Agreed. These days, the 0-60 time is irrelevant, except for bragging to non-gearheads (is it coincidence that the Ford GT and new Z06 are geared to hit 60 without a shift?). 1/4 mile time is a better indicator of overall accelerative ability, but traction off the line is still a big driver. I just don't want to abuse my car like that. Sure, anyone can build a drivetrain that will tolerate repeated drag launches, but you sacrifice a lot of other performance/driveability measures to get there. I can get a 10-second Mustang if that's important.

100 km/h - 200 km/h is a good, usable perfromance metric. Or 100-300 if you live near Bruntingthorpe.

I still care more about the Nordschleife time, though.

 

oops... duplicate post

 

"It does not matter if you win by an Inch or a Mile, winning is winning"

 

"Ask any real racer."

 

Question?

If car A and Car B have quarter mile times of 12.5
let's say car A is clocked at 125 mph and car B at 117 mph.

Does car B is quicker at the start and then Car A starts Gaining ending the quarter mile with the higher speed ?

 

That's about right, and for these types of cars is usually a result of turbo lag on car A.

Also, car A (assuming both are similar turbo cars) would likely be slower on a mountain road due to the turbo lag everytime they modulate the throttle.

 

He only lives his life a 1/4 mile at a time!!

 

Keep in mind acceleration at different speeds is different for different cars.

 

Turbo lag? No. With a 9.4:1 compression ratio (on a 911 turbo) and small(er) K-16 turbos, lag is next to nothing.

 

Yes. I was assuming the cars were two 996 TTs, both with identical drivers and identical starts, both do the same ET, but one speed is much higher (125 vs 117 MPH). This usually happens when the 125 MPH car has bigger turbos. The bigger HP car finishes the 1/4 at the same time as the lower HP car but at a higher speed because of the turbo lag up front and the bigger HP making up at the end.

Even though some people say they don't have turbo lag with the very large turbos, they really do (I've felt this on many 600 HP+ 996 TTs). This is very noticeable on a curvy mountain road. The car with the lower HP but with faster spooling turbos will be far ahead.

However, in a straight line, the bigger turbo car will eventually catch and pass the smaller turbo car since the turbo lag doesn't matter when your foot is down all the time and you're shifting fast enough to keep the turbine speed up.

 

On the street nearly anything can keep up because there really is no place to go. Even if you have a faster car, you need to take risks in order to "lose" another car. The only accurate comparisons are ones done at the same location with the same driver. Everything else is benchtop racing of some sort. Head to head at a dragstrip is pretty good but you still don't really know how much of it is driver and how much is the car.

 

My wife's new honda minivan does 0 to 60 in 7.4. Like someone posted above, this was sport car range not that long ago. My last sport car was a 300 zx. I got it in 1991. The 0 to 60 time was in the 7.2 second range, I believe. That was a pretty nice car for a ricer, and not cheap. I think when they stopped making them the were 39K or so list, and look what you got.

Times have changed.

 

So true, family sedans now are running high 14's in the quarter mile which is faster then my stock 1987 Camaro Iroc Z was new! Which at the time I thought was pretty fast!