The 350Z is the car I would love to get. If I remember correctly the TT is based on the New Beetle platform, and I'm not that big of a fan of the styling. People may think that the 350Z styling is bland, but boy do you get noticed when driving around.
If I had the extra cash, I'd go for the G35 Coupe. You get back seats (as opposed to just the two front buckets w/350Z), and the styling is excellent.
Or you could wait, save, and buy a true sports car, the Lotus Elise. Now is a good time to be a sports car driver.
If you're going to sissy it up and buy automatic, get the 350Z. The 350 has a lot more torque and low end. Automatics don't like high-reving engines. If you really like the TT, I suggest you learn how to drive stick. (You should learn stick for either of these cars, really.) The G35 is actually an awesome car. It is more acceptable to get it in auto, but if you're up to it you can put a couple thou into the suspension and etc and come out with a Skyline GT350, which is what they call it in Japan.
As far as the Elise is concerned. . . It's an awesome car but there's no way in hell you'll be able to find one in automatic unless you do a custom job, and it will be a dog.
For you lotus guys out there, here's something to salivate over.
The RX-8 does have good handling, but apparently its suspension is a little too soft and body roll is more evident in this car than the TT and 350z.
. . . .
1.3 litres (don't be fooled by this though, it's faster than the TT 180bhp).
The RX-8 has a stiffer chassis than my 3rd gen, which is pretty stiff. (The stock 3rd Gen beat the Porsche 993 (911) twin turbo on a road course back in day despite having 180 less hp). It's the same thing with the RX-8. It has less power than the 350Z, but it weighs less and has vastly superior handling, at least in the sport version. Part of this is due to the perfect 50/50 weight distribution, which allows for extremely predictable handling & drifting. The rest is due to the fact that Mazda knows how to make winning race cars, something that other Japanese manufacturers haven't quite figured out.
Anyway, the 1.3 Liter engine is a rotary, so when you drive an RX-8 you can be assured that you're cooler than almost any other guy on the road since your engine only has three moving parts.
For the love of God do not get an automatic. Not matter which car you get.
Buying a sports car with an automatic is liking picking up a beautiful woman and then finding out she's a pre-op transsexual. (If you don't know, that means it's not good.)
Not related to the topic, but Rageous, congrats on your devilish 666th post.
Well, to make it semi-on topic, I guess you could say buying a sports car with an automatic is like jacking off with your left hand (or right hand, depending on the person). See another AO thread for more info on this (if you dare). I mean, even my crappy old Toyota Corolla feels kinda zippy with the manual, as opposed to the slow-to-accelerate (despite being much newer and faster) Honda Accord auto that my parents have.
Perhaps all of you who are slagging off the automatic option, should actually get out and try a 350Z automatic before commenting on it?!? How well it works entirely depends on the nature of the car, not simply whether or not it is manual or automatic. Basing an opinion on all automatics because of your experience with, of all things, a Honda Accord, is pretty closed-minded (just to make an example).
"performs" is just as much subjective as it is objective. As far as the typical car enthusiast, the difference on the 350Z in particular is irrelevant for anything you would do on a public street and even in most track situations. As mentioned before, the only substantiated way it matters is if you do 0-60 and 1/4 mi runs to a stopwatch everyday. Inability to wrap one's mind around this would be the epitomy of closed-mindedness. I already gave the challenge- don't believe me, go drive the 2 versions and then speak from experience instead of ignorance.
What you do gain with the automatic in the 350Z is a more spirited midrange response, smoother operation under power (less NVH), guaranteed smooth launches under power, and relief from getting a painful burn in the palm of your hand when you go to grab the manual shift knob with the metallic plate top after it has been baking in the sunlight for a few hours. You still retain the ability to invoke tail-out drifts in a turn if you wish. You still get all the benefits of a large displacement V6. You still will outrun the same sorts of cars you could in the manual. IT'S ALL GOOD!!! Now can we resume thinking out of truth rather than diehard prejudice? This is getting a bit ridiculous, being that we are all Mac users here. It's like talking to a bunch of one-note PC fanatics who can't begin to imagine that a world actually exists beyond their Wintel box.
what you lose is extra weight do to the automatic transmission and the fact that you're dumping a lot of power into fluid.
Plus, try heel-toeing in an automatic. Granted, I don't think this matters to mello so I didn't even push the automatic vs. manual argument here, but if you do, the manual is better. Plus, I don't see where you're getting this "better mid-range performance" thing. It perhaps has something to do with higher rear end gears, a typical ammendment to automatic cars. If higher rear end gears are the case, any mid range gains you get are resoundingly offset by more sluggish overall performance. That's just the nature of the universe.
Lastly, it's very difficult to launch in an automatic, albeit smoothly, so you're not going to be getting "smooth launches." Besides, launches are only smooth when your car is underpowered.
I'll tell you guys, I know I'm getting old now. The Audi TT, RX 8 and the 350Z all look goofy to me. I know all three are fine machines. I don't think "looks-wise" they are going to age well mello. Maybe that's a moot point for you.
The only automatic sports car I have ever owned was a 1992 Nissan 2+2 TwinTurbo 300ZX which I had upgraded to Stage 2. It was a great car but for some reason my right foot mutated into a fifty pound block of lead... Nowadays, I'm a very conservative driver. I don't need wads of power. So my metal sweety now is only normally aspirated although a five speed. To my eyes the lines of of the '90 through '96 (in the US) ZX's are not surpassed by the aforementioned three. Different strokes.
what you lose is extra weight do to the automatic transmission...
...but then you effectively gain weight with the heavy flywheel of a manual in rotational inertia. Yes, the rotational inertia essentially manifests itself as additional weight to the car, as far as engine power turning into acceleration. So you may quibble over a 150 lbs difference between automatic and manual trannies, but then you must also account for flywheel inertia effectively adding 300-600 lbs to the manual-equipped Z-car. So automatic wins here, ultimately, or is a wash, at the least.
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...and the fact that you're dumping a lot of power into fluid.
...or dumping power into spinning a flywheel in a manual tranny? How much more power do you really think goes into the fluid? Most people crudely see the disparity of rpm-in vs. rpm-out across a torque converter as some indication of a "loss". However, this is largely the perpetuation of misconception. The difference in rpms is the basis for the generation of torque. The greater the difference, the more torque is generated. That is the path of mechanical energy. It's not just lost as heat, as most would assume. True, some energy will be lost into the fluid as heat, but nowhere as near as manual-tranny proponents like to imagine. The amount of loss into the fluid is typically very low, or we would be seeing ATF reserviors spontaneously vaporizing from overheat as soon as you mash the gas.
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Plus, try heel-toeing in an automatic.
...and you need to do this, why?
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Plus, I don't see where you're getting this "better mid-range performance" thing.
Drive it. It is there. It's what pushes you into your seat and flexes your neck.
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It perhaps has something to do with higher rear end gears, a typical ammendment to automatic cars. If higher rear end gears are the case, any mid range gains you get are resoundingly offset by more sluggish overall performance. That's just the nature of the universe.
If you are referring to numerically higher gears, you would be wrong. Automatics are usually equipped with numerically lower/taller gears, which would suggest a reduction in acceleration, not an increase as you are trying to associate with my "better mid-range performance" remark. Go drive the 2 models around, look at the rpms as you traverse various point on the speedometer, and then come back and tell me with a straight face that the automatic 350Z is geared shorter to make it "seem" to accelerate better... If anything, it is the manual Z that will be engendered with the "higher" gears you speak of, so take that FWIW wrt your predictions of "sluggish overall performance".
The bottomline, is that the automatic Z is geared a bit taller and still manages to pull with more zest in the midrange. Chalk it up to the liberation of a flywheel and the magic of torque multiplication in the convertor.
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Lastly, it's very difficult to launch in an automatic, albeit smoothly, so you're not going to be getting "smooth launches."
??? Uh, OK... Release brake, feed in throttle, car goes forward. No jerkiness, no bogging, just a smooth pull away from a standstill. I have no idea what you could be referring to as far as "difficulty". We're only talking about putting 280 hp to the ground, not something absurd like a 600 hp dragstrip car.
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Besides, launches are only smooth when your car is underpowered.
If a Z is underpowered now, I dare wonder what you think an RX8 is now that they are re-rated at what, 230 hp now? (Go ahead, bring up the car weights now...do you think the power to weight ratios will work out in your favor?)
Is it that truly painful for manual fans to even consider that an automatic could have some redeeming performance qualities? All you got to do is jump into a Z and feel the difference. No amount of chanting the "manuals rule" mantra is going to make that reality disappear. You'll just look silly for being so willfully stubborn. A true car enthusiast will freely give props where it is earned- even if the scenario defies the status quo. He/she doesn't just pick a desired platform and wallow in justifications that only favor that platform.
I'm not comparing the RX-8 here. I don't think it's the right car for mello. I'm comparing automatics vs manual from a very mathematic/objective standpoint.
You seem quite informed, but the impression that I get is that you're a guy who's done a lot of dreaming but not a lot of driving. Can you even drive stick? Have you driven a car hard in more than a straight line? What the hell you were doing in an auto 350Z in the first place? Heel-Toeing? It's what you do when you need to go around a turn hard. Can't do it in an automatic. And launching. . .??? I guess you're not familiar with holding it at 3500rpm and sliding in the clutch just right. You can indeed brake-torque in an auto, but it's not as effective. That flywheel you hate is what makes a manual car jump off the line.
Driving hard is not what mello cares about, hence the jestful reference, but if I bought a 350Z I'd be launching and turning hard all over the place. So the points are valid.
Back to the crusade:
Not interestingly, you tend to see more loss in the drivetrain with automatic cars. The dyno says that more engine power & torque hits the pavement from the manual than the automatic. End of story. Cars that benefit from [good] automatics are ones with so much torque that you can trade in that loss for the benefit of more optimal shifting.
lastly, I said rear-end gears. They are the gears at the end of the drive shaft that hit the diff(s). Usually, cars with automatics have lower-ratio ("higher") rear-end gears. This is the case with the 350Z. So you're going to spend more time out of your powerband at the top-end, and you're going to need more push at any range to get the needle to move as fast. So it's physically impossible for the auto to have better mid-range. On the manual, the flywheel will be spinning at this point and it won't cause any sort of sluggishness.
Automatic gearboxes increase the weight of any car. Period. Also, their performance is not as good as a manual gearbox, although this depends on the driver. It also costs more.
All this crap about it not weighing more than a manual due to the weight of the flywheel and it's inertia. Please, don't feed people this rubbish.
Automatics may be catching up, but a manual is still considered the drivers choice, and the 350z is a drivers car. It is its intended purpose, lets not forget this. If you want a coupe with an automatic get a Mercedes SLK.
I think the TT will be the only one to age well and remain collectable. (TT, 350, G35) The 350 is the weakest styling excercise of the group, somehow the concept car didn't really translate to production the way the TT did. And the TT isn't really pretty, just interesting, I has a couple of good angles, rear three quarter, looking down on the rear glass when parked on the street...
The RX8 is horrible. It carries forward the RX7 tradition of a closterphobic interior to a new level of ridiculously cramped seating -- marries that to Mazda's most idiotic interior, and puts just the wrong accents on the exterior to ruin what should be a fantastic drivers car. The RX7 was a lovely shape and a great track car. The interior was smaller than it had to be, but it wasn't gawdy as hell.
I'm not comparing the RX-8 here. I don't think it's the right car for mello. I'm comparing automatics vs manual from a very mathematic/objective standpoint.
We have yet to see any sort of "math" from you, and your explanations so far have been far from objective. Essentially, all you have said is that "automatics sux because, well, they're automatics".
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You seem quite informed, but the impression that I get is that you're a guy who's done a lot of dreaming but not a lot of driving. Can you even drive stick? Have you driven a car hard in more than a straight line?
Once again, your senses fail you. Yes I can drive a stick, and yes I have driven a stick more than just occasionally. It may further shock you to hear that I learned to drive on a stick. ...and finally, yes, I have pushed a car to its limits in more ways than just a straight line. So purge from your mind the misconception that you are the only one that could possibly have an informed opinion on cars.
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What the hell you were doing in an auto 350Z in the first place? Heel-Toeing? It's what you do when you need to go around a turn hard.
If you need heel-toeing to negotiate any sort of turning manuever, then you really need to learn how to make better use of a steering wheel. Honestly, I don't do any heel-toeing, at all. If the car isn't going to make it through a curve even with the addition of on-throttle or engine braking oversteer, I slow down so that it will. Similarly, I doubt many drivers at all see a manual tranny as a necessity just so that can do heel-toe acrobatics. It's a parlor trick these days, unless you have a very contrived scenario in mind. So what if you can't do it? Ultimately, it will have very little impact on whether you can get yourself from point A to point B in an expedient manner. It's like bragging that with an automatic you can stop at a lighted intersection w/o even touching a gear shifter. Big deal.
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Can't do it in an automatic.
...and why not? You still have a heel, still have a toe, still have both associated pedals. In fact, you have the use of your left foot now that there is no clutch. You don't even need heel and toe, and could do even more than before with a foot for each pedal, if desired.
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And launching. . .??? I guess you're not familiar with holding it at 3500rpm and sliding in the clutch just right.
Once again, your assertion fails. Who isn't familiar with that??? Is that how you drive around town? It still won't be smoother than pulling away in an automatic. That was your original claim. It may allow a more speedy launch, but not likely smoother.
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You can indeed brake-torque in an auto, but it's not as effective.
It works. It's something to do. Whether or not it is as effective is entirely dependent on the nature of the car and the engine. If you have some decent low end grunt, it is quite effective.
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That flywheel you hate is what makes a manual car jump off the line.
I never said I hated the flywheel. Additionally, "jump off the line", doesn't sound so smooth, now does it? That was your claim. I only pointed out that it is not w/o its own downsides. It smooths out engine torque vibrations, but at the same time it exacts an inertia penalty comparable to as if the car had suddenly gained a few hundred pounds. Surely you are not so stubborn as to now argue that added weight to a car is detrimental to acceleration?
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Driving hard is not what mello cares about, hence the jestful reference, but if I bought a 350Z I'd be launching and turning hard all over the place. So the points are valid.
The points are valid for you. Fortunately, not everybody drives like a testosterone-frenzied pubescent teen all of the time. They will bother to discover the finer essences of a "fun" car. They may actually discover that there is more to car life than doing drop clutch launches at 3500 rpm.
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Not interestingly, you tend to see more loss in the drivetrain with automatic cars. The dyno says that more engine power & torque hits the pavement from the manual than the automatic. End of story.
If it amounts to only a few tenths of a second in the 0-60 or a few mph on the qtr mile, it is irrelevant to the daily tasks of a car on a real public street. The only real concern is how quickly you can get ahead of the next car, of which either powertrain option is quite adequate to do the job. Worrying about what a dyno says for a "daily driver" car is about as silly as worrying about 265 hp vs. 270 hp when you never bother to run the tachometer near the redline anyway, or worrying about how one car does .90 g and another does .95 g when the driving you actually do barely hits .80 g. What it then amounts to is poser bragging rights, which is pretty pathetic, IMO.
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Cars that benefit from [good] automatics are ones with so much torque that you can trade in that loss for the benefit of more optimal shifting.
Clearly, the the range of cars that can benefit is even wider than that criteria.
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lastly, I said rear-end gears. They are the gears at the end of the drive shaft that hit the diff(s). Usually, cars with automatics have lower-ratio ("higher") rear-end gears. This is the case with the 350Z.
W/o considering the gear ratios in the transmission, you can conclude very little from just looking at axle ratios. The effective ratio of the entire powertrain in various gears, could be higher or lower, for all you know. Most likely they are taller (you really should forget about using "higher" or "lower", as that leaves things completely ambiguous- you might as well expect us to read your mind to figure out what you mean). However, you still need to account for torque multiplication that occurs in the torque convertor. There is more to the story than just who has the shorter ratio. Essentially, the torque convertor is a variable gear ratio all in itself. Few manual tranny fans realize this, and thus fail to understand how they really work in order to form a valid assessment of the issue.
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So you're going to spend more time out of your powerband at the top-end,...
Once again, you fail to realize the implications that a torque convertor adds to the situation. A 4 spd automatic doesn't simply operate like a 4 spd manual if you mean to compare it to a 5/6 spd manual (for example). If you have a healthy serving of torque and a wide torque band along with it, adding on more gears won't net you much more anyway. The obvious exception to this is if you are also reaching for exotically high top speeds, of course.
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...and you're going to need more push at any range to get the needle to move as fast. So it's physically impossible for the auto to have better mid-range.
It's only physically impossible to you because you fail to understand how an automatic transfers power. I don't know how many times I need to say it out loud for you to get it, though. If you are in disbelief, go try the real thing, and check your preconceptions at the door. It exists, there's an explanation for it, and you are plainly wrong on this.
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On the manual, the flywheel will be spinning at this point and it won't cause any sort of sluggishness.
Yeah, if you are staying at one rpm the whole time, you won't be doing any acceleration. What you need to understand is that to accelerate using a manual transmission, you need to rpms to rise quickly, and that definitively means the flywheel speed must change, as well. That implies an acceleration, which implies an inertia will be involved. That inertia will reduce the acceleration you will see from the drive wheels moving the car. There's no way around this, w/o suggesting ridding the flywheel altogether (meet the automatic, coincidentally). Additionally, the shorter the gearing, the faster you will see the rpms rise, which also exacerbates the flywheel inertia effect. Suffice to say, the flywheel becomes more and more of a liability as you move to engines that rev very high and are coupled to very short gearing. (Remind you of any cars in particular?)
Another little known detail is that if you could measure hp of an engine as it is held at a steady rpm vs. measure the hp of a rapidly revving engine as it passes through the target rpm, you would get different numbers. Why the discrepancy? Why would the former be greater than the latter? Meet Mr. Flywheel and his friend rotational moving mass. When a car company derives its hp ratings, which case do think their test most resembles?
Having said that, I must reiterate, since many here are not reading so well. I am NOT saying that automatics are better in any/all situations. I AM saying that the 350Z is a rare example where the combo works out very well- arguably, better than the manual, IMO. I know this is a shock to some of you, but I say it again and again. Don't believe me? Go try it for yourself. It's the real deal.
In general, an automatic can do well or poor in any given car, and it is the nature of that car and its engine that will make the difference. If I were to pull 2 recent examples in my experience, the Mazda6 and RX8 combined with the automatic option make for absolutely horrid combo's, IMO. Hell, I might as well say that an automatic in any Mazda vehicle just does not go well together. (I've got impressions from the Rev It Up event today, if anyone cares to ask) There is just no comparison with that and an automatic 350Z. You'd swear the Mazdas where broken in some way.
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If I had the extra cash, I'd go for the G35 Coupe. You get back seats (as opposed to just the two front buckets w/350Z), and the styling is excellent.
Or you could wait, save, and buy a true sports car, the Lotus Elise. Now is a good time to be a sports car driver.
As far as the Elise is concerned. . . It's an awesome car but there's no way in hell you'll be able to find one in automatic unless you do a custom job, and it will be a dog.
For you lotus guys out there, here's something to salivate over.
http://www.princeton.edu/~jnorair/st...otoVsLotus.wmv
It's not my work, but the video is great.
The Audi is a run of the mill boring semi-sports car. The Z owns it in spades.
I can't even think of anything.
It's just NOT RIGHT.
Originally posted by mattyj
The RX-8 does have good handling, but apparently its suspension is a little too soft and body roll is more evident in this car than the TT and 350z.
. . . .
1.3 litres (don't be fooled by this though, it's faster than the TT 180bhp).
The RX-8 has a stiffer chassis than my 3rd gen, which is pretty stiff. (The stock 3rd Gen beat the Porsche 993 (911) twin turbo on a road course back in day despite having 180 less hp). It's the same thing with the RX-8. It has less power than the 350Z, but it weighs less and has vastly superior handling, at least in the sport version. Part of this is due to the perfect 50/50 weight distribution, which allows for extremely predictable handling & drifting. The rest is due to the fact that Mazda knows how to make winning race cars, something that other Japanese manufacturers haven't quite figured out.
Anyway, the 1.3 Liter engine is a rotary, so when you drive an RX-8 you can be assured that you're cooler than almost any other guy on the road since your engine only has three moving parts.
Yeah, lol . . . Certainly, the title of Best Look-At-Me-I-Make-More-Money-Than-You-Ha-Ha car goes to the long version of the Maybach. hehe, silly me
Buying a sports car with an automatic is liking picking up a beautiful woman and then finding out she's a pre-op transsexual. (If you don't know, that means it's not good.)
Well, to make it semi-on topic, I guess you could say buying a sports car with an automatic is like jacking off with your left hand (or right hand, depending on the person). See another AO thread for more info on this (if you dare). I mean, even my crappy old Toyota Corolla feels kinda zippy with the manual, as opposed to the slow-to-accelerate (despite being much newer and faster) Honda Accord auto that my parents have.
What you do gain with the automatic in the 350Z is a more spirited midrange response, smoother operation under power (less NVH), guaranteed smooth launches under power, and relief from getting a painful burn in the palm of your hand when you go to grab the manual shift knob with the metallic plate top after it has been baking in the sunlight for a few hours. You still retain the ability to invoke tail-out drifts in a turn if you wish. You still get all the benefits of a large displacement V6. You still will outrun the same sorts of cars you could in the manual. IT'S ALL GOOD!!! Now can we resume thinking out of truth rather than diehard prejudice? This is getting a bit ridiculous, being that we are all Mac users here. It's like talking to a bunch of one-note PC fanatics who can't begin to imagine that a world actually exists beyond their Wintel box.
Plus, try heel-toeing in an automatic. Granted, I don't think this matters to mello so I didn't even push the automatic vs. manual argument here, but if you do, the manual is better. Plus, I don't see where you're getting this "better mid-range performance" thing. It perhaps has something to do with higher rear end gears, a typical ammendment to automatic cars. If higher rear end gears are the case, any mid range gains you get are resoundingly offset by more sluggish overall performance. That's just the nature of the universe.
Lastly, it's very difficult to launch in an automatic, albeit smoothly, so you're not going to be getting "smooth launches." Besides, launches are only smooth when your car is underpowered.
The only automatic sports car I have ever owned was a 1992 Nissan 2+2 TwinTurbo 300ZX which I had upgraded to Stage 2. It was a great car but for some reason my right foot mutated into a fifty pound block of lead... Nowadays, I'm a very conservative driver. I don't need wads of power. So my metal sweety now is only normally aspirated although a five speed. To my eyes the lines of of the '90 through '96 (in the US) ZX's are not surpassed by the aforementioned three. Different strokes.
http://www.sharexperiences.com/picfo...php?pos=-11917
Originally posted by Splinemodel
what you lose is extra weight do to the automatic transmission...
...but then you effectively gain weight with the heavy flywheel of a manual in rotational inertia. Yes, the rotational inertia essentially manifests itself as additional weight to the car, as far as engine power turning into acceleration. So you may quibble over a 150 lbs difference between automatic and manual trannies, but then you must also account for flywheel inertia effectively adding 300-600 lbs to the manual-equipped Z-car. So automatic wins here, ultimately, or is a wash, at the least.
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...and the fact that you're dumping a lot of power into fluid.
...or dumping power into spinning a flywheel in a manual tranny? How much more power do you really think goes into the fluid? Most people crudely see the disparity of rpm-in vs. rpm-out across a torque converter as some indication of a "loss". However, this is largely the perpetuation of misconception. The difference in rpms is the basis for the generation of torque. The greater the difference, the more torque is generated. That is the path of mechanical energy. It's not just lost as heat, as most would assume. True, some energy will be lost into the fluid as heat, but nowhere as near as manual-tranny proponents like to imagine. The amount of loss into the fluid is typically very low, or we would be seeing ATF reserviors spontaneously vaporizing from overheat as soon as you mash the gas.
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Plus, try heel-toeing in an automatic.
...and you need to do this, why?
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Plus, I don't see where you're getting this "better mid-range performance" thing.
Drive it. It is there. It's what pushes you into your seat and flexes your neck.
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It perhaps has something to do with higher rear end gears, a typical ammendment to automatic cars. If higher rear end gears are the case, any mid range gains you get are resoundingly offset by more sluggish overall performance. That's just the nature of the universe.
If you are referring to numerically higher gears, you would be wrong. Automatics are usually equipped with numerically lower/taller gears, which would suggest a reduction in acceleration, not an increase as you are trying to associate with my "better mid-range performance" remark. Go drive the 2 models around, look at the rpms as you traverse various point on the speedometer, and then come back and tell me with a straight face that the automatic 350Z is geared shorter to make it "seem" to accelerate better... If anything, it is the manual Z that will be engendered with the "higher" gears you speak of, so take that FWIW wrt your predictions of "sluggish overall performance".
The bottomline, is that the automatic Z is geared a bit taller and still manages to pull with more zest in the midrange. Chalk it up to the liberation of a flywheel and the magic of torque multiplication in the convertor.
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Lastly, it's very difficult to launch in an automatic, albeit smoothly, so you're not going to be getting "smooth launches."
??? Uh, OK... Release brake, feed in throttle, car goes forward. No jerkiness, no bogging, just a smooth pull away from a standstill. I have no idea what you could be referring to as far as "difficulty". We're only talking about putting 280 hp to the ground, not something absurd like a 600 hp dragstrip car.
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Besides, launches are only smooth when your car is underpowered.
If a Z is underpowered now, I dare wonder what you think an RX8 is now that they are re-rated at what, 230 hp now?
Is it that truly painful for manual fans to even consider that an automatic could have some redeeming performance qualities? All you got to do is jump into a Z and feel the difference. No amount of chanting the "manuals rule" mantra is going to make that reality disappear. You'll just look silly for being so willfully stubborn. A true car enthusiast will freely give props where it is earned- even if the scenario defies the status quo. He/she doesn't just pick a desired platform and wallow in justifications that only favor that platform.
Originally posted by Randycat99
...
I'm not comparing the RX-8 here. I don't think it's the right car for mello. I'm comparing automatics vs manual from a very mathematic/objective standpoint.
You seem quite informed, but the impression that I get is that you're a guy who's done a lot of dreaming but not a lot of driving. Can you even drive stick? Have you driven a car hard in more than a straight line? What the hell you were doing in an auto 350Z in the first place? Heel-Toeing? It's what you do when you need to go around a turn hard. Can't do it in an automatic. And launching. . .??? I guess you're not familiar with holding it at 3500rpm and sliding in the clutch just right. You can indeed brake-torque in an auto, but it's not as effective. That flywheel you hate is what makes a manual car jump off the line.
Driving hard is not what mello cares about, hence the jestful reference, but if I bought a 350Z I'd be launching and turning hard all over the place. So the points are valid.
Back to the crusade:
Not interestingly, you tend to see more loss in the drivetrain with automatic cars. The dyno says that more engine power & torque hits the pavement from the manual than the automatic. End of story. Cars that benefit from [good] automatics are ones with so much torque that you can trade in that loss for the benefit of more optimal shifting.
lastly, I said rear-end gears. They are the gears at the end of the drive shaft that hit the diff(s). Usually, cars with automatics have lower-ratio ("higher") rear-end gears. This is the case with the 350Z. So you're going to spend more time out of your powerband at the top-end, and you're going to need more push at any range to get the needle to move as fast. So it's physically impossible for the auto to have better mid-range. On the manual, the flywheel will be spinning at this point and it won't cause any sort of sluggishness.
All this crap about it not weighing more than a manual due to the weight of the flywheel and it's inertia. Please, don't feed people this rubbish.
Automatics may be catching up, but a manual is still considered the drivers choice, and the 350z is a drivers car. It is its intended purpose, lets not forget this. If you want a coupe with an automatic get a Mercedes SLK.
As an aside, the RX-8 looks cheap. And for all the benefits of a rotary engine, the interior of the car is extremely tacky and poorly designed.
The RX8 is horrible. It carries forward the RX7 tradition of a closterphobic interior to a new level of ridiculously cramped seating -- marries that to Mazda's most idiotic interior, and puts just the wrong accents on the exterior to ruin what should be a fantastic drivers car. The RX7 was a lovely shape and a great track car. The interior was smaller than it had to be, but it wasn't gawdy as hell.
Hopefully Mazda cleans it up.
Originally posted by Splinemodel
I'm not comparing the RX-8 here. I don't think it's the right car for mello. I'm comparing automatics vs manual from a very mathematic/objective standpoint.
We have yet to see any sort of "math" from you, and your explanations so far have been far from objective. Essentially, all you have said is that "automatics sux because, well, they're automatics".
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You seem quite informed, but the impression that I get is that you're a guy who's done a lot of dreaming but not a lot of driving. Can you even drive stick? Have you driven a car hard in more than a straight line?
Once again, your senses fail you. Yes I can drive a stick, and yes I have driven a stick more than just occasionally. It may further shock you to hear that I learned to drive on a stick. ...and finally, yes, I have pushed a car to its limits in more ways than just a straight line. So purge from your mind the misconception that you are the only one that could possibly have an informed opinion on cars.
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What the hell you were doing in an auto 350Z in the first place? Heel-Toeing? It's what you do when you need to go around a turn hard.
If you need heel-toeing to negotiate any sort of turning manuever, then you really need to learn how to make better use of a steering wheel. Honestly, I don't do any heel-toeing, at all. If the car isn't going to make it through a curve even with the addition of on-throttle or engine braking oversteer, I slow down so that it will. Similarly, I doubt many drivers at all see a manual tranny as a necessity just so that can do heel-toe acrobatics. It's a parlor trick these days, unless you have a very contrived scenario in mind. So what if you can't do it? Ultimately, it will have very little impact on whether you can get yourself from point A to point B in an expedient manner. It's like bragging that with an automatic you can stop at a lighted intersection w/o even touching a gear shifter. Big deal.
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Can't do it in an automatic.
...and why not? You still have a heel, still have a toe, still have both associated pedals. In fact, you have the use of your left foot now that there is no clutch. You don't even need heel and toe, and could do even more than before with a foot for each pedal, if desired.
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And launching. . .??? I guess you're not familiar with holding it at 3500rpm and sliding in the clutch just right.
Once again, your assertion fails. Who isn't familiar with that??? Is that how you drive around town? It still won't be smoother than pulling away in an automatic. That was your original claim. It may allow a more speedy launch, but not likely smoother.
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You can indeed brake-torque in an auto, but it's not as effective.
It works. It's something to do. Whether or not it is as effective is entirely dependent on the nature of the car and the engine. If you have some decent low end grunt, it is quite effective.
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That flywheel you hate is what makes a manual car jump off the line.
I never said I hated the flywheel. Additionally, "jump off the line", doesn't sound so smooth, now does it? That was your claim. I only pointed out that it is not w/o its own downsides. It smooths out engine torque vibrations, but at the same time it exacts an inertia penalty comparable to as if the car had suddenly gained a few hundred pounds. Surely you are not so stubborn as to now argue that added weight to a car is detrimental to acceleration?
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Driving hard is not what mello cares about, hence the jestful reference, but if I bought a 350Z I'd be launching and turning hard all over the place. So the points are valid.
The points are valid for you. Fortunately, not everybody drives like a testosterone-frenzied pubescent teen all of the time. They will bother to discover the finer essences of a "fun" car. They may actually discover that there is more to car life than doing drop clutch launches at 3500 rpm.
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Not interestingly, you tend to see more loss in the drivetrain with automatic cars. The dyno says that more engine power & torque hits the pavement from the manual than the automatic. End of story.
If it amounts to only a few tenths of a second in the 0-60 or a few mph on the qtr mile, it is irrelevant to the daily tasks of a car on a real public street. The only real concern is how quickly you can get ahead of the next car, of which either powertrain option is quite adequate to do the job. Worrying about what a dyno says for a "daily driver" car is about as silly as worrying about 265 hp vs. 270 hp when you never bother to run the tachometer near the redline anyway, or worrying about how one car does .90 g and another does .95 g when the driving you actually do barely hits .80 g. What it then amounts to is poser bragging rights, which is pretty pathetic, IMO.
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Cars that benefit from [good] automatics are ones with so much torque that you can trade in that loss for the benefit of more optimal shifting.
Clearly, the the range of cars that can benefit is even wider than that criteria.
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lastly, I said rear-end gears. They are the gears at the end of the drive shaft that hit the diff(s). Usually, cars with automatics have lower-ratio ("higher") rear-end gears. This is the case with the 350Z.
W/o considering the gear ratios in the transmission, you can conclude very little from just looking at axle ratios. The effective ratio of the entire powertrain in various gears, could be higher or lower, for all you know. Most likely they are taller (you really should forget about using "higher" or "lower", as that leaves things completely ambiguous- you might as well expect us to read your mind to figure out what you mean). However, you still need to account for torque multiplication that occurs in the torque convertor. There is more to the story than just who has the shorter ratio. Essentially, the torque convertor is a variable gear ratio all in itself. Few manual tranny fans realize this, and thus fail to understand how they really work in order to form a valid assessment of the issue.
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So you're going to spend more time out of your powerband at the top-end,...
Once again, you fail to realize the implications that a torque convertor adds to the situation. A 4 spd automatic doesn't simply operate like a 4 spd manual if you mean to compare it to a 5/6 spd manual (for example). If you have a healthy serving of torque and a wide torque band along with it, adding on more gears won't net you much more anyway. The obvious exception to this is if you are also reaching for exotically high top speeds, of course.
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...and you're going to need more push at any range to get the needle to move as fast. So it's physically impossible for the auto to have better mid-range.
It's only physically impossible to you because you fail to understand how an automatic transfers power. I don't know how many times I need to say it out loud for you to get it, though. If you are in disbelief, go try the real thing, and check your preconceptions at the door. It exists, there's an explanation for it, and you are plainly wrong on this.
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On the manual, the flywheel will be spinning at this point and it won't cause any sort of sluggishness.
Yeah, if you are staying at one rpm the whole time, you won't be doing any acceleration. What you need to understand is that to accelerate using a manual transmission, you need to rpms to rise quickly, and that definitively means the flywheel speed must change, as well. That implies an acceleration, which implies an inertia will be involved. That inertia will reduce the acceleration you will see from the drive wheels moving the car. There's no way around this, w/o suggesting ridding the flywheel altogether (meet the automatic, coincidentally). Additionally, the shorter the gearing, the faster you will see the rpms rise, which also exacerbates the flywheel inertia effect. Suffice to say, the flywheel becomes more and more of a liability as you move to engines that rev very high and are coupled to very short gearing. (Remind you of any cars in particular?)
Another little known detail is that if you could measure hp of an engine as it is held at a steady rpm vs. measure the hp of a rapidly revving engine as it passes through the target rpm, you would get different numbers. Why the discrepancy? Why would the former be greater than the latter? Meet Mr. Flywheel and his friend rotational moving mass. When a car company derives its hp ratings, which case do think their test most resembles?
Having said that, I must reiterate, since many here are not reading so well. I am NOT saying that automatics are better in any/all situations. I AM saying that the 350Z is a rare example where the combo works out very well- arguably, better than the manual, IMO. I know this is a shock to some of you, but I say it again and again. Don't believe me? Go try it for yourself. It's the real deal.
In general, an automatic can do well or poor in any given car, and it is the nature of that car and its engine that will make the difference. If I were to pull 2 recent examples in my experience, the Mazda6 and RX8 combined with the automatic option make for absolutely horrid combo's, IMO. Hell, I might as well say that an automatic in any Mazda vehicle just does not go well together. (I've got impressions from the Rev It Up event today, if anyone cares to ask) There is just no comparison with that and an automatic 350Z. You'd swear the Mazdas where broken in some way.