Am I crazy? (Car Question)

The Z is awesome straight ahead (C&D called it a Japanese Corvette) but a bit cheezy inside.

How can something with 306hp @ 1450kg be called "awesome" straight ahead?

I had 306hp @ 1550kg , which i felt was pathetic, i dont think those extra 100kg made the difference.
 
How can something with 306hp @ 1450kg be called "awesome" straight ahead?

I had 306hp @ 1550kg , which i felt was pathetic, i dont think those extra 100kg made the difference.

0-60 of 5.3 is pretty respectable (matches the S2000) in that range. It is a heavy car though (hence the straight ahead comment instead of "in the turns"). So maybe I embellished (awesome vs. good) a bit since I knew dig was reading...
 
How can something with 306hp @ 1450kg be called "awesome" straight ahead?

I had 306hp @ 1550kg , which i felt was pathetic, i dont think those extra 100kg made the difference.

Engine character (in other words power delivery) is much more relevant to the driving experience than simple power to weight ratios.

As an example - just about any car with a turbo feels a lot quicker on the road compared to much quicker cars with linear power deliver.

I drove a Caterham CSR260 the other day - 260hp at 550kg is nuts, but sadly, the new Cosworth engine (compared to the older Rover K-series engine in the older models or even my car!) doesn't convey the speed and adrenalin all that well. It was a rather dull experience - despite a 0-60 time in the low 3 second range!
 
Got to agree, I love my turbos.

Feels faster because you get two burst of acceleration, on when you put your foot down and then one when the turbo kicks in, Sadly they try and reduce this effect these days.

I used to love my old Escort RS Turbo that I got tuned up, had a whacking great hybrid turbo that took ages to get decent boost, then wham, boost heaven.
 
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I know i know, (i thought that the 350z was NA for some reason)

A m8 of mine had an old Audi Quattro Turbo (That rally car thingy, i dont fancy old audi's so i dont know the name) tuned to 500-600hp, that shit was light, AWD and had turbolag, was crazy, one of the scariest things ive ever driven.

My CLK was supercharged, so virtually no lag there, however, the automatic gearbox was quite fun at downshifting. At 80km\h (normal highway speed in norway), having the thing in sport, and flooring the throttle resulted in a downshift from 2,300 rpm in fourth gear to 4500 rpm in second gear resulting in you feeling your organs pushed into the seat by 550hp.

Biggest downside was that, living in norway if you drive 40% over the speed limit your thrown to jail and loose your licence for 6 months, so the fun could only be experienced in short bursts or in the middle of the night.
 
Biggest downside was that, living in norway if you drive 40% over the speed limit your thrown to jail and loose your licence for 6 months, so the fun could only be experienced in short bursts or in the middle of the night.

With a car like that I'd be vacationing in Germany twice a month :)
 
I have traveled to germany on several occasions (3 times to nurburgring) during the past 1,5 years, would have loved to go more times but its a rather expensive trip (€370 for 25 laps + accomondation + gasoline (in norway we pay $3,3 per litre (thats $12,21 per gallon, and the car did 20 miles to the gallon on highways, 12 in city trafic)) and not to mention tyres. You completely shred a set brand new racing slicks after 7-14 laps (depends on trafic), normal tyres would have lasted for about 3 laps.

(My first time on nurburgring i didn't think about tyre wear and drove on it with my normal Pirelli Pzero tires after 3 laps, i couldn't drive on them back home, so i had to negatiote my way to buy four tires from some porche tuning company that did tests.)
 
I have traveled to germany on several occasions (3 times to nurburgring) during the past 1,5 years, would have loved to go more times but its a rather expensive trip (€370 for 25 laps + accomondation + gasoline (in norway we pay $3,3 per litre (thats $12,21 per gallon, and the car did 20 miles to the gallon on highways, 12 in city trafic)) and not to mention tyres. You completely shred a set brand new racing slicks after 7-14 laps (depends on trafic), normal tyres would have lasted for about 3 laps.

(My first time on nurburgring i didn't think about tyre wear and drove on it with my normal Pirelli Pzero tires after 3 laps, i couldn't drive on them back home, so i had to negatiote my way to buy four tires from some porche tuning company that did tests.)

Why is that? On the tires bit? I thought that racing tires would be softer, get better traction, and wear out more quickly. Whereas standard tires would be harder, worse traction, and wear out more slowly.

I ask b/c I have really really bad luck with tire longevity. I had the ultra performance tires at first (lasted) 15k-20k miles. Then I promised myself I would drive more sedately and got a set of firehawk gts (with 50k mile warranty) 16k miles later they are almost bald.

In other words there was no difference in logevity really and the firehawk's had worse performance to boot. I wish I remembered what I had as an intermediate, b/c they had superior grip, but due to knocking my alignment out on a dirt road I wore the inside out prematurely on a back tire and had to replace them. After those it was good year's that wore quickly but had decent performance. The firehawks are just bad all around.
 
When I was looking I used cars.com and it worked nicely. Has a tie-in with the local paper too...I would guess you might try the website classifieds of your local papers too. Being close to Chicago you should have lots to choose from.
 
I found a few, just called a nice lady about this Jeep and am gonna go take a peek at it tomorrow I think if I don't find anything more interesting before then. :)

Thanks!

If you don't care about gas mileage now is a good time to buy an SUV probably, but I would personally want 4wd, otherwise a minivan is comparable especially when you are talking unibody suv's.
 
I'm leery of used cars, but especially US models. If you need a ton of room I'd shop for used Toyota previa minivan. If you don't need the space then a old acura legend goes for under $3k.
 
Way back when I wanted an Eclipse Turbo (GSX). The GS is markedly slower, but a decent car. Built at the Chrysler-co-owned-with-Mitsu Diamond Star Motors plant. FWIW I bought a VR6 Corrado SLC that year and it was a great car that I couldn't really afford on my government salary of the day...sold it only a year later :(

Jeez, just cars.com'd '92 Corrados and they're still getting $8-12k?!?! I only paid $18k for mine in '92!
 
Why is that? On the tires bit? I thought that racing tires would be softer, get better traction, and wear out more quickly. Whereas standard tires would be harder, worse traction, and wear out more slowly.

Standard tires would also need to go through much longer brakedistances and are much more prone to loose grip and spin\smoke. In fact, with my original tyres (some dealership sponsored continental crap) i would get bluesmoke if i downshifted on highways without ESP on.

Im not very imformed about durability and stuff like that, but my road tyres where Pirelli P-Zero and they are rated ultra soft sports tyres, while the Michelin slicks i used for track days where rated rather hard (while being slicks), when hot they offered more grip and more durability. I reckon its simply some difference in slicks and sports tyres that make the difference.
 
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