You should know what I meant. Once traction is lost, it's easy to keep it
lost, as the rubber breaks down it acts as a lubricant and keeps breaking down
until your tire blows or the vehicle finally gets close to the speed the tires
are turning. It doesn't matter stick or auto for this. I was referring to a
fully tractioned state, shifting gears and having them come loose. Once an
auto has full traction in second I doubt any of them could break the tires
loose shifting into third on warm but not hot or cold tires. I'd want to see
this done. I couldn't do it from third to fourth but I could from second to
third.
My Shadow was NOT a Diamond Star product. If you think it was, you are
lacking in your knowledge of the Chrysler product lines. My car was a 1990
VNT Shadow, one of the last of the Shelby Shadow generation. Shelby left
Chryco in 1989 but left them with a handfull (read, less than 50) of the next
model years for the Shadows. Because Chryco couldn't badge the car a Shelby,
they sold them as plain-jane Shadow ES models. This car weighed almost
nothing compared to the power it's 175+hp 210+ftlb torque motor put out. It's
turbo reacted faster than any other production cars did and had nearly no
turbo lag. It developed all of it's power down low, unlike other turbo cars,
and you shifted it before 5300rpms (in first and second, beyond that you could
run the shift out further because of the momentum factor) for maximum power
and minimum boost loss. The autos shifted at 6000 and came back down higher
than the peak of the power curve. This is classic for turbocharged autos, or
some also like to come in under the peak and causes power loss in the turbo
again at the shift points.
I'm not saying an auto can't put power to the pavement, but remember, once
a manual is hooked up, it's what comes in goes down to the asphault with very
little power loss. Standard autos lose anywhere from 8-20% (depending on the
type of auto) of their power. If you raced (in a clean race) with an auto and
a stick with identical cars, the stick would have a higher top speed and
provided no missed shifts should also win in accelleration. It's basic math
and well known racing science. When I start seeing autos, like production
cars have, on the racetracks, then I'll buy into this auto-logic.
Until then, I'll drive my Automatic Dakota and know that I'm not getting
the same power of my wimpy 318 to the pavement that a stick does, but I don't
need to replace my leg and arm after driving in traffic either.
Shaun H.
---original message---
I could spin my Turbo Buick with an automatic though ANY gear I wished as LONG
as I wanted (read: how big my nuts were at the time) I have seen many
Automatic Buicks and Turbo TransAms spin tire all the way down a 1/4 mile race
trace with ease. I have driven one of those Diamond Star stick turbos and it
felt like a slug next to my Buick with an Auto. I am not saying you cant have
a quick 5 speed turbo car but saying turbo automatics don't have power
transfer is ridiculous. The Buick and Typhoon guys would eat you for lunch.
I even have a few .avi vid clips of a Stock Turbo TransAm smokin em' all the
way down the track... it looks sweet if anyone is interested.
Charles
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:13:24 EDT