Joined
·
669 Posts
theres a saying: its not the car its the driver.....is it true? anyone out there had a head to head with another IS, what happened?
its not the car.............IS vs IS
1 - 15 of 15 Posts
That is quote is definitely true when it comes to stick-shift cars. However, even with auto-trannied cars, sometimes it is the car and not the driver that makes a difference. That's because automobile engines are built within certain manufacturing tolerance levels. In other words, even if 2 IS300s had the exact same equipment and were built at the same assembly plant, there's a chance that one of them may have a stronger engine than the other. After all, when car companies post a horsepower figure for an engine/car, that figure is just an average, it is not an exact number that will apply to each and every one of those cars/engines that comes off the assembly line. For example, a few years ago, Autoweek put 3 identical Mustang GTs on a dyno. Ford's official horsepower rating was 215, however, 2 of the Mustangs had a little more than 215 horses whereas one only had 205.
I've raced another IS about 2-3 weeks ago. Coming home from a club about 430am. I saw this spectra blue IS w/ chromes cross me at the light. I made the turn to catch up to it and see up close. Me and my friends are looking comaparing colors at the light. When it turned green we hit it and he inch away from me lil by lil.I was ashamed to say he beat me. Only becuase I had 2 others with me and he was alone. We raced at 2 different lights and same outcome. Finally I backed off bacuase one of my friends was laughing like a [email protected]#$ plus we were up to 100+mph on a local road getting out of control. He never got more then a car length ahead of me and most came from the take off then we stayed somewhat even like that. Does extra people make that much of a difference?
Oh yeah, extra people in your car will CERTAINLY make a difference.
![]()
The amount of fuel in your tank will also make a slight difference in your acceleration. Take for example a Prelude and a Prelude SH. The only difference is the ATTS in the SH, which enhances it's handling, but also adds about 200 lbs to it's total weight. The regular Prelude out-accelerates the SH model by a couple of tenths of a second to 60 and in the 1/4 mile.
Joined
·
6,151 Posts
Even a super small chick would slow you down. Even those ~100lbs will make you real slow. I'm guessing your friends weigh more than 100 each. That is a lot of weight.
I think the manufacturing variable is driveline efficiency, and engine efficiency, since better tolerances will result in less friction loss and more power. But a modern manufacturing line has pretty good repeatability, I wouldn't expect much difference between cars. The machines my company produces are each tested for repeatability and its very good, less than 5% variation, which would be about 10 hp if it were an IS300.
Hand-built engines IMO will tend to have more variances in performance since hand-built engines can't be as precise as machine-built machines......
And also, don't forget the type of gas, different brands of gas, different gas stations (gas been sitting too long in the tanks), your driving habits, (granny driving causes carbon build-up in engine), etc. ALL contribute to the overal performance of your vehicle .....Just to name a few...
And also, don't forget the type of gas, different brands of gas, different gas stations (gas been sitting too long in the tanks), your driving habits, (granny driving causes carbon build-up in engine), etc. ALL contribute to the overal performance of your vehicle .....Just to name a few...
Joined
·
6,151 Posts
Hand built engines are better than the mass produced ones. The ultra high output Honda engines, Ferrari engines, and prototypes are hand built. Tolerances in the mass production line can lead to pretty big variances. SCC's project Celica GT-S apparently made as much power stock as a car with a str8 pipe exhaust. And on Supraforums someones car dynoed 340 rwhp bone stock, and the engine is only rated at 320 at the crank.
Joined
·
669 Posts
"granny driving habits" ...so in other words its good to floor it, speed, rev up to the redline every once awhile?
Not necessarily to redline, but occassional higher-rev driving should do the trick......e.g. normal freeway driving for about 15 minutes should do it. If you drive on the freeway all the time, then there's nothing to worry about.
And it does help to clear out the carbon buildups.
Constant city driving at low RPMs will lower the engine performance because of the same reason.
1 - 15 of 15 Posts
