Shocking Realization I Don't Want A Wildly Faster Car

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

Keith Tanner said:

Heck, that was my first thought when test driving an FD RX7 and a Boxster  in the 90s - they were fast, but they were too fast to really enjoy on the street.

...says the man who wants to build a V8 ND for the street? :) 

A stock FD is only barely faster than a stock 2024 ND.

 

Hey, I did say I was starting to reconsider it :) And I do have a bunch of seat time in one both on the street and track, so I know what I'm thinking about building. It's not about sheer performance, any ICE vehicle is competing in the Special Olympics there. It's about the experience. The noise, the punch in the back - and the ability to be a riotous Bob Costascat when I do take it on the track.

I do know that the E39 M5 is hiding a whole lot of performance that I never access on a regular basis. But that's okay, because it brings other things to the table such as the most effortless cruise on the planet.

As for FD vs ND Miata - there's a reason Mazda has been emphasizing torque since 1994. A Miata is quick, and you can exploit that on the street. It's zippy, as my wife would say. The FD needed room to really stretch its legs, and didn't have the quickness to make it a super-fun street car. I also feel the same way about the S2000, that you can't really let that engine off the leash on the street in my limited experience. That was also a factor in me selling my Locost, the fact that it really didn't wake up until you got to wind it out on track.

I'm starting to convince myself that what I'm looking for in a street car is torque. As much torque as I can get :)

I totally get it. I'm pretty sure my R53 JCW is more than enough car for my level of talent. 

I remember one of the last times I was driving around in my Spitfire with my mom.  Near her house is a hill that the car really has to work at to climb while not holding up traffic. I had the engine screaming up it in 2nd gear.  Between the noise and the fact your butt is 6" off the pavement, I could just see her tensing up.  As we crested the top of the hill, I looked at her and said, "You realize we are going all of 35 MPH right now..."

I don't know if I'll ever get into wheel-to-wheel racing, but I can imagine if I do it'll be with a vintage-prepped Triumph or Volvo. 

Keith Tanner said:

As for FD vs ND Miata - there's a reason Mazda has been emphasizing torque since 1994. A Miata is quick, and you can exploit that on the street. It's zippy, as my wife would say. The FD needed room to really stretch its legs, and didn't have the quickness to make it a super-fun street car.

Hm.  For amusement's sake, I took the GRM 2019 ND dyno graph (https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/news/grm-first-mazda-miata-nd2-dyno/) and overlayed it on my own FD's dynojet plot in photoshop (mine is stock other than a Racing Beat muffler).  I scaled it so that the axes matched, and then rescaled the ND plot up by 25% to account for the weight difference (2300 vs 2880 works out about right).  The result is interesting:

Blue is my FD, black/gray is the ND.  (red is my turbo Miata, that's irrelevant to this topic, I just didn't have a graph of the FD by itself handy).  The two torque curves overlay almost exactly until about 5000 RPM, then the FD gets a 5-10% bump when the second turbo comes online.

Of course, the FD has a 750 RPM higher rev limiter than the ND, and you get the boost "lag" sensation when you stand on the gas, so perhaps one of those is what's creating your impression?

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

The last time I drove an FD on the street was 1996 or 1997. These were my reflections on the car at the time. It's quite possible I do not completely remember the characteristics of the engine with complete fidelity :) Maybe it was gearing, but the FD did not strike me as being accessible for street driving. My own drive at the time was a mildly modified 1990 Miata.

The GRM dyno runs of the ND have some problems, but we discussed that enthusiastically at the time.

After reading all this I hope I never have this mind set. I DD cars with over 500 hp and even more torque (both mid size German sedans). I did the slow car thing for years out of necessity not because I liked it better.  Driving my current cars requires being a smart driver. If you are stupid bad things will happen.  
 

To me cars with a zero to sixty time slower than 4.5 seconds seem slow. Getting it in to the 3.4-3.6 range is my happy place. 
 

Oh, maybe some people don't know this but just because you can go super fast doesn't means you should. For the most part I drive my cars at normal speeds and accelerate away from stops like everyone else. 
 

My two DD cars are very different. My M5 is a high strung NA V10 with a 6dpeed manual that comes up on the cams at around 4K and makes a bunch of noise all the way to red line. It is an event but it is not fast.  My CLS550 has a tune and is a much much faster car. For one thing it is 4 magic so it puts all the power to all the wheels.  The M5 is traction limited due to it being RWD. Even with sticky summer tires it is traction limited.  The TC is a bit intrusive so to get the most out of it you really need to turn it off and actually drive the car.  My Merc is the polar opposite of the m5. It does everything with the least amount of drama.  You want to go 120 or more?  No problem. It will get you there very very quickly and is happy to cruise at that speed all day long.  
 

The best way to describe the two is the BMW is a ready fire aim car. Kind of a smart weapon that you can make course corrections on the fly. The Merc however is completely different it is a ready aim fire car. It accelerates so fast that you really have to absolutely know where it is aimed before you drop the hammer as things come up so fast that course corrections are not really possible practically speaking.  
 

I have one slow car at the moment and it is nice in an underpowered boring kind of way. I have had plucky little sports cars and they are fine. They are just boring. Every underpowered car I have had I have tried to convince my self that they are fun but I always end up comming up with a plan to add power.  It is always better to have more power than you need and just not use it than not have it and need it. 
 

I guess I am in the minority on this one. That is ok. I like what I like and others can like what they like. 
 

I want to personally thank the person at bmw that managed to convince the bean counters that putting a F1 derived V10 in to BMWs mid size sedan was the right thing to do. 
 

Also. A v10 with a Dinan exhaust at full song in a long tunnel is something everyone needs to experience at least once. You will most likely come away from the experience thinking every car needs at least 10 normally aspirated cylinders that can rev to over 8k.  I know I do.  

Keith Tanner said:

The last time I drove an FD on the street was 1996 or 1997. These were my reflections on the car at the time. It's quite possible I do not completely remember the characteristics of the engine with complete fidelity :) Maybe it was gearing, but the FD did not strike me as being accessible for street driving. My own drive at the time was a mildly modified 1990 Miata.

I hear you on memory and 30 years. :)  I have also found that, personally, longer-term exposure to higher-powered cars has changed my perception about what is and is not reasonable.  I remember a friend's 300 hp Mustang seeming unbelievably scary fast around that time, but now I own cars that would blow it away and drive them without much of a second thought.

Anyway, if you want to update your FD experience, ping me next time you're in the bay area. :)

In reply to dean1484 :

When I started this thread I mostly had track cars in mind but I recently drove a student's Ferrari Portifino. While it's out of my budget, I would by one if I ever did have the budget. I would want it as a road trip car only. More than the 600hp it was the gobs of torque that impressed me most, that torgue would be handy for passing. As a daily driver it wouldn't be worth it on the short commute I have.

With that said I still don't want a wildly faster car. The 275-300hp we have planned for the Foxbody Mustang will be plenty.

Perhaps if I drove something with 1000hp I'd be impressed with raw acceleration. Also note my time on very fast motorcycles that has chased me to move on from big power.

In reply to dean1484 :

I can absolutely get behind both choices

I think a key difference is how you enjoy the cars too. I want to feel like I'm using all of it. For that, slower is better. At least it's less likely to send me to jail 

dean1484 said:

After reading all this I hope I never have this mind set. I DD cars with over 500 hp and even more torque (both mid size German sedans). I did the slow car thing for years out of necessity not because I liked it better.  Driving my current cars requires being a smart driver. If you are stupid bad things will happen.  
 

FWIW I think most of us are talking about track cars. What I want in a DD is completely differently than what I want on track. On the street about the only fun you can have is the occasional blast up the on ramp, etc.

Been following this thread.  See it as two different threads.  One about track cars.  One about street cars.

Track cars:  I spent my whole adult life driving open wheel formula cars that weighed around 1000# and had 150 or so HP.   Quick, responsive, true purpose built machines with nothing installed that didn't have to do with performance.   Fairly easy to turn a 1:25 lap at Road Atlanta.   I managed to finish the last 70 races of my lackluster career with no DNFs.   Now at an advanced age I'm seeing a definite trend.  The cars I raced are not viewed as "safe" anymore.   They don't have "halos" and scant crushable structure fore and aft.   Kids and their parents coming up today want cages and better head restraints.  I get it.  So we are migrating to heavier racecars with more power and bigger tires to get to basically the same HP to weight ratios.  Today I wouldn't go back and race WTW in most of the formula cars built before 2010.

Street cars:   I'm agreeing with a lot of posts above.  Many current street cars have performance numbers that boogle my old mind.  And, in so many cases there is no safe public environment to use all that performance.  While dreaming of owning a Z51 C8, I purchased a new GR86.  I live in a rural area with twisty roads and enjoy the heck out of it.  I seem to be able to use a higher percentage of its potential than if I had the C8.

In reply to dean1484 :

The older I get, the less ego I have.  I would like to believe I could keep a 500 HP RWD car under control.   And 99% of the time, maybe I could... but that 1% of the time has a lot of potential for wrapping something around a tree... or worse - an innocent bystander.  As I've aged, I've come to accept that I'm not as good a driver as I think I am and therefore prefer not to put myself in a situation that may prove it with needless danger to others. Whether this is on the street or track doesn't really matter. 

Love him or hate, I agree with Doug DeMuro on the debate between speed and driving experience.  When a Kia EV can out-accelerate most sports cars, the idea of "speed is cheap" becomes a thing.   So what matters more to me is how a car drives and the experience it gives me, and I don't need all-out speed for a car to be fun.  

Purple Frog said:

Track cars:  I spent my whole adult life driving open wheel formula cars that weighed around 1000# and had 150 or so HP.   Quick, responsive, true purpose built machines with nothing installed that didn't have to do with performance.   Fairly easy to turn a 1:25 lap at Road Atlanta.   I managed to finish the last 70 races of my lackluster career with no DNFs.   Now at an advanced age I'm seeing a definite trend.  The cars I raced are not viewed as "safe" anymore.   They don't have "halos" and scant crushable structure fore and aft.   Kids and their parents coming up today want cages and better head restraints.  I get it.  So we are migrating to heavier racecars with more power and bigger tires to get to basically the same HP to weight ratios.  Today I wouldn't go back and race WTW in most of the formula cars built before 2010.

 

I was hoping you would chime in.

Ironically right after I announced I wouldn't do single seaters anymore a smoking deal came up locally on a Formula Continental.

The concerns you mentioned are what made my wife nervous, there is nothing like a single seat car but I promised her. I think she would be onboard if the car had a halo or I did Spec Racer Fords (SRFs have a very good safety record). After 37 seasons of her supporting my racing it's a small ask. Of course I could simple autocross a Super Vee or FC, I would not be the first person to do that.

I daily drive a 1980s BMW e28 5 series.  It was considered quick in its day but most any minivan today will beat it in acceleration.  Still, it feels quick to me, and at my age that's more important than actually being quick.  I'm never in that much of a hurry to get somewhere anyway.  

I'm liking my 8th gen civic si that I bought a couple months ago way more than I thought I would. I've caught myself several times looking up K24 swaps and then realizing that I don't really care about the power levels. All the mods I've done are to try and sharpen the response rather than increase the total power. A bit ashamed to admit that I havent reached for the keys to my turbo NC miata once this season. 

In reply to twowheeled :

I've now become about the expericance; I've found old cars on skinny bias ply tires make me happiest.

My son was skeptical when I bought the Foxbody Mustang but after autocross it he said "this car is fun as E36 M3". The car is slow relative to new cars but it's just fun to drive.

I'm with the OP.  I'm currently shopping for a 6 speed Honda Fit.  All the mods will be in the suspension, tires, and brakes.  

After seeing an ND3 Miata for the first time today and driving the 500 hp Targa Miata on the street to get to the track - now I really want my LS-powered ND :) Sure, I'll never be able to use all the potential on the street. But it's a heck of an experience.

Tom1200 said:

In reply to twowheeled :

I've now become about the expericance; I've found old cars on skinny bias ply tires make me happiest.

My son was skeptical when I bought the Foxbody Mustang but after autocross it he said "this car is fun as E36 M3". The car is slow relative to new cars but it's just fun to drive.

it's hard to define but what matters most is the "eagerness" of the car to be flogged. Sort of like the feeling when using a die grinder and the bit is sinking into the material perfectly and you let it eat.  

twowheeled said:

it's hard to define but what matters most is the "eagerness" of the car to be flogged. 

That describes it perfectly.

Last Saturday I was instructing at a track, I'd left the Datsun at home but when I mentioned the car to the Lotus Exige driver next to me he said "that's your car, man we loved watching you drive that car" "It was fun watching you dive down into corners"

Eagerness best describes the feeling of the car, it's like a puppy waiting for you to throw a stick.