MOTOR Hot Tuner Challenge

[Guy_H]

More for comparison: Supercharger super Lotus - time not released yet!

RS400 (2.08 seconds)

And a noisy Merc

Needless to say, the two VW's still finished well on top!

[brad]

Well that explains a lot.

driving in the wet is a bit of an art form - is paul morris any good at that?

re: the graphics on the 93 & 193 car (the grey part). You don't own a Salsa El Kaboing do you?

[dave_r]

driving in the wet is a bit of an art form - is paul morris any good at that?

Depends if his daddy paid enough for wet weather lessons hehe

MOTOR really didn't do themselves any favours hiring that ****wit. Who is it they use for BFYB etc, Luff? He's 11ty times better.

[Guy_H]

Salsa El Kaboing

I just had to google that - looks cool

[dave_r]

Went and grabbed a copy. Whole article is way too busy with the Aussie/Euro/Jap split and the points thing is way too complicated.

Not sure I really see the point of it TBH. But interesting to see how much people spend on mods!

[R1 Crasher]

Did Paul Morris damage a wheel rim in his laps in the Golf? A couple of times in the same position turn 11/12 he runs on the inside of the rumble strip and you can hear a loud thud.

Generally looked a very poor driving performance from a "Professional motor racer"

[robby_jai]

i was actually there .. that little s3 in the mag is mine... do you know how many goes they had at the STi to get that incredible number ???? 8 times to be exact because the tuner repeatedly refused to accept the numbers on the day and said their car was capable of quicker.

all the other cars got 3-4 shots at it and that was it.. i watched the STI through out the entire drag strip test.. they were only getting mid 4's and high 12s.

If that were the case, then why were the Japanese cars capable of such amazing figures? They were all manuals and all but one capable of sub 5.2s times. The MRT STI was capable of 3.95s! That was a hugely expensive exercise but the much cheaper EVOs had no trouble launching in around 5 seconds without any clutch mods at all.

[robby_jai]

spot on macca..... my s3 are actually running pagid race brake pads and only work properly when up to temperature. They suck when they are dead cold.

my mediocre braking performance was hampered by the fact the brake bias on my S3 is heavily skewered to the front and running stock rears. I suspect I would have had better braking if i matched my rears.

the key factors that affect braking are

1. Calipers
2. Tyres
3. Pads (correc operating temperature)
4. Suspension (correct geometry, reduced brake dive)
5. Mass of vehicle
all of those factors affect braking.

The braking test is performed on dead cold brakes.
Given the fact that the bulk of the field are running high performance/race pads,which perform at their optimum with heat in them,the varying results are to be expected.
Quite often modified brakes don't stop all that much better,but will do it lap after lap.
The reason some of the bigger cars stopped so well is generally they have much bigger tyres than you can put under a golf.
There certainly ain't much wrong with the stoppers on the two APR Golfs when I drove 'em.

[robby_jai]

should add... the dyno run on this particular dyno.... i was down.... 35kw at the wheels...

my car has reliably dynoed.... 215-220kw at two different dynos one hub one rolling.....

so i have no idea WHY my car was pulling such low numbers... but one thing that a lot of people are not aware of is semi slicks DONT make for great dyno testing... they just dont grip the rollers enough to get an accurate tractive reading...

oh yeh the car is capable of an even faster sprint time... if we could have dialed up more rpm on the rev counter.....

on street tyres with less grip i can get a 0-100 of 4.1 ... even moorly in the article acknowledges my car is capable of a much quicker 0-100 and 0-400 sprint time... just hampered by super stick semi slicks and a very sticky WSID

I'm still yet to figure out the allocations of scores in categories.
The dyno tests seem to be purely based on number, not power to weight etc, giving huge advantage to the relatively dinasour Australian entries compared to the high-tech Euro/Japanese entries.
HUGE differences in lap time equal small (i.e. less than 1 point out of 20) difference in track score.

Even great acceleration times (of the DSG S3) mean little if not matched by huge Dyno numbers etc.

So that's my beef. What is the point of this test?
The fatest cars in the "Traffic lights GP" tests didn't win. So it's clearly not aimed at "road usage". Yet little emphasis was given to track times either.

[robby_jai]

not me i was running bog standard factory camber... which is JACK all negative camber at the fronts.... craps me no end... my super stiff suspension and shock.. certainly didnt help my cause... in the wet.. just made my car too skittish due to complete lack of traction and very little suspension compliance.. in the mag it clearly says the more compliant suspensions probably performed a lot better that super stiffly sprung car..this affected my apex speed severely.. lack of grip and suspension compliance

its disappointing the second day was a wash out... i suspect the results would have been different if it was a dry track... some of the super cars like the STI and the EVO would probably have performed significantly better....i should also point out... EC suits high powered cars more

Warren Luff's comment to me regarding my car after the motorkhana and EC hot lap was .. my car is perfectly set up for the dry.. which was my original purpose and intention.... my car is set up aggressively to dial out the understeer... which means on a wet track it has a habit of stepping out and turning into snap over steer which luffy noted in his comment luffy had a hell of a time battling over steer on my car...

but his words to me were dont change the set up... as its set up perfectly for the dry

just needs more negative camber for outright grip!

Can't speak for everyone,but most were running a fair bit of neg,which again detracts from braking performance.
You have to compromise a bit in these events as you can't change set up at all,other than tyre pressures.

[Corey_R]

Thanks for the comments robby_jai, I was hoping you'd add some information since I did recognise it as your car

Yeah - it's very obvious that it wasn't only your car which was down on power on the Dyno, as we've seen the APR Stage 3 kit do 250kw+ atw before. I do feel that numerous of the testing methodologies are flawed in the test, but what can you do?!

[Guy_H]

My cars are set up for wet or dry - same settings

[Guy_H]

Did Paul Morris damage a wheel rim in his laps in the Golf? A couple of times in the same position turn 11/12 he runs on the inside of the rumble strip and you can hear a loud thud.

Generally looked a very poor driving performance from a "Professional motor racer"

Still round. Thanks for the compliment!

Our two cars finished 1st & 3rd out of thirty cars with "Generally looked a very poor driving performance" - imagine if we had a "Good driving performance" - man, the competition would not have stood a chance at all!

Maybe all cars that were driven by Paul should get a couple of extra seconds off their time (that would secure us first & second - the second placed 135i was driven by Luffy). I'll lobby the magazine & see what they say.

All we did for the wet was soften the shocks off 2 clicks, and started the tyres at 31psi instead of 27 as they didn't get much heat into them.

[Corey_R]

My cars are set up for wet or dry - same settings

Not everyone agrees with you, as seen by this post and that post

[robby_jai]

you have the advantage of -3 degrees negative camber and you guys also softened your shock settings i didnt huge difference

i should add tho ... even with more negative camber... and soften shocks.. i doubt my car could have got close to your cars lap time

My cars are set up for wet or dry - same settings