Actually I think the real question is what speed you are going roll it on at? I am sure it would be possibly to find a speed based each car's gearing that might give one car or the other a slight advantage.

The S2000's that have showed up at the track in my area have been running in the low 15's stock. I only saw one running in the 14's and he had nitrous. Last test I saw was on a 2003 somewhere and it ran 0-60 in 6.3 and the 1/4 in 14.9. Sport Compact car with the newer bigger motor ran 0-60 in 6.4 and the 1/4 in 14.4.

Here is a quote from Motor Trend about the S2000 (makes me think I wouldn't want to launch it the way you must to get decent times):

The S2000 numbers came after launching at 8000 rpm (producing little tire spin) and shifting at 8300. On one run, we launched and shifted at 5500; the 0-60 time rose to more than 11 seconds. Herein lies the car's biggest problem: Most people will never drive in the best rpm range (7000 to 8500), shifting too early. Our advice is to treat the S2000 like you hate it and you'll get the most out of it. We did and loved every minute of it.

So unless you drive the piss out of it a launch a Toyota Prius hybrid is going to beat you to 60 as well as most current minivans. How many owners are willing to drop the hammer that hard on their cars from a stop?

 

Still wrong!

It's "Offense is for show, Defense is for dough."

 

Surely you can make almost any good motor outperform most (if not all) stock motor if you are going to modify them. That doesn't really prove anything at all.

 

If a stock S2000 runs 15's then my TL will spank it down the track cuz I can tell that the TL will do maybe a 13.9 with the spare and jack out, and a good launch. My b'law has an S2000 and I can tell that's it's not as fast, it runs like a fast civic.

If we want to generalize, the power to weight ratio of the TL is why I bought it in the first place. Lots of the other cars in the same class were also 3400 car weight, but it made more power than any other car in the class except maybe the G35 6MT sedan.

 

You are obviously missing the point. All the vehicles I mentioned are diesels and generally diesels are regarded as being either quick or fast. Think about something for just a moment; a 1.9 liter little diesel motor in a pretty heavy car running a quicker 1/4 mile than a TL (and I own both a TL and the little diesel). The motor is still stock displacement and stock turbo all very simple bolt on stuff yet I was able to effectively almost double the output of the motor. There is almost no way you are going to do that with a TL. I'd say no way but someone would argue minutia.

Or let me paint another picture for you. Someone pulls up along side your stock S2000 or 6MT TL and proceeds to not only get the whole shot on you but pulls you the entire quarter mile in a big Excursion loaded with kids. Wouldn't that get you thinking a little bit? Have you ever thought of a diesel Excursion as being a "performance" vehicle?

My point was that modern diesels are very moddable and they make tremendous amounts of torque and have broad powerbands. Often just a simple chip upgrade and nothing more can bring huge improvements in performance. For example the BMW 330d I mentioned with just a chip and nothing more put down more torque on a dyno than any other stock car at a major European dyno other than a Viper and it was within a few lb/ft of torque of the Viper. Or just in case you still don't get it think of a Viper motor in a BMW 3 series car and you might start to envision how fast a modern diesel could move your car. If you get a chance take a look at this website:

www.antandpete.co.uk

They raced their 330d against some pretty fast competition and in a Cannonball type run. There are some great vids there of there races. Quite a few crashed Ferraris, Gemballa Porsche was punted and a few other interesting vids. Highly recommend just checking the site out even if you aren't a big diesel fan just due to the exotics you will see them race against. It topped out @ 154 and wasn't HP or drage limited but the car had a speed limiter. Car would run easy 5 second 0-60 and was faster up top. Check it out if you get a chance. If I could buy the 330d in America my TL would be gone in a nanosecond. I've driven one of these bad boys and they are amazing even stock and slight tuning and they are amazing. Ant and Pete's car was only slightly modified.

 

According to Road & Track the S2000 runs a 14.1

You guys can argue about which is faster, TL or S2000, but they are going to be very close in the 1/4 mile - and if you take them through any turns, goodbye TL!

 

MANY people have done high 13's in a stock S2000.

Please also keep in mind the S2000 is HEAVILY underrated.

http://www.vtec.net/articles/view-ar...&page_number=2

242.6 whp is nothing to sneeze at

 

WOW, this is getting out of hand, a prius and a minivan beating an S2000. I'm outta here - you guys are freakin crazy..

 

His facts are way off.

 

I must admit, some of these assertions about torque border on fantasy.

The whole point of a transmission is to turn engine power into torque at the wheels. How much torque you ultimately get at the wheels is not a function of engine torque -- it's a function of engine power.

Granted, diesels have wonderfully broad powerbands. But after a great launch, the diesel's going to find out why horsepower wins races. Because once you run 100 more horsepower through the transmission, you're going to get a lot more torque at the wheels -- which is the only place that counts -- from the gas engine. And yes, once you get it into the powerband, a 6MT is going to have no problem staying there for the whole race.

Tough it's tempting, I'm not going to make the blanket statement that a VW New Beetle TDI can't be tuned to beat a TL. But I am confident that he can only do it if the power to weight ratios are close.

 

First off I am not crazy. I suggest Jirzlee and Ken reread my post carefully. I qoute Motor Trend and I'll try and spell it out again. Unless you absolutely banzai the launch the S2000 is not going to get the job done 0-60 very well. Here is the quote from MT again "On one run, we launched and shifted at 5500; the 0-60 time rose to more than 11 seconds. Herein lies the car's biggest problem".

To get the times that they got which was about 6.3 seconds 0-60 here is how they said you need to launch it and this coincides well with my experience "The S2000 numbers came after launching at 8000 rpm (producing little tire spin) and shifting at 8300. Our advice is to treat the S2000 like you hate it and you'll get the most out of it." How many people are going to launch their cars like this on the street? I imagine only a few.

Now since some of you obviously have seen what a new minivan can run 0-60 latest tests I saw on an Oyssey was 8.3 sec. 0-60 so is it really that much of a stretch to think that unless the S2000 is launched perfectly he might have a hard time beating the van to 60? Consider the fact that with a less agressive launch and shifting the S2000 ran 11+ seconds 0-60 so a bobbled launch or less than perfect launch and it is obvious the times will rise substantially and if the guy still runs it to redline the car will obviously be faster then the 11 second run but definitely slower than 6.4. I've seen tests on Prius in the 9 second range as well. So it's not that much of a stretch. The test of the Oydyssey also was not the fasteste version either as it was one of the heavier one. А Toyota Sienna runs in the low 8's as well.

If the S2000 bogs the launch he is going to be playing catch up to 60.

 

Cpurick- I direct you to a guy (G Kelly) running a similar car to mine in Scotland.

http://www.crailraceway.co.uk/show_t...212&RaceID=924

He ran a 13.6 as his is a Golf and they are faster up top than the Bug because of aerodynamics. 2.06 60' times are pretty good for a FWD car. I really doubt the HP/WT ratio is as good as the S2000 as the Golf is not a light car and I know in full race trim the factory VW 1.9 diesels were only making 175WHP and I am not too far off them @ 150HP at the wheels. If his car was to have the HP/WT ratio of even an S2000 it would have to be making darn near 200+ HP and I haven't heard of anyone getting that kind of HP out of a 1.9l TDI motor.

 

Dude, this car is like yours:
http://www.dragtimes.com/Volkswagen-...slip-2187.html

There are posts on vwvortex where the owner puts the dyno at 150/300, just like you do.

That 15.6 is not exactly "pulling" a 14.8 stock TL.

What's on your timeslip?

 

Going off on a weird and pointless diesel tangent, if diesels were the sh%% we'd all be racing them.

All in all I will take the higher HP car.

 

CPU- actually quite a few differences. My car has propane injection, I am also running a LSD which the stock car doesn't. That car also is running the stock clutch and I am not. My car has been extensively tuned. All these make a difference. Think of the difference between how the 5AT launches vs. the 6MT with LSD.

Also look at the temps when that car ran 94 degrees! Look at the trap speeds, with those speeds if he could get the car to hook up off the line it would definitely be quicker. My 60' times are typically 2 flat and that is with a lot of wheelspin with my LSD.

I don't know what injectors he is running or what pump. I don't know what the timing is on the injectors. There are so many tweaks to these cars you can't believe. I have a sprayer on my IC to keep it cool. I run the diesel with the exact cetane rating for my setup. Think of cetane rating like octane rating for gas motors.

I could go on about the potential differences of the motor and drivetrain. I paid over 2k for a light weight set of wheels. I have a lightened flywheel that allows my car to rev more quickly. I have a switch to kill the light drag of the drls that force the alternator to run. Each thing on its own might not seem like much but together that add up to a lot of incremental improvements.

Diesels can be incredibly quick and fast it is just most American's don't have much exposure to them. That would change real quick if our fuel costs were $5-$7 a gallon like Europe.

If you don't appreciate diesels, so be it just don't think that you can't make a very fast diesel car or truck and it doesn't take a huge amount of work.

Or why wouldn't you want a car that can run 5 second 0-60, top speed of over 155mph and still break 40 mpg on the highway? Diesel car can easily do that now. I have great running gas cars so I know how they can run too an ultimately built gas motor vs. an ultimately built diesel will make more HP that is obvious but in a street application Europe has figured out that diesels make a huge amount of sense and they now outsell gas motors in Europe.

I am done with the diesel topic. Try one and you might be surprised. If you happen to make it to Europe go rent a BMW 330d or a MB diesel with a manual tranny. No one says you have to like diesels but hopefully soon we will see them in US Honda's and Acuras as they can be a have you cake and it too scenario great performance and mileage.

 

I don't have a problem with diesels; nor do I think they are inherently slower.

What I doubt is the prospect of a 150hp drivetrain outperforming a 270hp drivetrain simply because that power is manufactured by a high-torque/low rpm diesel. In other words, I suspect you've got cards you're not showing. The car's stripped to 2500lbs. Or it's actually quite a bit more than 150hp. Or it takes a TL an obscenely long time to reach a powerband where it has a power to weight advantage -- or that band is so narrow the TL simply can't maintain that advantage throughout the run.

I don't pretend to know exactly how it's done, but here's the problem: torque at the wheels wins a tractor pull, because in a tractor pull the wheel's not actually rolling. But in a race, when you talk about torque -- in the context of a rolling wheel -- then that torque multiplied by the rotation = horsepower. And that horsepower, after accounting for losses, is going to be something less than what's being produced at the crank.

Now, to get to the end of the track before the other guy, you're going to have to average more power to weight than the other guy over the duration of the race. The high torque suggests there are certain RPMs where a diesel can do this -- but only if the gasoline engine is somehow being prevented from running at RPMs where it can produce more power. Because the gas engine's power will be translated to more torque at the wheels by the transmission -- even if there's less torque at the crank.

 

CPU- maybe this will help. My VW was 150 at the WHEELS without the propane. The TL is 270 at the crank before drivetrain losses. My VW will pull HARD for almost 4000 RPM in each gear so my average acceleration will be higher as the TL really starts to pull above 5k so lets say it pulls to 7k, it effectively pulls for 2000 rpm.

So when you start to look at it the HP disadvantage is not as great as you might think. Propane is worth both HP and torque on my car. A TL lays down about 220 WHP. With propane I am probably pretty close to 180 or so tough to say as I've never dyno'd the car with the propane as very few dynos are set up for diesels as they don't make it easy to measure rpm and other things I wanted so I had to drive 400 miles to get the car dyno'd and at $75 / run I wasn't going to make a ton of runs. I did enough to get the timing dialed in.

The point you make is accurate in that I need to average more power to weight and since my powerband is so wide I am pulling harder for longer in each gear. As a result I do average more power to weight. At absolute peak HP and the proper gear a TL will pull my car UNTIL the TL drops off. It tends to be a very narrow range where the TL will actually pull harder than my TDI. That is my point to this, that before and after that point my TDI is pulling harder and as a result my car is quicker. As while it doesn't pull as hard (it pulls almost as hard) it does it for a longer period of time and as a result the average HP/wt is higher.

The point is with a peakier motor you have to have gearing to take advantage of this motor and kept it at max HP for almost every speed. This is why CVT trannies can make even a lower HP car so fast as they keep it at max power for max acceleration with not finite steps in the gearing.

 

I could add timing to the TL and run propane as well. It's ilke adding octane.

I run 110Leaded in my 98 Formula, and it's making 740rwhp. I would make like 600-650rwhp on 93 pump gas.

A fair comparison would be the Golf TDI since it's probably the same weight as my TL. My b'law has a new Golf TDi. I believe they run mid to high 15's stock.

I feel compelled to pull some research on why we don't drag race diesel engines, BRB.

 

Or turbo or supercharge it. My Volvo R reaches 270lbs of 295lbs of available torque at 1,800 RPM and keep in mind that it's only 2.5L. Bottom line is it's easier to get more HP out of a normally aspirated engine through tuning than it is torque. That's why the RL has 300HP but only 260lbs of torque. And don't forget, these are heavy ass cars - TL weighs 3,500 lbs and the RL a whopping 4K. The R weighs 3,700lbs with AWD. At some point, Acura/Honda's going to have to bite the bullet and either turbo/supercharge their cars or introduce a V8. The new M45 has 335HP/340lbs of torque. If Acura/Honda don't step up to the performance plate soon the market's going to leave them behind.

 

This is good.

So, considering the Beetle's 600lb weight advantage -- and assuming your 180whp translates to 220bhp (losses comparable to the TL's) -- then that puts the VW at 13.18lbs/hp vs. 12.93 for the TL. Now if your torque curve is flatter than the TLs (and whose isn't?) your diesel's got a pretty good match.

Where are your shift points? And do you shift before redline?

 

but this comparison isnt fair.....

i wanted to stay out of this whole dsl vs gas, hp vs tq discussion.... but oh well....

in the above comparison they performed a soft launch and short shifted at 5500 to make it run a 0-60 time of 11 seconds. thats about 1/2 of the s2000 rpm band. 9000 (redline 00-03)-800 (idle)= 8200 rpm of usable power. it has over 3500 rpm left before it hits the limiter(in the thickest part of the power band as well)... that would be like taking our tl and short shifting at 4500. yeah it would move just not very quickly. there is a reason the s2000 was given a close ratio transmission, so that it would stay in the power band between shifts. look at the celica gts if you dont shift PAST redline, it falls off the big cam and the power drops off and your stuck waiting for it to come back on again.... i dont know if toyota has fixed that problem, but many magazines noted it. and the prius and odyssey runs were all max accel runs. short shift them and see what happens there as lazy as could be... my moms pilot is a prime example. pretty quick when you flog it. so by comparing their max accel runs with the s2000 in a soft run u have skewed the test results. also you diesel may be quick i have seen plenty of fast diesels in my short time on this planet. but none of them that i have seen were stock... its all fine and good that diesels in europe are awsome, until i can buy one here it means nothing to me.... i live here and not there. also most diesels have forced induction which buy itself isnt a fair advantage. forced induction wether its diesel or gas makes for a much broader and higher power curve. look at your own mercedes it has an awsome power curve and im sure it can outrun your excursion or your bug... and dont forget no matter what your cars are still modified

diesel engines would be able to produce awsome hp # if they had the ability to rev higher then they currently do. most diesel engines wont rev past 4k (although some are higher) mathmatically this limits the hp that can be made. http://www.truckblog.com/story-15-th...t_diesel_truck. this is the worlds fastest diesel land vehicle. and its a truck (or was a truck, now i dont know what to call it.) look at the hp # they are getting, an estimated 5000!!!, granted this is after 4 turbos, 2 superchargers and almost 1500 cu inches of engine.

http://www.audilinks.co.uk/info/show...sp?article=190 here is a link to an audi webpage thats shows that audi has the worlds fastest production cars. shows there speed and there fuel efficency as they produced that speed over the course of the trip (and although good, it wasnt as high as i was expecting)

diesel vs gas wasnt the original argument it was hp vs tq.... you cant have one with out the other they are mathmatically linked you need one to get the other. the way i like to explain it (and yes this is broken down to a very simple form) torque gets the ball (car) rolling. hp is how fast it will get to its destination

http://www.bankspower.com/sidewinder-dragrace.cfm
http://www.popularmechanics.com/auto...astest_pickup/
these are 2 links to the banks power truck that recently set the worlds speed record for a street legal pick up. look at the hp and tq #s its producing. although it is fast, pro stock john is almost 2 seconds faster and his motor has 1/2 the torque. if torque ruled all pro stock johns car should have gotten pounded. again torque move the ball car hp dictates how fast

 

Man has this thread morphed...

 

Buyers look for HP but really want torque! Fastest away from the light! Most other countries do not think that is what you buy a car for-street racing!

 

Nah. You really need both if you want to have fun!

 

Onager- I think you are missing the point. I really don’t want the diesel debate to go on forever but you are missing a few of my points. I didn’t say run the S2000 to only 5500. I only used that to show how weak the car is at low RPMs. Conversely my TDI doesn’t have that issue. Just off idle it is making more torque than the S2000 at even peak torque rpm. My car will pull hard over a 4,000 rpm range. Effectively hard from 1100 rpm to 5100 rpm (redline is 4800) and it is all done with the stock turbo at 5300. The S2000 really only pulls hard at high rpms and over a pretty limited range. While it revs from 800 rpm to well over 8k rpm it doesn’t pull hard over that entire range.

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I will restate my point, launch the S2000 at some point other than banzai (7k rpm and up) and it is going to be slow enough out of the whole that a Oydyssey will give it fits to 60. It will be playing catch up. I only illustrated the as tested by MT slow times to show that with less than a great launch the car is incredibly slow. So again imagine someone not willing to dump the clutch at 8k on the car and they are not going to launch the car very hard at all and hope then to run down the slower car that just beat them off the line. I have raced several guys with S2000’s on the street with my WRX and only one was willing to try what I call a banzai launch. Every other guy launched at about 5-6k.

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Your point about forced induction is taken but again look at the displacement of my motor!!!! 1.9 liters!!!!!! Not a 3.2 liter motor. Another point is my TDI is not going to lose HP with altitude near as quickly as your NA motor.

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As for the Banks LSR truck it is even remotely close to the fastest diesel truck in the ¼ and even Gale Banks has said diesels are the future. Go here to see a faster diesel truck.

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http://www.dieselinnovations.com/

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David Lott (guy with this truck) helped me build the motor in my diesel Excursion. He is running 11’s with a pickup truck that weighs a lot more than PSJ’s car. Put that motor in his car and it’d be running 9’s.

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If you want to see something else go here and see a 10 second pickup truck with a trap speed of over 123 mph! These are big heavy pickup trucks that are running these times! Not some light weight/big engine Vette, ‘Stang or Firebird. It was a big extended cab truck.

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http://www.dhraonline.com/?PAGE=champsindex

<o:p></o:p>

If you guys don’t want to believe what diesels can do that is ok. Buy one and build it and you might be surprised. My Excursion will run high 13’s and still get almost 25 mpg on the highway and it weighs over 8,000 pounds. I have propane with acts like nitrous to a diesel, way big turbo, nitrous sprayer on the IC core, huge injectors, super aggressive cockpit adjustable chip and making a ton of HP but mountains of torque. Couple that with huge stainless steel catback exhaust with a a tranny that is virtually indestructible (built for tractor pulling) and a high stall converter my truck will spin all 4 wheels through first and spin them again when it bangs second.

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All I can say is if you go to Houston there are so many super quick diesel trucks that I wouldn’t think about racing them unless you have at least a low 11 second ¼ mile car in street trim. Most of these trucks aren’t changed much if at all from when they run at the track. I do nothing but drive my truck to the track, arm the propane, flip my chip to race mode and away I go. Takes my 2 seconds on the street to do it.

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Yes this thread has morphed hasn’t it. I encourage all of you to take a ride in a fast diesel car or truck. Onager, diesels WILL be coming here from <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>. The main sticking point has been the sulfur content of our diesel causes issues with most foreign diesels so look for them to increase in the next few years. I am not knocking gas motors I am just suggesting that you shouldn’t overlook the diesels as almost every one of them make good torque and HP where 90% of the drivers will do 90% of their driving. They aren’t smelly, loud or slow anymore. In some ways race diesels are in their infancy and you will see rapid gains over the next few years. When someone like Gale Banks takes the time to build a pickup that will run almost 230 mph that is saying something. Are you waiting for Mr. Shelby to build one before some of you realize their potential?

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Anyway I’m not here to be a diesel cheerleader. А well tuned diesel can give you lots of torque and HP and still be reliable with great economy. I love my TL and think it is great car but could be that much better with more torque, HP and SH-AWD .

 

i dont need anyone to build one for me to belive what they are capable of... i actually own a 1995 ford f350 diesel, i use it to pull my tractor a john deere which also happens to be diesel. my brother in law, who lives with me (along with my sister), owns a 2000 f 350 diesel. i know what they are capable of. i respect gale banks, he is a leader in the diesel world but thats his buisness.... his life. it pays for him to build it.... so to me it says little. its advertising in its finest.... why buy the competition when hes a "world record holder" i expect him to put morey money in that truck to keep it going... if he had nothing to gain i would be impressed but this is buisness and hes playing to his customers. oh and im looking to buy his stinger power package for my truck. your other link shows faster trucks exsist and i only refered to it as the worlds fastest street legal pickup, nothing more, nothing less. as it has set a "street legal" top speed record

and you missed my point on the s2000. you compared a full acceleration run to a car that was launched soft and short shifted.... hows that fair? i know the car is weak at low rpm, but if your driving it and keeping it down there you are a fool. only a dumb ass or a lowsy drivery shifts that low. it is only a 2.0l motor (00-03) and its naturally aspirated. your tdi shouldnt have that issue its diesel and turboed.... diesels have inheriant low end power and on top of that its turboed to what psi? again not a fair assesment. the s2000 was designed with a specific task in mind keep it on a boil and it will peform it flawlessly. it doesnt drop off the cam or out of its power band if you shift at redline. just as diesel engines are unbeatable in truck applications because they produce power at such low rpm. to get that weight moving. even without a banzai street launch if you shift near redline the s2000 will be much faster then the 11 seconds 0-60 time.

what boost is your car running? what about that excursion? 15-20 lbs? more? let me know. at 15 lbs of boost your car is taking in twice the the air that it normally would. making it perform like an engine that is twice its size. thats the beauty of boost it increases power making the engine act larger then it is. at 15 lbs of boost your bug is performing like it has 3.8 liters of naturally aspirated power under the hood. and im sure your pushing more then that as diesels are designed to take large amounts of boost. banks sells a kit that increases my truck to over 25 psi.

your link shows a bad ass truck running greats times and in a car they will be better, if YOU want i will provide HUNDREDS of links gas powered cars with faster times.

i belive diesels are awsome powerplants but im also not being one sided to the equation. for what WE have gas is the better option (again i will reiterate WE as europes diesels arent here yet, and alot would have to change to bring them here). emisions and power wise in america gasoline is still champ. now if you wants to pull and get awsome gas mileage, diesel is your friend

 

Kind of comparing apples with oranges here.

Like Onager said, if you want to have a fair comparison, compare a naturally aspirated diesel to the TL engine. The NA diesel is gonna get walked.

I don't want to come across as being polarized, I have friends with modded Excursions and Ford trucks that run 13-14's with some very heavy rigs. But a turbo diesel is a boosted up engine. If we boosted up a 6.0 liter LS1 truck engine it would make hellafied power too. My friend Kurt @ W2W's Turbo Silverado SS runs 12.3@112mph, and it's like 5500 raceweight.

While I do think your modded Excursion is badass, diesel has not been the engine of choice for racing, Don Garlits tried a diesel dragster once... all torque and no horsepower.

Again I think we need to avoid generalizations thought the conversation is interesting.

I do think the Acura's 3.2 V6 is very impressive, to dyno about 235-240 fwhp with a CAI is impressive, imagine what it could do with free flowing exhaust and no cats... 260fwhp? That roadrace TL was #3 behind two Porsches... basically the TL was 3100 raceweight vs 3600 stock (200 lbs for driver), with CAI and exhaust mods... and those Porsches had to be 12 second cars.

 

Onager I didn't miss the point on the S2000. I will state it again. A less than banzai launch on the S2000 BUT run it to redline and it is it's still gonna take time to get up where there car is pulling hard. Times could conceivably climb enough (an no where did I saw it was going to run 11 seconds by doing a less than banzai launch and then run to redline) but have the car even bob on the launch and it's going to be a close race to 60.

I also understand the effect of forced induction and that for every 14.7 psi of boost you have a theoretical doubling of displacement. There is a very good synergy with diesels and turbos. I have never said that the diesel will be the ultimate drag car I just have said it can definitely surprise you. The other trucks I pointed out were street legal as well. I've driven David's truck on the street. I don’t care too much about top speed anymore as where can I utilize it? I want quickness over ultimate sheer velocity. If I want ultimate top speed I’ll run my race bike but any more I can’t see taking the risks of high top speed runs. I have a family and kids to worry about.

The fastest non-rocket powered vehicles in the world basically run on kerosene. Each gallon of diesel has more energy than gasoline; diesel engines are much more efficient. I am asking some of you to look past the status quo. If you could buy a car/truck that ran as fast/quick as you gas car but used 30-50% less fuel AND was fueled by a renewable resource (as opposed to gasoline which isn't) would you be interested? It is not entirely unlikely with the instability in the Middle East that fuel prices could continue their rise. If budget deficits continue to rise governments will look for other sources of revenue and we could see our gas taxes to rise to the point that we are paying $5.20/gal for diesel and $6.50/gal for gasoline and not high octane at that. I know we don’t have Euro prices for fuel yet but California was way up in the $2+ /gallon range.

I don’t know if you many of you know this but diesel engines not only can be fast, quick but they can be converted to run on deep fat fryer oil. A friend of mine runs his car for free on the used french fry oil from Wendy’s or McDonalds. Exhaust as a weird odor but it free fuel.

I know that ultimately with current technology gas motors make more HP and often are quicker than diesels but given that diesel fuel as a higher BTU content (i.e.energy) given time engineers could exploit that. It is also nice to know (if you have diesel) that after gasoline production has long since dried up or gas prices are super expensive that we can still have diesel powered cars thanks to bio-diesel.

In the real world there are very few NA diesel and almost all are turbo’d conversely there are very few turbo gas cars now too (with the exception of VW/Audi). Any of you that have a turbo or SC car know how easily it can be to get a little more HP out of the motor by just increasing boost a little bit (assuming you have fuel and timing to compensate). That is why I’d love to see a something like a turbo SH-AWD TL or other Acura.

PSJ – I know that people have tried diesel dragsters in the past but you also have to look at the recent advances in diesel technology. Before almost all diesel were mechanical fuel injection. Now there are sophisticated electronically controlled FI systems for diesels as well as direct injection. As many of you know the reason gas motors make more HP than diesels is because the spin higher rpms. There used to be no such thing as a high revving diesel and not because the motor couldn’t hold together at high rpm but because of how diesel fuel burn in the combustion chamber. There are working on that issue as well so that if we could see diesels turn equivalent rpms as a gas motor they could easily produce more HP than gas motors as the BTU (energy) content of diesel is greater.

I’d still like to see a turbo TL with SH-AWD and also a turbo direct injection version of the same car. That way I can still have excellent performance and economy. That is why I personally think diesels are becoming more popular. In most applications you can have a car with 95% of the performance of the gas motor combined with 30-40% better fuel efficiency. I am not saying that a diesel motor is the ultimate motor design but it could very well be depending on your application. If you had a chance to drive the hi-performance Euro diesels some of you might begin to see what progress has been made. I have fast gas cars and I have fast diesels. I drive my diesels on a daily basis because they are so cheap to feed but probably more importantly for me is I drive a lot of miles on a daily basis combine that with typically 250k+ miles before a rebuild and there can be a lot of advantages. I think it sometimes fun to be the underdog with my vehicles as you are likely to catch people unaware or it is just plain fun to surprise them. You aren’t going to surprise many people if you smoke them when you pull up in your lumpy idle, race-cammed big block motor with a blower sticking up through your hood. Pull up in your mild unassuming stock looking diesel Bug and even if you don’t beat them the shocked look on their face makes it all worth the time.

PSJ- I can appreciate your Firebird. My last fast 10 second street car I had was my turbo 5.0 Mustang. It was fun as heck to run but everyone expected a Mustang, Firebird or Vette to be fast. I couldn’t do much to disguise the big giant exhaust pipes either that clearly announced to the world that this was a deep breathing motor even if it wasn’t very loud because of the turbos. I truly enjoy having cars that are sleepers. In my area there is a guy with a very beat up looking station wagon with a supercharged big block in it that is running 9’s on street tires. He even welded the cage in the car so you can’t see it from the outside at all.

Anyway with diesel Honda's in Europe it shouldn't be too long I hope until they start showing up here as in 2006 we will have the same fuel specs as Europe. If even if some people don't buy diesels and remain staunch gas motor folks it still will have the effect of raising the bar so that gas motors will need to improve because of the competition. We will all win in perhaps the same odd way that OBDII systems forced cars to become better when at first everyone complained about the introduction.

 

maybe I shouldn't have ask this questions....

 

Actually it was a good question and it has been a very active thread.

 

I've actually learned something technical, and still reaffirmed that technical people often miss the obvious points of the other side of an argument...