This thread almost makes me miss the 3rd vs 4th gen and Z/28 vs SS "debates"...almost


-Mike

 

We aren't discussing used cars here, the discussion was about the new mustang and the new camaro, I'm sure I could find a crotch rocket for $10k that would decimate every car on the street or I could find a $500 VW bug and drop a 350 in it but that's not the point.

 

Wow. Someone is failing with the physics here but it's not "you guys".

I'll go call Ross Brawn right now and tell him to stop wasting time and money with all those lightweight unobtanium components. He's so dumb. Every year he builds cars from scratch and never thought to account for weight from the ground up. Think of the money he could have saved by not having to focus on cutting weight from the cars.

After I speak to him, I'll track down the Corvette engineers and inform them of the same. Especially the old C5 team. Silly guys.


*NOTE* The sarcasm you just experienced was real and used with the intent of making a point. Weight matters. Period. Its effect does not magically disappear because vehicle dynamics are not well understood by the everyday driver. Practically no vehicle I can think of was built to be heavy on purpose or by accident. Ferchrissakes, my 2500HD has a magnesium transfer case. Some cars are heavier than others due to content and because there are limitations to what you can do with a given starting point, not because the weight voodoo was used during design and mass is now irrelevant.

 

So in the end, it's not all about the weight, it's about the drive. I've never seen you concede that before. Maybe I missed it.

 

It's about the drive, and the drive is very different for a 3300 pound car (albeit heavier than the Mustang of the time) and a 3900 pound car (today's Camaro V8). It's kind of silly to say that because Camaro drove so excellently weighing 200 pounds more than Mustang in the 80's and 90's, there is no problem that it weighs so much more today because it maintains the same gap.

To illustrate, let's look at your run-of-the-mill LT1 F-body. That car weighed in around 3400-3500 pounds. At the same time, the full-size Impala SS was just over 4000. 500-600 pound difference, right?

Fast forward to 2010. You have a Camaro nipping at the heels of 4000 pounds, and a full-sized G8, again, weights just over 4000 pounds. We've gone from a sporty coupe several hundred pounds less than a large RWD sedan of the same vintage to a coupe that practically mirrors the large sedan. That's the underlying problem here.

 

Are you saying that you don't believe that "the weight" has anything to do with "the drive"?

 

You can't compare a high revving, 4-cyl engine's fuel consumption to a V8's because the engine 'load' is vastly different. With 4 cyl engines, you can get away with good fuel economy with frequent open throttle bursts without putting a severe dent on your fuel bills. If you drive the same way with a V8, it would use more fuel (derr!) but you don't need to do that. If you drive a V8 only as hard as you need to, to keep up with the hard revving 4 cyl, you can still manage reasonable fuel economy because the engine load is relatively low for a V8. The comparison being, equal work is performed by both engines.

That's why we are making an apples to apples comparison (V8 vs V8). There's various factors that influence fuel economy. That we can agree on. I do believe that the Coyote will be slightly more economical on the hwy than the LS3, both driven gently and at optimum, cruise-friendly revs (gearing aside).

But to use EPA numbers to arrive at the conclusion that the Coyote is better under all conditions is over-simplifying things.

 

What 2010 V8 Camaro weighs 3737 lbs? Title should be "How the Camaro gained 950 lbs over 37 Model Years", and appropriate graph and text numbers adjusted accordingly.

And it would be nice to see some real data on how the LS3 will get better mileage than the 5.0 Coyote in "spirited" or "performance-oriented" or any other type of "real-world" driving. Just stating factory rpm limits won't hack it, though I suppose the counter arguement to that would be the amount of air/fuel necessary to fill a cylinder that displaces .775 liters vice filling one that displaces .625 liters.....at WOT throttle, of course.

 

But everything has added a lot of weight since 1985. Nobody likes it, but the vast majority of cars out there have gained 20%+ since then (Corvette being a very notable exception -- shows us how fat it was back then relative to everything else and how well the Corvette team has done).

 

No. I'm saying that the drive has to do with more than the weight, or you'd be a Fox body fan instead of a 3rd gen F-body fan.

 

Yes, and please note that I did not say (or write) that silly thing.

But I do think that the Camaro can be and will be improved from where it is, even if it does not shed any pounds.

There's a lot of room to improve today's 3860 pound Camaro. Just last night, I was reading the April 2010 Road&Track where they described significant handling improvements in a Hennesey LS9 Camaro weighing 3939 pounds.

 

I also agree with this... HOWEVER... it will still not be as capable as a similarly enhanced 3560lb car.

Do you agree?

 

The argument that an '82 Z/28 weighing 3300 pounds compared to an '82 GT weighing 3100 pounds, somehow, in some perverse way, absolves the current car of it's sins - - is ridiculous. Don't you think? I mean don't you think that the Camaro could have performed even better, then or now, had it been lighter?

The bottom line was that the 3rd gen F-car delivered the goods against the Mustang, in spite of it's weight disadvantage.


I'll refer you back to what I said in post 116:

 

I removed the link thinking it would only bring back the dead horse. One thing is certain from the article, the 3rd Gen was structurally the weakest of all Camaros. Some people don't care about that basic fact but that car would definitely be under-engineered, in my book.

If you want to provide data to back up your statements, hey, I'm not holding you back! It would be good to learn a thing or two from the master for a change instead of some unpopular Aussie who doesn't give a rat's whatsit about his rudeness to people who like to revisit weighty subjects.

 

I'm sorry, can you tell me again what claims I've made that need backing up?