Bill in Brooklyn

This section is about cars other than Lamborghinis, and the talk had moved on to whether FWD can be fast cars. I have no need to "praise up" a Saab, but simply state that FWD cars can be made to be a lot faster than what people think. Wrong Wrong Wrong. 11s is not fast. 10s is not fast. In today's world, 9s are not fast. 8's ... now those are fast. Show me a $50K FWD car in the 8s ... you can't. There are PLENTY of $50K RWD cars in the 8s. 252lb-ft of torque is a joke. 400lb-ft is a joke. Saabs are a joke. For whatever it cost someone to put that Saab into the 11s, they could've had any RWD car with a small block into the 9s. Bill in Brooklyn

Sick. Nothing more, nothing less .... just sick. Bill in Brooklyn

Obviously you have no appreciation for light weight and the handling, braking, and fun benefits that follow it. The 350Z is a waste of materials. Yeah, the motor is nice, other than that the car is a complete waste of time and money. Anyone who has one and thinks its a sports car has no idea what a sports car is. The new Eclipse is about as exciting as the last Eclipse ... that's to say, it isn't. The Miata is gobs more fun than a 350Z, an S2000 makes the Miata look boring. To the original poster ... drive one. A great motorcycling buddy of mine is a track instructor with the BMWCCA and recently got the new car itch. He test drove a 997 C2 (like me, he detests 4WD/AWD), Boxter S, Miata, Evo, M3, Z4, and RX8 .... Price is no object for this man (within $100K), there's an S2000 sitting in his garage ('05 Red). Bill in Brooklyn

Actually, that was done with weights, wheel weights in fact, glued to the inside of the tires. The tires were balanced with the weights up top and as they started to roll to the right, the weights rolled the tires uphill. It took something like 1100 takes to get the entire process to work out without failing. The "crew" involved were so excited when they got through some of the typical failure stages (the wiper-walk was a big one) that they almost blew it by jumping up and down as it neared the end. There have been numerous news articles about this ad, it's awesome when you realize that every single object is a part of 1 Accord and it was done all in one take with no computer-aided help of any kind. Bill in Brooklyn

My first post and the way I'd probably go, would be to buy a bare bones Miata for $22K. I'd ditch the OE drive-train and replace it with a crate Chevy LS2 (that's the current 6.0L POS/GTO motor) with an OE POS 4-speed auto. Custom drive shafts are easy to work out. Ditch the rear end for something solid, throw air bags out back, 90/10 shocks with skinnies up front, and a big dose of nitrous. Put some serious sweat into the rear fenders to try to fit some real meat and practice practice practice. Yes, it's street legal. Yes, it's stupid, but done right I'll betcha I could get a Miata into 8s for under $50K if not quicker. Bill in Brooklyn

Absolutely, not question about it ... GT3 (RS if you can find one). Bill in Brooklyn

As someone has already said, the engine already makes good power, uncorking another 100 ponies out of it shouldn't be that difficult except for the fuel management aspect of things. If you can verify that the FI system is BMW derived, find a shop that works with Jim Conforti (I've used Turner Motorsports in Massachusettes myself) and he can probably help in that arena. I'm not sure how stopped up the stock Phantom engine is, but with that much displacement on hand I'm sure you could find a thousand ways to unlock that power. I'm not sure how often you plan on using/needing those 600 ponies, but a good helping of nitrous would do absolute wonders on a car that heavy. Bill in Brooklyn

I understand that .. but here's my view of it. A Phantom is a completely unnecessary vehicle. There are a bevy of vehicles out there that can do the same job the Phantom does for less money. Yes there will be a slight decrease in the "plushness" of the overall experience, but a 750IL handles better, an S65 absolutely blows the doors off of pretty much everything, and an A8L is a decent all rounder with a cool new 12 cylinder. One buys the Phantom for the style, the comfort, and to be seen ... obviously. So if you want 600HP (actually, I hate to argue, but what you want is torque, not horsepower. An F1 motor easily makes 600HP but put it in the Phantom and you'd lose drag races with school buses coming out of the toll booths) .. why not go the blown big block chevy route? Given the sound deadening aspect the interior of the Phantom must bring ... you could even throw an exhaust on there and probably wouldn't hear it inside, but the people outside would be sporting a , "Dayuuuuuuuum!" when you got on it. We're talking about 800+ lb-ft of torque (mild state of tune mind you) in the mid-range people. Personally, I think the Phantom has one of the most agressive, badass front-end's ever seen on car. Small children tremble and wet their pants when looking at it from the correct angles (this is a good thing). What better than a growling big block to back up the attitude?? As far as the "smooth" comment, keep the cam mild (which is more efficient for forced motors anyway) and it'll idle like a Lexus if built properly. A RamJet 502 would be PERFECT as a base for this project =). Bill in Brooklyn

My shooting buddy put together a '90 Mustang GT daily driver that runs 10.2s, 10.3s all day long and ran a best of 9.98 (which promptly got him kicked off the track =) for less than $10K. If it takes you $20K to get an Evo into the 9s, you need serious schooling on going fast in the 1320. Bill in Brooklyn

Tough call .. the crate 6.0 liter Chevy LS2 can be had for under $5K and will fit in a Miata, S2000, and most other front-engine rear-drive sports cars. Miata runs $24 or so, say another 6 for the motor, and that leaves 20K for ways to get the car to stick. Problem with you guys is that you're all thinking about horsepower. A well set up shot of nitrous will take care of most of your power issues, it's getting things to hook that's the problem. That's why 400 HP Stangs that are properly setup run in the 10s and a 900HP Supra runs 11s. Bill in Brooklyn

Come on .. you have to admit Allan that you're not the TYPICAL high-end car owner. Bill in Brooklyn

I'm unaware of any force-induced Phantoms, but I'd imagine you'd run into a few difficulties. You can probably get away with leaving the bottom-end alone if you keep the boost under 5 pounds or so and keep in the intake charge cool, but given the size of turbo you'd run for a motor of that diplacement, you're still talking about a decent bump in power and would need to attend to fuel management at this point. Assuming that the existing fuel management system is standard BMW hardware, someone like Jim Conforti could probably remap the existing ECU .. but with a car this expensive, I personally would want to use a standalone fuel management system. In that regard though, I'm not sure if anyone makes a box that hooks up to the OE wiring harness, so something custom might have to be done. If you've already gone this far, you might as well go for the full shabang and at least get a bit more efficiency out of that turbo. Dished pistons, carefull removal of material from the combustion chamber, and double-thickness head gaskets should get you back a few points of compression, and an intercooler to really cool the charge ... you can probably run 10 or more pounds of boost. With proper fuel and a well matched turbo, you could probably be looking at closer to 800 - 900 lb-ft of torque or more at this point. I'm not even a turbo kinda guy .... but this is what I can see right off the bat as being a problem. It would probably be cheaper, and significantly cooler, to throw a blown big-block Chevy into it. How many Phantoms do you see on the road that have a rumbling idle and jerk the left front fender 12 inches upward when the throttle gets blipped? Bill in Brooklyn

Define performance ... what need are we filling? As a track-day car, its hard to beat a GT3, the new Plastic mess-06, an Elise, or even a suspended NSX (I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but Flying Miata's aren't too shabby either). If you're a drag racer, the C6Z06, new Viper Coupe, and even the Pontiac GTO make decent platforms from which to start (though the US has lost all solid-rear-axle muscle-cars which hurts this segment, no, the Mustang doesn't count ... it has no muscle) If you're a cone-dodger .. Elise, Miata, S2000 ... that's about it. You get the idea. Bill in Brooklyn

Because its not all about horsepower. The weight savings alone on the GT3 is worth its lack of weight in gold as far as I'm concerned and although I've yet to get behind the wheel of one, I hear the feedback is stellar. For a lot of people, the "driving experience" has little to do with how hard you get pushed back into the seat. An S2000 is far more fun to me than a 911TT (I've had the priveledge of track and street time in an S2000 and street time in a 996TT) I consider the GT3 to be the best production Porsche made barring the CGT and I'm not alone. Bill in Brooklyn

Cleanest, nicest Pantera I've ever seen. Truly stunning. Bill in Brooklyn