My shifting needs help...or I need to go with a Sportshift.

I did a single 1/4 mi run today...not exactly ideal circumstances and I didn't know my result till I got home or I would have repeated it.

So...I got a 12.9 at 120. But, looking at the graph, my shifting is horrible. The 1-2 shift took .5 seconds, the 2-3 shift took around 0.4 and the 3-4 took about 0.7. That adds up to 1.6 seconds. This was done with no power shifting and traction control on.

If I had a Sportshift or similar transmission that could do shifts in even 200 milliseconds (which is slow these days) that would have been an 11.9 second run, not to mention that I would have been well into fifth gear with a trap speed of high 120s. With a DCT and stickier tires I'd likely be in the low 11s.

In other news, 0-60 of 4.7 again (traction limited), 0-100 of 9.5. Best 60-100 was 4.5, which improved on my prior time.

 

But regardless of how the shifting went, you looked GOOD in that car

 

Yeah true, AND I was faster than a Z06 in my 60-100 run.

 

That's a really good run, and it looks like you're shifting right at red-line without getting into the "rev-limiter"--excellent. It would be interesting to see a
60-100mph run by starting the run in 3rd gear so you don't have to shift. On the highway, 3rd gear is perfect for a high-speed pass starting at 55-60mph.

 

The 4.5 second run was in 3rd gear only. Starting in 2nd and with a clean shift at 2-3, I'm sure I could get down to 4 seconds or below. If you look at the graph and take out the "dead time" of long gear changes, it looks like I could hit just under 4 seconds if i did it perfectly. Compare that to 7.2 for the stock car.

This is on 93 octane pump gas in 70 degree weather, by the way.

 

that is high mph for the time. are you close enough to go to morroso or whatever it is called now? on a prepped track i would imagine you can get even better mph and definitely improve on the time.

 

These are certainly strong numbers. It just goes to show you though how much conditions have to do with times. We have all of these figures that we shoot for and that should be possible but it's really hard to get them even if the car is capable. Tahoes car is probably the most capable and if any of us drove it we'd probably feel like it was a rocket without regard to the numbers.

 

If it were my car I would be interested enough to put some drag radials on the rear and see what they do to the 0-60 time. Let's face it, 4.7 to 60 and 12.9 is are just terrible times for a car with 534 rwhp (e.g., over 600 flywheel) and weighing only what the Vantage does (about 3600 with the SCr and all?). Frankly the shifter in the Vantage sucks - its one of the worst I've owned. But still . . .

As you say it is traction limited and my experience is that drag radials really help. For several years I had a '02 ZO6 with a built and SCr'd 7-liter C5R engine that did 740 RWHP. It drove mild - just like stock and had 345 section Michelin ear tires- and the the best it did to 60 was in 3.7 seconds, but with drag radials and a good launch it could do under 3 seconds for me, and my son (very good off the line) did a 2.8 once. that much difference would greatly improve your 1/4 time, too. I ended up running the car on the street all the time with 345 section BFG drag radials. They cannot handle wet roads at all (they hydroplane at 30 mph on even a damp road-- I've serious here, not exaggerating) and they give only 4000 miles of tread life which for $260 tires is rather extreme, but boy, do they giveu traction all the time when the road is dry.

 

Yeah I agree. I was expecting better numbers but when I look at the graph I see a lot of room for improvement on my end.

It's hard to get off the line cleanly. I can get off the line faster in my M3. And while I do like the transmission in the Vantage, I think it's tough to shift fast. I agree about the tires...I am planning on going with Yokohama R888s next which should help a lot.

When I look at the data, the 0-30 time of 2.3 seconds kills me. Of course I'm not going to get off the line like an AWD car, but for comparison the 911 turbo and GT-R are getting there in around 1.2 seconds. Similarly, my 60 foot time is around 2.7. Ouch.

On the other hand, the 60-100 of 4.5 and 60-120 of 8.0 beat the GT-R among others and essentially match those of the 997.2 turbo. I'd like to see better, but I can't complain about that. I feel that those show what this car can do better than the off the line numbers. On a circuit track I think this car would be great...on a 1/4 mile track not so much. But it's still a lot of fun to try!

 

better transmission oil should help improve shifting times ...
________
Buy a new condo in Pattaya

 

Ken (fellow vantage and sixspeeder) and I raced our cars after he did a few upgrades. He has manual, I have SS. I beat him every time. His car had more power, mine had the faster transmission. Had nothing to do with either of our anemic driving abilities... lol

 

Yeah I can see that being the case. The computers can do it much faster than we can. I realized today just how much faster my X5 shifts than I do...I'll do a VBox run in it but I bet the shifting time is less than 0.2 seconds.

Really makes me want that sequential gearbox. Hmm...Stuart was talking about one that RSC was developing...

 

Yeah it's called PBIR (Palm Beach International Raceway) now and it's very close. I've been wanting to get over there for some runs. I'd imagine the traction would be much better.

 

Sometimes the VBox software isn't the best at capturing the best runs automatically. I went back through the chart and found this 3rd gear run from 60-100 of 4.29 seconds which beats my other times by quite a bit. Seems like keeping it 3rd is the best way to go for sure.

 

I ran a 1-shift 60-120 run of 7.8 today (stock time of 12.1).



Off the line traction is still a big problem. I tried a few things including lowering the tire pressure from 34 to 28 and doing a burnout before the run but no success. With traction control off, I spin the wheels if I start with revs over 2500...then I regain traction briefly before losing traction again above 6000 rpm through redline. Into 2nd, same thing with violent wheelspin.

The car is awesomely fast...makes the e92 M3 I drove 2 weeks ago feel like a slug in comparison...but if I could get traction off the line I'm sure I could post 1/4 mile times well into the 11s.