Hi all!!
I too have been away on a bit of a holiday... the Canadian National
Autoslalom Championships were held at my home track of Gimli MB this past
weekend.
The good news is that I won my class, C Street Prepared, in my recently
re-acquired 82 Mazda Rx7 road racing car. (The bad news is it was not a
class win in my GT6, my ultimate goal....)
Now, about the squabbling amongst some of the listers.... yecchhhh! That is
ALL that I have to say.
Buttttt......
As coincidence would have it, a friend lent me his G Analyst performance
meter for the weekend. I used it to take some baselines of my Rx, which had
sat for 5 years, not a kind thing to do to a rotary, nor to racing tires.
Oh well, I guess it was good enough. The point of this intro is that I was
VERY surprised to see some actual numbers on the car, both in terms of
weight, bhp, and 1/4 mile times (the club owns digital scales and the
weights listed are accurate, no driver... though I input the figures to
include my weight in testing)
Ambient temperature 85 F:
GT6
Weight as tested, no driver 1925 lbs (published curb weight is 1904....
that's about 1 gallon of Bondo :) )
0-60 in 9.3 sec
1/4 mile in 17.6 @ 82.8 mph.
max BHP 78 at the rear wheels
max lateral G's (onramp, instantaneous) .091
max long. G's .074 (braking until incipient lockup)
max launch G's 0.48 G
average 1st gear G's 0.32
average 2nd gear G's 0.23
Um, wow? This is all running through a DEAD STOCK (as far as I know, it
came from a parts car that was so rusty that.....all I've done is fit the
header and custom exhaust, bottom end is tired and the motor puffs a bit)
drivetrain, a diff Joe C sold me, a tranny off a wrecker in Edmonton, etc.
I leave it to you all to interpret what our cars "real" bhp are, but these
here new G analysts are more accurate than the old road tests. Dyno numbers
are fine until you bolt the motor into the car. Who cares~!~!
Now the interesting bit.... I have an 89 Honda Civic Si (factory stock, I
mean everything) with 140,000 miles on the clock.
0-60 in 9.2, 1/4 in 17.2 @ 86.7, lateral G's .87, long G's 0.91, weight
2155 lbs.
Hmmmmm. 20 years of development and it feels completely different
(waaaaaaay more civilised) but the numbers are almost identical.
A third experiment on the Rx7 give me 16.9 @78 mph, 0-60 @ 10.3, and a
lateral G of 1.15 (tired race tires), on 85 bhp through 1998 lbs!
These are three completely different cars, each suited to their own purpose.
I am proud that the GT6 has better numbers than the race car and equals the
Honda, but I'd rather take the Rx on the track than either. There are so
many "soft" qualities to performance and situational variables that it is
impossible to compare across marques.
(A side note: I have always found drag racing to be the silliest sport next
to lawn bowling, and all the acceleration numbers are meaningless if you are
not having fun. For me, sideways is fun, and bruises on my shoulders from
road racing are badges of honour. But that is because I enjoy it, and for
no other reason. It takes me longer to recover from a race weekend than I
spend racing. He he)
If there is anyone else out there with a G analyst, I'd love to hear from
you and your stories. I really think that we should be proud of our
"stock" cars on modern tires, they are waaaaay better than those mouldy old
road tests lead us to believe. (It might also explain why I keep wearing the
damn suspensions out!)
Dave Terrick
Winnipeg
|