RANT: All these 600hp+ FI M3's & stuff...bleh

[bmwman91]

OK, more and more now in sports car magazines (mainly European Car, and some others), I see these articles about the 'Such & Such 1000whp monster M3' that whoever made (Active Autowerke, Renn Sport, etc).

The past few articles have prettymuch been as follows:

"So we fired it up, and well (insert some sort of poetic sounding line describing how terrifyingly loud it was). We went out for a drive...let it warm up thoroughly before going nuts. IT WAS CRAZY AMAZING! With the throttle not 25% open we were burning out madly in 2nd gear. So we hit the highway. In 4th gear we floored it and got sideways, whata rush. Same deal in 5th gear...and the thing had 9" wide rear tires (or somethign wider than stock). Wheee, simply incredible!"

Gimme a break. Not that making a powerful engine that holds together does not take immense talent (and insane $), but how lame. The 'tuners' at these places need to get a clue. It is dumb as hell to have a car that can 'wheee AMAZING!' break the tires loose in 5th gear...I would not phrase that as though it were some great feat, not in a BMW anyway. That is NOT the point of a BMW. What a waste of a perfectly good vehicle. The balance of the car is completely shot to hell. And it cannot even pull a good time at the strip because of the 'wheee AMAZING' breaking loose in 5th gear. Get a clue, the numbers do not impress me.

The only other people spending that kind of $ to get that kind of power at least know what they are doing...the drag croud. And they do it RIGHT. I saw no mention of chassis reinforcements on the M3, no mention of fitting the probably 14" wide tires needed to make the vehicle safe. It did talk abotu how the car had its flashy PSS9 copilovers...are you retarded? Sheesh.

Anyway, in closing I guess my annoyance is summed up pretty well in the European Car from last month. The editor is in the 1000whp M3. They go out to the highway. They do like 140mph. They floor it at 140mph, and get totally sideways. I am sorry, but I do not see any IMPROVEMENT made the the E36 M3. You may as well chop the springs while you are at it.

Thoughts on the trend of 500hp+ cars that were a) never designed to have that kind of opwer and b) so called 'tuners' that do these mods without making the necessary modifications to the rest of the vehicle to make there be ANY point to the engine mods, whatsoever?

[bmwman91]

Now, I DO like European Car otherwise. They have neat project cars of their own. Some old Porshes & VW's. And they are a good read otherwise.

[e9nine]

Marketing - advertising - different strokes for different folks.

It's not my bag of chips to have lethal power but I respect those who are able to do so as it's NOT as simple as A-B-C. This has been going on since who knows when and will continue to be a part of the market as there's HUGE $$$$ to be made.

I have more respect for those who can drive a pretty stock car or a properly modified car in circles around these "dyno queens." I have buddies who fit in all categories of "car junkies" with fwd, awd, rwd cars and motorcyles. At the end of the day we have a common passion in vehicles but all go different directions.

Let me buy you a nice cold beer sir!

[enildeR]

There will always bit nitwits abound.
It's all about bragging who has the most HP.

I agree. It's more about making a car that can out-handle another car, as well as out-perform it. But they have far exceeded the boundries of sane tuning. I mean, if they were planning on taking the car to the salt flats to break some speed record, more to them. But I see no point in making it a street car.

This kind of sh1t is on par with those middle eastern whoreballs that drift the car in a straight highway with bloody pedestrians and public traffic STILL ON THE ROAD.

Quite frankly, both the two groups of people get the cyanide cookie from me.

meh.

[bmwman91]

I definitely agree, as mentioned above. I respect that a modder can get that much out of an engine in a more or less reliable fashion. I also agree that it is all marketing nonsense...which I have just never liked people trying to sell me something that isn't what they say it is.

Beer is goot BTW.



(Joke: What is the difference between a person in marketing and a person in sales? The guy in sales is unaware that he is lying to the customer).

[sheepdog]

The problem I see with so many of those magazines is a lock of powerband.

It will go from 2-300hp up to 1000 in less than 1000rpm. Of course it burns off tires, but how the hell do you expect to drive it.

A lot of those magazine cars like that are dyno queens. The sad part is how many ricer boys out there think you can get an 800hp Civic or 1000hp Supra to actually drive decent on the street

I actually had one guy bitch because a factory car "only" had 400hp and another tell me that there is a 1000hp Supra on every corner in Florida.

These kids think if you have less than 600 you should not get any respect. Not to mention they think every car needs 600 or more be be a decent driver.

It is pretty obvious they have no clue when they quote magazies that wore worthless and say that since the intake, header, and cam are worth 30hp each, and when combined they should make 120hp. Gotta love new math.


The quality of car magazines has seriously dropped in mentality.

For a good taste of how bullshit some of these motors are, there is at least one video of a 700hp Supra tearing the hell out of a 1000hp Supra, reason being, it was controllable, and actually had a useable powerband.

[D. Clay]

They have very large genitals. I call Dodge Viper's the car with a foreskin. My wife makes up names and initials for cars to amuse herself. Her favorite is the Cadillac STD! A lot of people mourn the changing of NASCAR into essentially a spec series. I think it's great. The competition is mainly on setup, driving ability, and teamwork. And teamwork goes back to the engine and fab shops. It is closer to FF, FA, and spec E30 in spirit than any other form of American racing. It's actually a redneck SCCA PRO series. I will be the first to admit my rather unorthodox opinions, but why anyone would spend up to $250,000 on a penis enlargement when they could run Formula Ford for over five years amazes me. There are exceptions. I am a sucker for a Ferrari. They are unique in building the entire car in house for F1 and a lot of their best road cars have 350-450 HP.
Now about chopping those springs. I just counted up and I have probably cut about 10 sets. I defy anyone to tell the difference from driving the car.

[bmwman91]

Now about chopping those springs. I just counted up and I have probably cut about 10 sets. I defy anyone to tell the difference from driving the car.

Hmmm, you know it would not surprise me ONE bit if somehow cutting springs was magically as good as buying some overpriced brand-name 'sport' springs. It is a conspiracy...the spring companies put out propaganda to make everyone think chopping is bad bad bad, so we will give them our $$$ instead...

Seriously, it wouldn't surprise me THAT much if the companies were doing that...the automotive aftermarket is one huge cash cow as long as people are woefully uninformed.

[mrjezza]

I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure cutting springs is a bad idea.

Logically, there is less spring therefore it changes their effective load rating; not a good thing. Maybe cutting springs designed for a heavier car would achieve the lowering desired, while maintaining a safe load rating?

[m42 fan]

The problem with those cars is that they have no basis in reality. They're built by these "tuners" as one-off show pieces so they can get in the magazines. Someone with more $$ than brains reads about it, generating business for said "Tuners".

At any rate, these cars are designed to be either 1)raced--and it's questionable how well some would do when placed in the proper class 2) taken to car shows, or 3) turned into a garage queen and driven very rarely, if ever, only to be sold for 1/8 of the origional price after the new model comes out. All three options require more money than common sense.

brian

[bmwman91]

The problem with those cars is that they have no basis in reality. They're built by these "tuners" as one-off show pieces so they can get in the magazines. Someone with more $$ than brains reads about it, generating business for said "Tuners".

At any rate, these cars are designed to be either 1)raced--and it's questionable how well some would do when placed in the proper class 2) taken to car shows, or 3) turned into a garage queen and driven very rarely, if ever, only to be sold for 1/8 of the origional price after the new model comes out. All three options require more money than common sense.

brian

As Borat would say, "Is niiice." Well put. Well put.