Quote:
Originally Posted by footie
Bruce,
There is an optimum way of getting a rwd car off the line and it's not like these magazines only have one go at getting it right. Unless they are testing all times on a dragstrip where traction is a sure thing and almost all of the available power can be put down in first gear then times should be more consistent than they are against European mags. I know given 6~10 goes at it I could get the same M3 to produce times within a tenth or two of each other, but 1.2s is more than a slight variation, it's huge.
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footie, I'm not sure I made myself clear. I'm not talking about effectiveness in an acceleration test. I'm talking about test methods. As a for instance, Car & Driver lets the car roll a foot before they start the clocks, which is in the vicinity of four or five tenths of a second for the average street vehicle of the kind we're fond of. They also adjust their results for varying weather condiditons. Other entities do other things. As far as I know, Consumer Reports starts at idle and the clocks begin ticking as soon as the vehicle beginns to roll. That's probably close to a second right there, same car, same day.
If you take these things into consideration, plus car to car variation, a variation in 0 - 100 times from 9.4 to 10.6 seconds isn't even worth talking about.
Bruce
Quote:
Originally Posted by footie
I still maintain that press cars are better than stock but up to 10%, ie. press car M3 may have 440hp but stock M3 might vary from 420hp down to as low as 400hp.
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I think the M guys may grab an engine that tests near the top of the class and that sort of thing, or maybe just check out a given car very carefully to make sure it's in the peak of health, but probably don't bother going any further. Some of the magazines even test emissions from time to time, to keep everybody honest.
Bruce