What did they say in one of the videos that I watched, something like 1600kg of downforce at speed? I think that was it.

oh for sure.

super cars have been like this for a while, kind of a "whats the point?" issue of way to fast to even touch the limits on the street, and also "i cant afford to drift a car worth my house through that corner" at the racetrack.

there is a reason we all race tin cans, we can afford to crash them. and for everyone saying "well, if you can afford one of these, you can afford to crash them" but thats not true. lots of people mortgaged to to the hilt will be buying these.

My GT3RS had 450hp from the factory and it can be scary fast.

I cannot even imagine over 1,000hp.

Good time to be a car guy!

Hell, there are lots of folks driving on the street that can't handle 300hp, and some that can barely handle far less.

Yes, putting high hp vehicles in the hands of unexperienced and/or irresponsible and/or unskilled drivers is dangerous.

I had a coworker. The most sporty and powerful car he'd ever driven was a 4cyl Toyota Camry. He upgraded from that to the first year Alfa Quadrafoglio (sp?) with 500hp. He drove it like an old man during the break in period. Then just after he passed the break-in period. He was at a stop sign getting ready to turn right. He thought, "Let's see what it can do!" So he disabled the nannies (put it in race mode, IIRC) and gunned it while turning right. It fishtailed twice and then caught traction while it was sideways and hopped a curb and sideswiped a tree. Then it was in the shop being repaired (waiting for parts to get delivered from Italy) for ~ 6 months. When he finally got it back, he was petrified of the car. I don't work with him any more, so I have no idea if he still has it or not. Hopefully, he's either too scared of it to use it, or he got rid of it.

100%.

im a road racer with many wins, HPDE instructor, endurance racer with wins, ice racer, with wins, autocrosser, and basically any am motorsport, ive done it and won at it.

and the most powerful car ive ever driven was 450hp. and it was terrifying. the proper application of 450hp is WILD.

you can buy cars with that much power for in the 20 grand range.

absolutly terrifying joe shmo Q public can just like buy cars and drive them on an uncontrolled public street.

what was the line "the problem with driving on the street is that everyone thinks they are fangio" - by fangio

my fantasy for the zr1 development is for GM to chop the engine in half and put it in something interesting and manual and rwd and light.

As long as we are talking about things that will never happen, make it a 530hp I4 8000 rpm mega hatch. They can brand it Cadillac to go with the other super awesome manual Cadillacs that people dont buy.

I don't know. Whatever they say about dealing with turbo lag, 530hp out of a 2.25L four cylinder would suck for drivability.

I've gone as high as 500hp on track, 400hp on the road, and while I don't think it's terrifying in terms of power application (especially with a modern chassis) it's terrifying at how quickly you can get to speeds that are simply too fast. It even robs the fun from those cars, what's the point if you can't keep your foot planted for more than a second or two?

I drove the GT3 at the Porsche Experience Atlanta, and even with the nannies off the power application was predictable and reasonable, but the car was simply too fast for the little test track so I can't imagine what it'd be like to try and have fun with it on the street.

Even my porky Giulia at 280hp is more than fast enough to get in trouble on the street and would happily spin that car around through corners without the nannies (which I can't turn off :().

since turbos have been around they have been claiming to have eliminated turbo lag.

ill believe it when i see it.

Yeah it's waaaaay better than it used to be but you still have to deal with thermodynamics.

it would be 2.75L so a pretty large I4. In the right car would be fun. Less than perfect throttle response will always be a turbo attribute, but can be endearing in the right car.

Or they can chop the NA version from z06 in half and give a 330 hp 9000rpm I4 screamer. No complaints from me on that fantasy either. Put it in something really small and light of course.

I thought it was interesting that in the Engineering Explained video, he stated that the engine was a lot like two I4s that shared a crank more than a V-8. I can't remember why, but I think it's because the intake for each bank was separate.
Supposedly, there's virtually no lag in this thing.

Right. Folks may be reducing it, but "eliminated" seems like a pretty extreme claim.

I've had 2 N/A miatas and one factory turbo miata. There were aspects of the turbo that I liked, and the power bump was not huge (still had decent compression and off boost power) so it reminded me a little of the power delivery of my old '88 911 targa where you felt that the power kept building as the rpms increased. But I do think I prefer N/A power delivery. If the choice was a 300hp n/a motor or a 500hp turbo, I may enjoy the 500hp turbo more. But if the other choice was a 400 or 450 n/a motor vs 500hp turbo, I think there's a good chance that I'd enjoy the n/a motor more.

It's interesting that in the past, most 4cyl topped out at 2.5L. The 968s were 3.0L I4. And these days many/most I4s are 2.0L. So 2.75L is not a new extreme, but is still up there in the land of I4s.

Mazdaspeed miata is definately turbocharged in the old school domain. Modern pedestrian turbocharged cars are architecture for low end grunt with turbos too small for top end.

Modern performace turbod cars are pretty good though, 911s, maclarens, ferraris.......make boost on the fun end of the tach and have decent redlines. I won't argue against NA of course but there is charm to turbo cars done well. Implementation is more important than architecture, plently of boring NA engines for example.

My 718gts has 7600 rpm redline, peak power is at 6500 rpm and doesnt fall off much to redline. Variable vane turbo makes it pretty responsive too. Its a high strung fun to drive and powerful engine, contrast that to the many identical architecture 2.5l subaru h4Ts ive had over the years and they are hardly comparable. Tons of lag in those things and not much top end. I would trade my T4 718 for the 4.0 version but would be driven by sound more than throttle characteristics. Not worth +30k for an essentially identical performance car for me though.

Wow how did I mess such basic math. Excuse me while I jump off a bridge. SmileWavy

That is a pretty good size for a straight four, so I guess there'd be some torque there but I think the off-boost vs. on-boost performance would be so different as to be discordant.