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In Reply to: Don't be ridiculous... posted by Mark G on April 03, 2000 at 22:54:07:
How do you know the exact weith of the M3? Car and Driver weighed the M5 at over 4000 lbs! Putting the power to weight at 10 to 1. If the M3 has 343, it would achieve 10 to 1 at 3430lbs(obviously). And I find it difficult to believe that the M3 will be this heavy. That's more than a GM F-body! I for one will be severely disappointed if this is true.
Now on the street, that means the point where you come up alongside an M5 in your M3 and you both gun it. That's the point where the M5's wt/torque advantage means he'll leap ahead of you by a car length or two.
Your assuming that the M3 and M5 are at the same RPM. If the M3 driver is going to "gun it" he will downshift first and take advantage of the extra 1500 RPM of useable power band the M3 has over the M5.
: Now if you want to make comparisons, why dont you compare apples to apples, not apples to orangutans. Imagine you come across a shiny new 240 hp S2000 while driving a 240 hp M roadster, if you have an M car. Remember the 'at speed' thing? Same situation. Both of you punch the gas. Who's gonna get the initial jump? The 240 hp 236 lb-ft M roadster or the 240 hp 153 lb-ft S2000? Hmmmm, not exactly rocket science is it? The lower torque of the S2000 means it has to go deep into the rpm range to start singing. Peak power at 8000 rpms means he'll be looking at your taillights until you decide to slow, desite the fact that he has a peak power/wt advantage.
Again, you assume the S2000 driver does not downshift and take advantage of the extra 2400 rpm of useable power band. That is a very poor assumption, since as you say, the cars are "at speed". The reason I questioned your use of "at speed" was because it has no quantifiable value, and therefore has no real significance in this case. Perhaps your background in rocket science has blinded you from the fact the the S2000 has run 13.8 @ over 100 in Motor Trend? Almost identical to their times for the M roadster. The high 14 second and low 15 second times you quoted were for pre-production prototypes. I haven't seen a production S2000 run worse than 14.4 @ 98. In fact these two cars illustrate my point perfectly, huge torque disparity, nearly the same horsepower to weight, nearly the same performance.
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: Why dont you take a look at the respective 30-50, 50-70 and 0-130 times for those 2 cars. Or better yet, wait till the M3 comes out and compare them with the numbers for the M5, and get back to me then.
I conceeded your point at off peak-power acceleration. Clearly more torque means more power at a given RPM (hp=torque*RPM/5252). Look at the S2000 acceleration shifting at 5500, according to MT, about 11 seconds to 60!
Bob P
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