I think Autobild had one of the first cars do 136 mph IIRC. You know as well as I do that cars that trap 129 that are N/A with dual clutch gearboxes and
launch control don't mysteriously pick up 5 mph of trap speed. Not without more power and thats a fact. Not when a ZR1 puts down within 30 hp at the wheels of what the 458 does at the flywheel and only traps 132 on the high side.

I would imagine that with this car having a trap speed much higher than its power to weight says it should that they verified the numbers, but I am making an assumption.

True, but somehow some way a press car traps 134 mph and runs high 10's? Those are MP4-12C numbers and its has more power, and torque and weighs less.

Quite simply, the 360 Modena's were not that fast. Far closer to 110 mph trap speeds than anything approaching 120 mph trap speeds. If you notice the trend you will notice that its the launch press cars that typically run the fastest. Right around the launch when the hype is the strongest, and then follow up tests typically reveal closer to the true performance.

There was a lot of hoopla over that test, look at the other numbers such as trap speed 0-60 and the other time splits. Yes that car did hit 130 mph that fast it also trapped 124 mph which is higher than any other GTR ever did in the hands of any magazine revised launch control or not.

 

The 0-60 and other time splits are consistent with other tests. For example, consider the 60-100 times:
C&D, 5/08 (the car in question): 4.5s
C&D, 9/08: 4.7
C&D, 10/08: 4.9
Motor Trend (dyno'ed @ 430whp): 4.8
Evo Magazine: 4.5 (12.1s in 1/4 w/o rollout)
Road & Track (cool, but damp): 4.7

Compare with Euro 62.1-99.4 mph times.
Auto (Italian mag; dyno'ed @ 489 PS crank): 4.49
Sport Auto: 4.4
Auto Bild: 4.4
Quattroruote: 4.6

But not the 0-130 time. When you plot the data, it is impossible to have that kind of performance. That looks like an instant hit of nitrous and surely C&D must have felt such a drastic increase in acceleration at higher speed, had it actually occurred.



That car allegedly took less time to go from 120-130 than it did to go from 110-120. Hard to believe considering the compounding effects of aero drag, plus the fact that it will drop down lower into its rev range when the shift occurs at 122 mph; it will be way, way off its peak power (which will happen closer to 150 mph).

Perhaps this can shed some light on the numbers. Can you tell me what these numbers mean?

 

The car ran those times at 4200ft, C&D does atmospheric corrections and reports state that car had all sorts of developmental exposed wiring, etc. in it.

I have no doubt of the accuracy of the numbers, and the 0-60mph time is not an indicator either. Hennessy for years has done incremental boost control based on the gear selected in his engines and this car is obviously no different. Whether it was for powertrain stress development, cooling, etc, it was a factory mule.

As I've stated before, I bet that car was making 600hp starting at roughly 6000-6500rpm in 3rd and all through 4th.

 

Hennessey does that because his cars are making 1000+ hp driving through only 2 wheels. I think if you made a plot of Hennessey's cars at speed, they won't look anything like that chart.
You seriously think it only takes 600 hp in a GT-R to hit that kind of acceleration curve? Take a look again, compared to the ZR1.



C&D's mule GT-R showed an identical acceleration rate between 110-120 compared to Evo's car and Motor Trend's (dyno'ed at 430 whp), but was clearly faster from 120-130. The rate of acceleration from 120-130 is far steeper than the ZR1 (640hp). It matches the acceleration rate of the ZR1 from 80-90: both take 0.9s. Do you seriously think a GT-R could accelerate from 120-130 in the same time it takes the ZR1 to do 80-90, and C&D wouldn't have noticed it? That sounds patently absurd.

Tell me more about this correction factor. Those figures on C&D's test sheet are identical to the ones published in the magazine. It would therefore stand to reason that the figures on the test sheet are already corrected, correct?

It would make absolutely zero sense for the GT-R to employ the kind of boost that you're talking about. If they had wanted to hype the car up, they would have applied it to far more mundane speeds, like 0-60 or 0-100 which is far more relevant to the average reader than 120+ mph speeds.

 

In that same Evo test of the GT-R, they also tested the Veyron. See results below. Plus Evo's test result of 9ff's GT9 (987 hp, 1450 kg).
Note: The graph is just for acceleration rate purposes only; ignore the absolute positions between cars.



Tested data
Evo GT-R / Veyron / GT9 / C&D GT-R
110-120: 1.7 / 1.2 / 0.9 / 1.8
120-130: 2.5 / 1.2 / 1.0 / 0.9

So despite C&D never even mentioning it (not in print, not in their video explanation of GT-R performances), you'd rather believe that this GT-R miraculously unleashed such massive amounts of power (despite its AWD being capable of exploiting it at much lower speeds) that it can beat a Veyron and 9ff GT9 from 120-130, rather than the simpler and more believable explanation that it was a typo?

 

Ok I made a mistake here, I was talking about the Inside Line test where a GTR trapped 124 mph. I was not talking about the C and D test.

 

That is very good analysis, thank you for taking the time to do that. It would take far, far more than 600hp based on the data you supplied.

That warrants an edit in my article. Would you mind extrapolating what the estimated actual 0-130mph time would be of the 5/08 C&D car based on the data of the other GT-Rs as a baseline? Also, based on th 5/08 performance results including the 1/4 mile ET and trap speed, could you give an estimate of it's actual horsepower? I can reference you in the revision if you'd like, let me know how you would like to be credited, if at all.

A couple of other points. Yes, I believe the results chart already has the corrections calculated.

Lastly, if indeed Nissan had incremental boost, it can be for reliability purposes or for better performance on the racetrack since few (domestic) magazines list incremental time counts above 120mph.

 

The Mazdaspeed 3 has factory stepped in gear boost limits in the first 3 gears, its certainly not a new thing to do. Also if we are talking about " ringers " than more boost in the higher gears would definitely be a trick they would use. But looking at the data that GTR would not be able to do those splits without having major engine mods far above a revised tune.

 

And if those corrections have already been calculated, then that means this particular GT-R could have been as slow as 119.1 mph (124 / 1.041103) with an ET of 11.97 (11.5 / 0.96084).
I think a reasonable guess of this car's hp is that it's not more than 489 PS (~482 hp). This is supported by the test of the GT-R by the Italian mag Auto, which were suspicious that Nissan were sending pumped-up press cars. Unlike in their other road tests, they decided to dyno-test that car, using a Maha-type dyno that can give an approximation of crank hp. It recorded 489.6 PS:


This very same press car did 0-400m in 11.94 @ 119.1 mph (no roll-out, uncorrected per European test norms):

(Thanks to mafalda on another forum for the scans.)

One might question whether that car's power should be corrected at all. According to SAE standards, it shouldn't be. SAE J1349, Section 5.5: "... boosted engines with absolute pressure controls shall not be corrected for ambient barometric pressure."

So we can see a GT-R doesn't have to have more than 489 PS to deliver those results. This is further supported by Motor Trend's test of an early press car. It ran an uncorrected 1/4 mile of 11.51 @ 120.7 mph. It also recorded 430.6 whp on a Dynojet.
Here's a customer GT-R that produced 434 whp (also on a Dynojet) running the 1/4 mile in 11.5 @ 121.7 mph.
http://www.nagtroc.org/forums/index....3&#entry358503

We can see there does not need to be much more than the stated power (certainly well within production tolerances), and we can see customer cars are just about as fast as the press cars.

A reasonable extrapolation of C&D's test mule data from the last seemingly legit data point (120 mph) would put its 0-130 time at around 13.5-13.7s.

As for credits, no don't bother. Thanks anyway.

I wasn't aware of such a test. The press car they tested in Japan recorded 11.6 @ 120.9 in cool 51-degree temperature. This is not remarkably faster than their own long-term car, bought from a local dealer, which recorded 11.77 @ 118.6.
Edmunds makes an interesting comment about correcting for conditions, and this sheds some light on C&D's wonky numbers:
"SAE correction factors have undergone a revision or two in recent years, and it is our policy to use the one contained in the most recent horsepower measurement procedure, SAE J1349. Turbocharged engine performance is not corrected by this standard, because modern turbocharged engines with electronic controls essentially produce and optimize their own atmosphere.
The old standard, SAE J607, is now considered obsolete by the SAE, but the use of its correction factor produces quarter-mile times that are about 0.3 second quicker than those returned by J1349."

SAE J1349 corrects power to a standard temperature of 77°F whereas J607 corrects to 60°F. It looks like C&D uses the old standard:
"we employ proprietary empirical correction factors to adjust all results to dry air at 14.7 psi and 60 degrees Fahrenheit"

This can partially explain why C&D's result would be faster than other mags' times. The car would already be 0.3s faster due to differences in correction factors. This is on top of a rather dubious correction they applied to that GT-R, and they even note this in their test sheet comments:
"Test venue is 4200' but car seems unaffected."
Of course it should seem unaffected. Being a modern turbocharged engine, it's effectively making its own intake atmosphere. On top of this, test conditions were cold, 52°F. If anything, their correction factor should have made the car slower, not faster (like Motor Trend's test).

As for the MazdaSpeed3 limiting boost in the lower gears, that makes more sense: that car is FWD and has narrower, less grippy tires than the AWD GT-R. Imagine the torque steer it would have without it...

 

Great explanations, but lets get back on track here...this isn't a thread about Nissan this thread is about Ferrari.

 

MIR isn't the only track that ZR1's run over 130mph, but I was there with my ZR1 and me and 5 other ZR1's all ran between 130 and 133 mph depending on who is driving. Here is a video of a bone stock 458 making a pass at MIR, leaving the line at idle letting the car shift automatically. Looks pretty fast to me!

 

because of the Chris Harris article i will be looking elsewhere. if and when i pull the trigger on a supercar it will more than likely be some form of the 12C (base/spyder/GT-version) there is a REASON why Jay Leno (CAR CRAZY & WEALTHY) does not own a SINGLE ferrari

 

Jay has long had issues with DEALERS and FNA. Not with the products from SpA.

CW

 

Your name is well known in drag racing circles, you know as well as I do you can't compare runs between different days and different drag strips. If you do the math and if anyone really can find a wet weight for the 458 Italia its power to weight ratio is worse than the ZR1's. Granted it has a dual clutch gearbox and much better gearing but the ZR1 has so much more torque and power under the curve.

The only other explanantion is that it has something close to Enzo power levels. I am very curious as to what this car is putting down to the ground.

But I and others are getting away from the point, is it fair for customers and other automakers the lengths that Ferrari goes to which some would say are shady to get numbers. Numbers that may or may not be true and that are open for debate. Or should they be more like Porsche and post conservative numbers?

 

For me to speculate what the manufacturers do or don't do would be crazy as I don't have any firsthand information regarding that, and I agree it is not equal comparing different tracks on different days. That being said up until the new PDK Porsche came out I never saw TT's get close to the times they were claiming in the rags and owning a GT2 myself, I was always dissapointed when I showed up at the track to watch a new TT run as it was always way slower than the magazines and I have seen many run over the years and without exception never got close to the best reported times. On the other hand the only Ferrari I actually saw make passes at a dragstrip was the 458 I posted the video of and I know that is a stock car and it seemed pretty close or better than the manufacturers claims to me! Its probably a 10 second 133 plus mph car with a harder leave and some traction. The DC transmissions make up for a lot hp as a 6speed member (Fiske GTS) in the new 2012 GTR with only 530 HP in a 4000 lb car just went 11.07 and that is not too far off from some of the best ZR1 times (.3 tenths) and it was able to run that time with 110 less hp and 500 or so more pounds to carry than the ZR1. Threads like this is why I go to the track, because I want to see if a car I like is for real or just rag BS, and from what I have seen in the Ferrari's case is its for real and if anything it was underated in the magazines I was reading.