I agree with Sev. DavidM, you bring reality to the table, but a little too much of it in this case.

In my stock S2000, I've run up against an '00 911 Carrera up to ~90mph from a rolling start. He didn't pull. I didn't pull. He is ultimately faster given equal launches as the numbers don't lie; however, in the real world, in that narrow span of time and speed, what people see aren't numbers, but simple, general shifts of movement.

But this is all a silly discussion. Nevertheless, entertaining, when the right people reply.

 

The driver that can do a 12.9-13.0 with a 911 will be able to do a 13.7-13.8 with an s2000.

It's not about the driver ... it's about the car. 911 is a 'torque monster' compared to an S2000. S2000 can easily be "off the boil" while in a 911 it's almost impossible. It has a lot of power everywhere ... no mater what the revs - it just has even more power higher up.

No one here is saying the s2k is as fast or faster, all we are saying is what happened is entirely possible. Even a civic Si can hang with an s2000 under the right situation. You seem to be denying this fact.

I'm mot denying that this happened ... it could have. Though, in that case the 911 was not racing or was felt in the "wrong" gear (ie. the driver pressumed that 3rd gear would be enough to get past 99% cars out there). That was my original point ... if you 'beat' a 911 in this kind of scenario - then the 911 was not racing.

You are showing a lack of street racing experience. If someone steps on the gas at 50 mph 0.5 seconds earlier, it will take a car that is much much faster to that bracket of speed, lets say 100 mph, to catch it. As the car who stepped on the gas first is always 0.5 seconds ahead in time, and will be for a good part of the race traveling at a higher speed and pulling away.... There was a complete post on this very subject not too long ago that explained this misconception....

Yes, I know ... I described that 'effect' in my previous post where I went though the "2sec lead" scenario. Though, 911 and S2000 are not 'similar' in perfromance ... they're not even close - which again was part of my original point which seemed to have lost.

Also, I know the thread you're reffering to - one of the best explanations I've seen on this effect.

Also, if you look at the 'ideal' numbers that I posted before - then if an S2000 has a 1sec head start then it will be pulling away all to way to just above 60mph. It will build 'some' lead but after that the 911 will be reeling it in ... not just 'reeling it in' - by the time the 911 is doing 100mph - the S2000 will be managing a 'mere' 90mph. I'm sure you, more then others, realizes at what rate a car travelling 10mph faster then you will be pulling away (or cathing you). It would probably take most of the 1/4mile strip for the 911 to catch and pass the 1sec-head-start-S2000 but concidering that it gave the S2000 a 1 sec head start and then does a +10mph "fly-by" before it crosses the line - that is far from S2000-category of performance.

It has been said before and will be said many times again, cars within one second each other will beat or hang with each other on the street.

I don't deny that - but if I'm not mistaken there was no 'launching' involved here but just mashing the throttle from a roll - in which case a car like 911 can be in a wrong gear and still maybe pass an S2000 (if not make it a close race).

BTW, a bad driver in a 911 will not be able to do a 13.5. Pulling good 1/4 mile times isn't that easy as times get faster, people with fast cars that don't know how to drive them are all over the place.

Again, nothing to do with a driver. A 911 launched off-idle will be slower then an agressively launched one, but by nowhere the same margine as when you look at the S2000. 911 off-idle still launches like a rocket while that cannot be said about the S2000. S2000 will lose up to 3secs from it's 1/4mile time when launched off-idle. Fact is that the more powerfull/torquey the car is, the easier it is to make it accelerate fast. S2000 is touch to race in terms of acceleration because it's easilly cauch 'off power' (ie. bellow 6.5k rpm).

ps. My whole point here was to say that 911 is a 'supercar' in terms of acceleration compared to an S2000 ... it's not even close. Sit in one, drive one and you'll see that a Viper is clsoer to a 911 then an S2000 to a 911.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by DavidM
[B][B] S2000 will lose up to 3secs from it's 1/4mile time when launched off-idle.

 

I was mostly agreeing with you untill this statement, yes the s2000 is a car that is much slower on a launch then an idle start but 3 seconds!!!!!!!!

hehe, I knew you'd jump on that :-) Maybe not 3secs but 2.8secs to be exact. Fastest published time for an S2000 I've seen is 13.8 while the slowest published time is 15.6. Also, look around this board and see how many people are managing mid to high 15s for the 1/4mile when they go to the drag-strip.

I consistently was pulling 14.6-14.7 runs on gtech and at the dragstip off idle. That is about 0.7-0.8 slower than my consistent launched runs. A machine less reliant on revs and more reliant on displacement like the 911 will not suffer so much. It will probably loose about 0.3-0.5 of its 1/4 mile time off-idle.

Yeah, I don't despute that - but this is YOU managing this. When I did some G-tech runs with 2kturkey we found that we could easily lose 1.5secs from our 0-100kph time with an off-idle launch. Worst thing with the off-idle launch in the S2000 is if you rush it a bit and the S2000 does that little bunnu-hop (ie. almost stall) - that loses you another 1 sec on top of whata good off-idle launch would. It's very eazy to 'bunny hop' the S2000 but almost impossible to do it with a 911, Vette M3 or a Mustang.

Though, despite all that, I don't see how I (or anyone else who has driven a manual car) could get above 15sec 1/4 mile run unless I missed a shift.

However what you fail to consider is that many people with "torquey" engines tend to spin their wheels too much in a race and end up slower then an off idle launch. I have seen many a mustang or Trans Am, loose gobs of time spinning its wheels instead of translating the power into motion.

Yeah, I'm familiar with this ... my fater has a 5.7L V8 :-) And I totally agree with you ... though, you should try and spi the rear wheels in a 911. becasue of it's rear-engined bias you need to dial in 6000rpm (1,200rpm off the redline) in order to get an 'excellent' launch ... any less then that and the wheels just don't want to spin long enough. That's why 911s are so awesome off the line ... they're often quicker of the line EVOs and STi here.

Also, I know that in my 'hypothetical 2sec head start scenario' I ahd the caers starting from stand-still but this 'kill' story had the cars at roll so this is not an issue here.


What I am trying to say here is that an off idle launced 911 will be able to pull a 13.4-13.5 or so however one launched by an unskilled owner which is probably more than half of 911 owners out there, (not everyone is a skilled drag racer although many people think they are...), will probably have trouble laying the power down and have trouble cracking into the 13s...

I agree 100% with you here.


BTW, this 911 was racing him from what he says in the post, however I bet you he underestimated him and didn't downshift or didn't know how to downshift at those speeds to the ioptimal gear

Yep, I'd agree with that. The 911 could have floored it but he left it in the higher gear pressuming that he'll just fly past anyway. I think I said the same thing in one of the previous posts and is probably what happened here. Still, I don't call that 'racing' (or 'walking a 911') - racing would need to be in 'optimal' gear for both cars .... I get cars 'beating' me all the time just because I shift at 6,000rpm or when I don't weant to downchange ... that is becuase I'm not 'racing' at that time.

 

Not true. Just because you can drive one car well doesn't mean you can drive another one well. Different cars have different characteristics.

 

I'm going have to disagree with you here. It is entirely possible that the 911 was giving it everything he had.

I am also disagreeing with the 2.0 sec head start theory. Let me explain.

I was able to find (www.rapidcars.com) the following specs on the S2000, as well as the 911 C2:

S2000:
0-30: 1.8 seconds
0-60: 5.3 seconds
0-100: 13.8 seconds
0-1/4 mile: 14.0 seconds

911C2 (968):
0-30 1.6 seconds
0-60 4.6 seconds
0-100 11.6 seconds
0-1/4 mile:13.2 seconds

I was bored today so I decided to write a simulator using a rational spline on the above data. First, both cars from a stop:



These curves are are showing velocity vs. time. Here's where I think you may have gotten the 2 sec difference, because if you give the S2000 a 2 second head start, look what happens:



The two cars' velocity profiles intersect at 14 seconds. However this does NOT mean that the 911 has caught up at that time, with a 2 second head start. It simply means that the 911 and the S2000 are at equal speeds at 14 seconds, with the 911 still BEHIND the S2000, but starting to gain (speed exceeding S2000).

In order to see when the cars POSITIONS would be even (equal), we must integrate the velocity curves to get position. It looks like this:



Now, using the POSITION view, we can see that the intersection of the two profiles occurs at 14 seconds, only if the S2000 gets a 0.74 sec head start. This is roughly what we would expect, given the S2000 runs a 13.9 in the quarter and the 911 runs a 13.2 in the quarter.



Still with me? Here's where it gets interesting. Now let's give the S2000 a 1.1 second head start and monitor the relative POSITIONS of the two cars.

Guess what, the 911 doesn't catch the S2000 until 19 seconds later!



This shows what might not be intuitive, but it is true. Lots of street racers already know it to be true. Any difference between two cars' launches will become even a larger difference at the finish line! It also shows that, at higher speeds, cars do not accelerate as fast as from a slower speed, so a "jump" makes even a bigger difference!

Using the last two graphs, we can conclude that If the S2000 and 911 were even, travelling at 100mph, and the S2000 got a 0.36 sec jump (1.1-0.74), it would take at least FIVE SECONDS (19-14) for the 911 to make up that tiny initial distance!

This explains why jerseys2k's story is completely believable. It also explains, as Sev said, any car can beat another car within about 1 second of the quarter mile spec.

Flame away!

 

I had the jump yes and his shift sounded a bit soft ,until i was still out front i guess he realized he must use all his power to get in front ,,ohhhh and a 911 has plenty of power to take the s2000 but in this case its possible this guy seen a honda symbol and thought he would just shit on me ,,HELL NO,, When i start redlining its all hell breaking loose ,snapping shifts so theres no excuses if i lose...but i didnt ,and yes another 20 feet at the end of the race when we were both going well over 100mph he was coming ,,pretty fast,,,he would have blew me away if it was 3am and no one on the road..
its just an experience i had soo reply however you want ,,and my believers thanks and always give it all you got
peace

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by glen5839
[B]

Not true.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Rasputin314
[B]

I'm going have to disagree with you here.

 

Thanks Rasputin314, nice graphs. Though, I'm sure I said exactly the same thing as you did (without the graphs). I did retract the "2sec scenario" for the 'optimal' situation for both cars. I replaced it with "1sec head start" and said that the 911 will catch it somewhere around the 1/4mile mark - which you have confirmed with your graphs.

Though, you're pressuming a 13.8 1/4 mile for the S2000 ... on the street the more likely time is high 14s (like 14.8) just beauce most people don't ge 'it' perfect or even right. 15.0sec 1/4 mile times are pretty common on this site .... not that that represents S2000's true potential, but it's still common. On the other the 911 can do around 13.5 without even trying ... which would bring the cars even closer and would probably see the 911 pass the S2000 before 1/4 mile comes up. Though, I'm sure I said this before so I'm just repeating myself.

Bottom line is, I don't disagree with anything you've said. Except that on the 'street' it's more likely most S2000's do not get anywhere close to 13.8secs but are closer to the 15sec mark. 911 will not be doing flat 13s either on the street, but it will be a fair bit less 'off the pace' then the S2000. That's what a lot of power and torque does - makes it eazy on the drivers (in particular in rolling starts).

ps. thanks for the more detail jerseys2k. In the 1st place it sounded like the 911 could have not gone any quicker.