my cousin is here from san jose for hollidays. so i decided to show him my silver stook. he got very excited to see the car and asked me to go for a spin. btw, he is a proud owner of a boxter and since he owns a respectable sports car i had no problems with him driving. as he began to drive the car, taking it all easy at first, he seemed to be pleased with my choice, but then he began to test how much balls the car had. and that's when his impression changed saying that he felt his car could beat mine. that's when i decided to drive my car the way it should be driven when racing. btw, i noticed that he would change gears right around 7500 rpm. As i drove, i changed every gear from 1st to 2nd and then to 3rd right at 9000 rpm, before the limiter would cut me off, and that's when he began to get more interested. ( btw, i was able to achive 42 miles on first gear, and 72 on the second) Then we talked about 0-60 and i told him that the car could do right around 5.5 sec. so he decided to time me. the first time we tried, lunching the car at 4500 rpm, i was only able to get to 60 in 6.8 sec. ( let me also mention that i think i drive better than the average joe, not a race car driver, but i can hold my own). the second time i decided to lunch the car at 5000rpm. this also brought my timing to 6.7 sec. At these hight rpms, i noticed the following: the engine drops the rpm to about 3500 before it lunches. (big time delay). i just couldn't believe this. the car feels much faster than what the clock says. my reasoning for not achieving a better timing are as follow:
1. need to lunch the car at a lower rpm( maybe at 2000-3000 rpm)
2. 2 people are in the car, thus the car is heavier
3. i lost about 1 sec. just for the rpm to drop to 3000prm for it to move. why is it that i can't drop the clutch at 5000rpm like other cars (e.g. cobra, camaro ss, mr2 spider)
4. my cousins watch is not accurate

i felt an initial delay which is the main cause of this problem. why is it that this car has this delay? but again, the car felt much faster!!! what do u guys think. if u don't believe me, try this. u may be surprised. eventhough i have raced with a few sport cars in the highway and beaten them hands down, this was a surprise. let me just say that i'm still a proud owner of S2000 and love the car more than ever.

 

i don't see anyway your cousins watch could be accurate. think about it.. make him stop the watch at a certain second.. with .0 milliseconds. your times are hendered by his brain registering that the car hit 60.. then his reaction time hitting the watch.

i think a G-tech might measure 0-60.. or maybe you could get a accurate test at a track. but i wouldn't let those times bother you.

 

My quick answer.. Drop the clutch at around 6500 and you will see better 0-60 times.
Weight does make a difference, how much I don't know. 5k drops from others cars are very high. For the S2K its just a little more then half. There isn't much torque at 3000 rpm. You need good wheel spin to keep the engine brewing near vtec, sorta like keeping a turbo on boost. There have been alot of posts about this, a search should give you some valuable insights. Sev, comes to mind. He has gotten some great times, but he played around alot to find the best launch.

 

FWIW- I have been able to get 5.7 everytime I've tried with a Gtech... and I know I don't have the best launch techniques (probably worse than the average joe).

 

a very good point. however, what i noticed was that when i droped the clutch at even 5k, the car would not move until it would actually drop the rev to 3k. that was very surprising to me. why is it that i didn't get much movement at 5k but i did at 3k? i'll try at 6500 next time to see if i get any wheel spin action.

 

You have some practicing to do to say the least.

1. A watch is not accurate.

2. Your cousin adds weight.

3. Try dropping the clutch at about 6500 RPM and stay on the gas. I don't want to go into too much detail but the key is to make the wheels spin enough to land you at about 6000 RPM when the spinning stops and you can start accellerating ...

I have a best of 5.11 using this method, and have run many 5.1-5.2s

 

Sev, you da' man! have you upgraded the clutch,tranny,etc. to handle the high rpm starts

 

Sev, I know you stated before that you believe proper break-in has made your car quicker than the average ones...just out of curiosity, what guidelines did you follow?

 

Reaction times on both ends (start/stopping of watch) plus your cousin's weight make a difference. Run the same test in his Boxster and see what you get; at least you'll get a relative number, and I bet the stook will be faster.

 

You just have to make the wheels spin so that the clutch doesnt slip . . .