for 3k and void my warrant? Haha. I'll be immune to the feeling within 3 accelerations. My supra TT had 420ft/lb at the wheels... but it also overheated at times, and I almost died assuming my turbo was going to enable me to pass a car without realizing it was hot AND I was at high altitude. More on the 335 later...

But for now, the valuation of hp SHOULD be of two factors; contrast of 'area under curve,' and, cost per volume of AOC changed.

Remember - horsepower AND torque are relevant BECAUSE, HP equates to the DURATION of torque; TORQUE is the capacity to do work. No need to thrash your engine shifting for HP - shift for TORQUE, and thrash your tranny instead! :-D


There are the major points with respect to braking:

1. Fade - heat threshold, more mass is better.
2. Modulation/control, feel ... ability to repeatedly create threshold braking.
3. dissipation of heat, time required to 'recharge' work capacity.
4. MINIMUM operating temperature - do they work well cold?
5. Wear rate, sound, brake dust.

The more MASS you have, the better your brakes work, and the more unsprung weight you have (ever the balancing act). The more mass you have, the greater the capacity to hold more heat. When you reach the heat threshold, the brakes stop allowing you to convert linear energy in to heat; fade. Thus, millimeters of the rotor size aren't what mainly matter, anecdotally, in one certain respect, bigger rotors means worse performance, because I've NEVER experienced a tire that worked like the A032 (sick wet-performance!), and they only come in 17 (perhaps 18 by now, but can we all BEG Yokohama to make them in 19??? you'll spend 10k trying to get equivalent seconds off a lap with hp & ft/lb) What you want is a rotor that can store a tone of heat - that is made from a material that has a high specific temperature (the amount of energy required to change its temperature) and sheds heat quickly (this is one factor that diameter DOES benefit as it equates to more surface area per gram to cool). YOU DO NOT want cross drilled rotors. If you did, so would formula one; they crack, so you don't, and all you've done with that shmancy crap is reduced the amount of volume within the material to hold heat (avoid fade). Gas slotted however, very good! More pistons = more pads = more leading edge of pad compressing rotor, generating tangential surface to impart more force. So, 6 or 8 pistons will definitely equate to more stopping force. WEIGHT of rotor = capacity to hold heat, diameter = rate at which it can cool ... assuming all other factors are equal. BRAKING IS THE SMARTEST UPGRADE; ITS THE ONE THAT SPARES YOUR CAR AND YOU AN EARLY DEMISE, and ALWAYS IMPROVES LAP TIMES. Being able to brake later and harder can never be adequately touted.

Next. The 335, my old supra, and the endless debate. QUARTER MILE IS FOR RETARDS. You stomp on the gas, shift for peak torque (quit upping your rev limiter dummies, HP doesn't = acceleration, remaining at peak torque does), and hope your power to weight ratio and drag coefficient are just better. Not a lot to it - this is why WOMEN can actually compete. It doesn't require skill, i.e., picking braking points, deciding late, geometric, vs. early apex, you don't have to pick lines, you don't have to manage lateral traction, you don't have think basically. Which brings us to the reason 335 owners will always have penis envy of the M3 owners; we have power THROUGH the turn, PRECISELY modulated, and on tap the second our brain decides to use it. The more power you have in a forced induction care, the less back pressure, fundamentally, you have to CREATE, to allow your larger turbos to feed your expiring engine. Thus, you either have to use your clutch foot to hold the break slightly to maintain boost and modulate corner velocity accordingly; the brake and gas are just never engineered conducively for consumer cars. If YOU can push your car to maximum lateral G and exit velocity doing heel-toe or brake+gas in your turbo charged car as you can in an naturally aspirated car, I hope you’re getting paid to do it. My meager IQ feels completely focused controlling traction with one peddle to manage in modulating it. Only in a straight line with a good waste gate, and continuous acceleration can you expect HP of a turbo to be roughly equivalent to equal HP in an NA car. If you’re talking about real world – you need to add up your successive turbo lags every time you come off full throttle.

335/Turbo owners?: Hot days? Overheat, less power. Humid? Less power. High altitude, more drastic loss of power from less available O2 than NA. M-DCT repeatedly outperforms a human! :-p

Ultimately, this isn’t a race-car. It’s a hybrid of all my needs. I’d enjoy another 100hp for 10k, sure. But I don’t want to sacrifice drivability, reliability, or my warranty to have it.

So, needless to say, lol, I'll probably make some calculated buys of aftermarket bolt ons that don't amplify my signature to a cop; I'll take suggestions for brake kits, ECU (my rep said he cover me on it and as long as I don't have it towed by BMW assist it will be fine) and the best radar/lidar detector/jammer. Also, are there any good solutions for tires that rival the A032?

To the guy whos thread this is, your car DOES look good, as does your area under the curve. The seats I would advise against - the purpose of the MDCT after all, aside from being AWESOME, is that I can still get a bj, and push a girls head and the throttle simultaneously without dealing with pesky shifting. Bwahahaha!! Gotta problem? BAN ME!