You choose --- 370z, Mustang 5.0, Camaro SS

[Trav]

Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL

a million times better looking than the Camaro, which looks like it was designed by Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, with advice provided by Vin Diesel.

I wont disagree with that.Thanks Overkill i almost spit my morning coffee out on that one.

 

[VNTS]

I would choose the Challenger SRT or Mustang.

If you want the preformance, get the Mustang, if you want more room and comfort, get the Challenger.

The 370 and Camaro wouldnt even be on my radar.

 

[VNTS]

Challenger Rt with 6 spd will easily do 25 mpg on highway. You may give up about 1 mpg versus the V6.

Of all the cars mentioned, my brother test drove 3. Mustang, Camaro, Chally. He said hands down the Challenger drew the most attention and provided best ride and comfort for his needs. He like the Mustang which was last years 4.6 but said interior too small and trunk useless. Camaro had terrible ergonomics and again too small. He said the gawk factor from people giving thumbs.

He got an RT 6spd super trac pac, convenice group with EVIC, Sound group 2 with RER system in Hemi Orange. Real beautiful car. You can get these now for 29K if you dont add all the options.

Originally Posted By: Spazdog
Originally Posted By: Ben99GT

Both the Mustang and Camaro do a better job of staying true to the source. That includes more than appearance.


Not sure I follow you.

As far as staying true to the course? The Challenger is a shortened LX platform much like it's original variety was a shortened version of the B-platform. (we're not counting that rebadged Misubishi Sapporo as a Challenger unless you want me to throw in the Mustang II)

If you are talking about the Daimler Mercedes Benz content, exclude the Camaro for it's Holden content. You could almost eliminate the Mustang as well because it's basic chassis design started out as the Jaguar S-type, but they altered it a lot.

Size? I'll concede that. It's more Muscle car sized than pony car. But they were already using the "Charger" name and the Road Runner, GTX, Fury, and Satellite were all Plymouth names. (Besides, only about 10 of us out here would be excited about a modern retro-styled Satellite)

We will be purchasing a Challenger. My wife has already decided that is her next car. We're waiting to see how the Pentastar 3.6 V6 works out. We drove the old Intrepid 3.5 powered model and quite frankly her PT-GT is way quicker. If she wants a Hemi Chally, she's going to have to feed that thing herself.

 

[BBDartCA]

The other thing about the Challenger is it will seat two adults in the rear comfortably. Much different than the Mustang and Camaro. Problem is the Challenger is overweight.

Downer about the mustang is you see so many of them on the road and in rental car fleets, that there is nothing real special about them any more from a image standpoint, if thats important to you. I've been at stop lights in town and have had over 4 waiting for a green light. Challenger is a much more comfortable car to drive too.


Originally Posted By: VNTS
Challenger Rt with 6 spd will easily do 25 mpg on highway. You may give up about 1 mpg versus the V6.

Of all the cars mentioned, my brother test drove 3. Mustang, Camaro, Chally. He said hands down the Challenger drew the most attention and provided best ride and comfort for his needs. He like the Mustang which was last years 4.6 but said interior too small and trunk useless. Camaro had terrible ergonomics and again too small. He said the gawk factor from people giving thumbs.

He got an RT 6spd super trac pac, convenice group with EVIC, Sound group 2 with RER system in Hemi Orange. Real beautiful car. You can get these now for 29K if you dont add all the options.

Originally Posted By: Spazdog
Originally Posted By: Ben99GT

Both the Mustang and Camaro do a better job of staying true to the source. That includes more than appearance.


Not sure I follow you.

As far as staying true to the course? The Challenger is a shortened LX platform much like it's original variety was a shortened version of the B-platform. (we're not counting that rebadged Misubishi Sapporo as a Challenger unless you want me to throw in the Mustang II)

If you are talking about the Daimler Mercedes Benz content, exclude the Camaro for it's Holden content. You could almost eliminate the Mustang as well because it's basic chassis design started out as the Jaguar S-type, but they altered it a lot.

Size? I'll concede that. It's more Muscle car sized than pony car. But they were already using the "Charger" name and the Road Runner, GTX, Fury, and Satellite were all Plymouth names. (Besides, only about 10 of us out here would be excited about a modern retro-styled Satellite)

We will be purchasing a Challenger. My wife has already decided that is her next car. We're waiting to see how the Pentastar 3.6 V6 works out. We drove the old Intrepid 3.5 powered model and quite frankly her PT-GT is way quicker. If she wants a Hemi Chally, she's going to have to feed that thing herself.

 

[BeanCounter]

Originally Posted By: Trav
Then why did Ford use it in the Mustang Cobra and will again in 2014? Corvette ZR1,Ferrari 599 GTB are two of the worlds best performance cars both with front engines and IRS.
http://www.ferrari.com/English/GT_Sport Cars/CurrentRange/Ferrari_599_GTB/Pages/599GTB.aspx

The primitive live rear axle axle performs poorly in comparison to IRS on everything but straight stretches.
IMO trying to compare the live rear axle against the far superior IRS is pointless.The Live rear axle will very soon be relegated to truck use where it really does a good job.


Because it has been used in the Cobra in the past (and was ripped out by a decent portion of owners)?
Because it is trying to "parallel" itself with competition?
I have no idea, other than them wanting for consumers to consider and compare them to the more "road racing" performance vehicles. Is that just because of buyer perception? I have no way to know.

Most cars that were built for performance take pride in their setups, Corvette being one of them. It doesn't bode well for a terrific sports car to change its suspension completely, as that infers that the prior setup might have been inferior. What springs were under the Corvette when they changed from a solid rear (after '63 I believe)? Ah, yes. Leaf springs!
So the decision was made by Corvette, the pinnacle of American sports cars the past 50+ years, to change setup before they had a setup that consisted of a 4-link, panhard bar, coilovers, and swaybars, etc.

The fact of the matter is, on a high-end IRS system, you can absolutely see benefits of the unsprung weight and contact patch given a high performance setup (costly if it doesn't come stock in the vehicle used), complete with aggressive track camber. But only in given situations and on particular terrain. They can only take so much torque though (if we are talking about racing).
But on flat or simply even tarmac (i.e. road racing, and the majority of tracks you see), the difference is more likely to be indistinguishable performance-wise. The anti-roll and anti-squat are big pluses on this setup. Leaf springs, only in a straight line. Coil/link setup correctly...good luck actually losing performance because of it.

So there may be enough difference to warrant it on multi-million dollar teams in specific types of racing with race cars costing hundreds of thousands each race, but for 99.5% of what the general population will ever see, expecting your IRS car will whip some guys SRA isn't always a smart conclusion.

When Cup cars change to IRS, I'll concede.

 

[Trav]

Quote:
Because it has been used in the Cobra in the past (and was ripped out by a decent portion of owners)?


Sure it was by the drag racers.Most people buy a sports car to drive on the road not drag race or run around in circles or on a perfectly smooth tracks.Normal roads have defects that are better handled by the IRS.

You can have the last word.When a company like Ferrari brings out their new front engine rear wheel drive model with a live rear i will gladly concede.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Originally Posted By: andrewg
Originally Posted By: addyguy
Originally Posted By: ARCOgraphite
The Z is a chick car: the one you give to your trophy wife. I dont have the latter so I dont have the former. I do hear for 2011 the stying has be "masculinized" a bit. Too many silly circus do-dads on the 350Z.

To each his own.


And a Yaris is what, a MASCULINE car???



Lol....Very funny. I thought the same thing. A Yaris and even a Forrester are supposed to be....what....macho? Man 'o man.
No it's my commuter car. Why would my modest commuter car - which has NOTHING to do with Muscle and Pony cars be brought up in a conversation? BTW, That's a rhetorical question.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Originally Posted By: BeanCounter
Originally Posted By: cchase
How does the Mustangs rear axle overcome the most fundamental shortcoming of a solid axle? Namely, that if one wheel goes up, the other must move down?


I can't answer specifics about the Mustang, but that is an incomplete concept about the rear axle.

A solid rear doesn't cycle from the dead center of the differential. It is very independent to the suspension setup. Leaf springs vs. coilovers (and their corresponding spring rates) are going to vary quite a bit.

If one side raises because of terrain, the result tends to be body roll to the opposite side ("correcting" the suspension angle discrepancy). A high quality suspension, complete with wide swaybars, can counteract a great deal of this. So, if the opposite side has no where to go down, what's the issue?

Solid axles may have varying degrees of advantages and disadvantages, but in turn so does IRS. Ever crested a hill and had the inertia lift the car further off the ground? What happens?
The a-arms both drop, throwing off camber and having the tires move laterally. Less traction is transferred to the ground, as a result. A solid rear doesn't have this problem, so it is give and takes for both of them.

In my honest opinion, you'd have to have some quite uneven ground to cause a fine-tuned solid setup to lose ground. IRS tends to be focused on ride and comfort, developed for passenger vehicles to remove the feel of the road. In a "go fast" situation, the feel of the road isn't necessarily a negative. Pushed to the their highest performance level, the driver is going to make more of a difference the majority of the time than the rear setups will.

...
And IRS is under the back of my "go fast" car, so you can't claim conflict of interest here...
Nice analysis, BeanC. I might add If you add stabiliser (anti-sway) bars on an indie suspension - you no longer have a truly independent suspension.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Originally Posted By: Trav
Quote:
Because it has been used in the Cobra in the past (and was ripped out by a decent portion of owners)?


Sure it was by the drag racers.Most people buy a sports car to drive on the road not drag race or run around in circles or on a perfectly smooth tracks.Normal roads have defects that are better handled by the IRS.

You can have the last word.When a company like Ferrari brings out their new front engine rear wheel drive model with a live rear i will gladly concede.
The first time I do a dry hop in one of those fragile IRS with 4000+ lb-ft of v8 you can pick up the parts up off the road in a cardboard box

+ Good luck keeping it aligned - I can't even find any smart monkeys to align my Yaris correctly - and that has a twist beam rear! Wht am I complaining about? Maybe they fixed the diff mounts and are making them stonger now. You know - all those GTO (holden)and Caddy CTS-V IRS "issues" ...

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Originally Posted By: ARCOgraphite
The Z is a chick car: the one you give to your trophy wife. I dont have the latter so I dont have the former. I do hear for 2011 the stying has be "masculinized" a bit. Too many silly circus do-dads on the 350Z.

To each his own.
This is my displeasure with Nissan "overdoing" the 350Z . They had the thing near PERFECT with the 90's 300ZX - which is one of the best handling cars Ive driven. A fantastic sports car. Looks great too - serious and purposeful - not silly.

 

[Trav]

Quote:
The first time I do a dry hop in one of those fragile IRS with 4000+ lb-ft of v8 you can pick up the parts up off the road in a cardboard box


Come one now that's just wrong.Veyron has more HP than any V8 on the road (1001 to be exact) and it uses IRS.
MB AMG with over 600 HP uses IRS without issue.

 

[BeanCounter]

Originally Posted By: Trav
Quote:
Because it has been used in the Cobra in the past (and was ripped out by a decent portion of owners)?


Sure it was by the drag racers.Most people buy a sports car to drive on the road not drag race or run around in circles or on a perfectly smooth tracks.Normal roads have defects that are better handled by the IRS.

You can have the last word.When a company like Ferrari brings out their new front engine rear wheel drive model with a live rear i will gladly concede.


Honestly, I don't have a sports car with a SRA, so I don't have a dog in this fight, per se.

#1 - Who is driving fast enough on normal roads to be able to assess a highly tuned SRA is ineffective? That's about like insisting a spoiler is more effective than the lack of one when you drive into town and back...

#2 - We have mentioned the pride sports car brands take in the heritage of their vehicles. This is very evident, even more so with European makers. They don't have a SRA part in the whole joint...don't expect them to start fabricating them anytime soon. Not to mention, I'd be interested to know the great SRA's in European history...I'm betting you'll conclude that SRA is very much an American racing setup, more so than any other area of the world. It's not logical to expect this given the history. They'll put more into rear suspension than you put in your car, so given unlimited amounts of money you can get a dog sled to fly and handle well!

 

[BeanCounter]

Originally Posted By: Trav

Come one now that's just wrong.Veyron has more HP than any V8 on the road (1001 to be exact) and it uses IRS.
MB AMG with over 600 HP uses IRS without issue.


I can tell you passed up my allusion to this car in my comments earlier, so I'll help you out here: the Veyron is a $1.7 million mid-engine vehicle. Not only is it feasible to construct something to withstand that hp, but it isn't even an issue.

Don't they have room behind a mid-engine W-12 to put a SRA?
Take a look and you tell me:

http://www.speed-cars.info/wp-content/gallery/bugatti-veyron/bugatti-veyron-engine.jpg
http://www.autoclub.com.au/uploaded_images/bugatti-veyron-w16-705517.jpg
http://www.raige.net/pictures/images/2006-Bugatti-Veyron-W16-Engine-Cutaway-1280x960.jpg

Sure you can argue that they might have used IRS anyway because that's Euro cars for you + the cars' cost can pay for a strong IRS. The fact of the matter here is there's no where much for a SRA to go, even a trimmed-down 3rd member unit.

 

[andrewg]

Originally Posted By: ARCOgraphite
Originally Posted By: andrewg
Originally Posted By: addyguy
Originally Posted By: ARCOgraphite
The Z is a chick car: the one you give to your trophy wife. I dont have the latter so I dont have the former. I do hear for 2011 the stying has be "masculinized" a bit. Too many silly circus do-dads on the 350Z.

To each his own.


And a Yaris is what, a MASCULINE car???



Lol....Very funny. I thought the same thing. A Yaris and even a Forrester are supposed to be....what....macho? Man 'o man.
No it's my commuter car. Why would my modest commuter car - which has NOTHING to do with Muscle and Pony cars be brought up in a conversation? BTW, That's a rhetorical question.

Hmmm....and calling a 370Z a 'chick' car somehow has substance or value in this thread? I used to own the grand-daddy of all 'chick' cars....a Mazda Miata. Most fun I ever had in a vehicle. The main point of my comment was that average wanna-be hotshots purchase 'stangs and Camaro's in very large numbers...as well as being a top rental car. That just doesn't make one feel in very good company. Doesn't mean those cars aren't great muscle cars....they are. But in MY OPINION the Z just has more class. By that I mean you could drive that car uptown....and not feel out of place. At the same time it will keep up well enough with the V-8's just fine.
Once again, just a subjective opinion.

 

[BeanCounter]

The Veyron is also AWD I believe, as if there wasn't enough info to make the Bugatti a moot point in an IRS vs. SRA discussion...

 

[Trav]

No i didn't pass by your comments i just ignored them as irrelevant.I certainly don't need your help either.

My point was only that an IRS can function with a high HP engine.Even if Veyron is AWD it has IRS regardless, the large percentage of its HP is directed to the rear wheels under normal conditions.
I don't read anything about the diff blowing up on them either.

For the sake of argument just use the ZR1 since AG made the statement..
Quote:
The first time I do a dry hop in one of those fragile IRS with 4000+ lb-ft of v8 you can pick up the parts up off the road in a cardboard box


I'm quite sure the ZR1 has more than enough power and does not cost 1.5 million.
Sorry you cannot prove your point to me anyway. IMO the simple fact that the vast majority of the worlds finest sports cars use IRS technology far out weighs any argument you put forth.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Originally Posted By: ARCOgraphite

The first time I do a dry hop in one of those fragile IRS with 4000+ lb-ft of v8 you can pick up the parts up off the road in a cardboard box

+ Good luck keeping it aligned -


Comments like these are ridiculous.

Over 40 passes at the strip on my car with IRS. 4400 pounds,1.8x sixty foot times, and absolutely no issues. CTS-V's had TRANSAXLE issues, not IRS problems.

 

[BeanCounter]

Originally Posted By: Trav
No i didn't pass by your comments i just ignored them as irrelevant.I certainly don't need your help either.

My point was only that an IRS can function with a high HP engine.Even if Veyron is AWD it has IRS regardless, the large percentage of its HP is directed to the rear wheels under normal conditions.
I don't read anything about the diff blowing up on them either.

For the sake of argument just use the ZR1 since AG made the statement..
Quote:
The first time I do a dry hop in one of those fragile IRS with 4000+ lb-ft of v8 you can pick up the parts up off the road in a cardboard box


I'm quite sure the ZR1 has more than enough power and does not cost 1.5 million.

Sorry you cannot prove your point to me anyway. IMO the simple fact that the vast majority of the worlds finest sports cars use IRS technology far out weighs any argument you put forth.


I agree that you're very narrow-minded, if that's the point you're trying to make. It's coming off quite well.

The fact of the matter is your arguments are based upon some of the top echelon cars in the world. How about using examples of cars that most of us will see in person more than once in our lives, let alone drive one. Anything can be made to work given large amounts of money.

Your arguments are predicated upon expensive, world class IRS systems combined with the fraction of scenarios that an IRS is significantly going to outperform a modern SRA setup. In real world applicability for the vast majority of the masses, SRA is going to perform as well, if not better, AND have the ability to be built stronger and cheaper. You'll be scavenging used IRS's from under stock performance vehicles, which will limit you more than you know.
On top of that, you just added more weight to the rear end than the SRA. So we can argue about fantasy cars (for most of us) or we can be realists. Your choice.

 

[Trav]

Realist? A modern SRA setup? These things were modern in the early part of the 20th century,the next step from a chain.An improved method of bolting the thing in and adding a torque bar and a few links doesn't make it modern.

Even the standard vette uses IRS,now that's not an exotic by any stretch.You cannot put forth an argument that supports your position.Within a few years this will be a non argument as these live axles will only be found in pick ups,some SUV and larger trucks,very few are produced even today for cars.IRS is the natural progression for today's modern car,regardless of HP and cost.

IMO you are being narrow minded and honestly i cant be bothered arguing about it any more,people can google,read then draw their own conclusions.

 

[Spazdog]

Originally Posted By: Trav


Even the standard vette uses IRS,now that's not an exotic by any stretch..


Every Corvette has had IRS since 1963. It was similar to the transverse leaf design in the earlier Triumph Herald and Spitfire.