I could be wrong. But I think you can order the car as a Super Snake and get it to delivered to you as one.

But like I said I could be wrong.

But I see your point. Shelby will be modifying the car after Ford produces the GT500. Might not need to call it stock to be fair.

 

The irony here for you guys that are still willing to engage Mr. Baby is that his V8 Supercar series (of which I am a big fan) runs a ...wait for it... solid rear axle in their cars.

Now I'm sure he'll blather on and on, rationalizing this by claiming cost cutting measures or parity or some other such nonsense. As usual the point made will be avoided.

The point.... the reality of the situation is that this is big time expensive professional autoracing. The sanctioning body could have just as easily chosen to run a spec IRS but they did not. Why? Because a SRA can reliably get the job done.

I am a big proponent of a well engineered IRS and would honestly prefer it to a SRA. However, I also acknowledge that a well set up SRA can get the job done. I see it all the time. Just this past weekend as a matter of fact. I ran a very, VERY bumpy site and did quite well with my merely "competent" car versus those more "well engineered" cars. But hey, what do I know? I've only spent every weekend I could over the last seven years learning about my car in actual competition.


Lastly...for the sake of those who have him set to ignore.... please stop quoting the guy.

Even those small bits of exposure to his "knowledge" make my head hurt.

 

His V8 Supercar series? What series is that?

And I will stop quoting him. Sorry about that.

 

The Australian V8 Supercar series. Basically what NASCAR Cup level racing should be here.

Google it. Good stuff.

 

Yes but the production cars run the IRS.

Well Mr Chew, you'd be happy to also know that V8SC is a parity formula much like your NASCAR formula. The only reason they run SRAs is ***wait for it*** cost containment as the development costs to the teams and manufacturers alike was spiraling out of control!

What competition do you run in? Don't tell me its that cone crunching crap that substitutes for real circuit racing!

Btw, V8SC's popularity is on the wane here... most racing fans are calling for the introduction of STOCK production car racing with a ceiling based on RRP of the cars. People want real production cars to race off against each other, imagine that!

 

 

I'm serious. It really is good racing.

Speed has actually televised some of their races this year for a change. Check it out.

 

I wasn't laughing at the racing and yes I will check it out when I get a chance. No speed at my house.

I was just laughing cause SSbaby was talking all that crap while the Australian V8 Supercar series runs all SRA. I bet he cringes if he sees that racing on tv.

And you know what Ford would probably have the advantage as they are still running SRA in most the cars that would compete in that series. While other manufacturers have moved on and use their resources on IRS.

 

Correction. Today's paper has $9000 off on all 2010 Mustang GTs.

 

Slow sellers? Because a year after launch, we're finally starting to see discounts?
That's absurd.
Even cars that sell well get discounts.

Where do you come up with this?

 

Given a 100 pound (+/-) difference, would you still prefer an IRS?

 

Possibly... what sort of vehicle weights are we talking about?

3250 vs 3350? I'd go with the IRS.

3850 vs 3750? I don't know. I'd probably want a SRA to get every possible bit of weight out that pig. IRS just couldn't make up for that much tonnage. On the other hand, it would still be too heavy though. So who knows? Wouldn't really matter at that point I guess.

Why? Just a rough rule of thumb based on nothing more than personal experience. It seems to me that the weight of a car doesn't get really obnoxious until sometime after it passes the 3500 - 3600 lb mark. At least in the types of cars that I'm interested in.

And why does this 100 lb figure keep getting thrown around? It isn't as simple as pulling the rear componentry out of a 5th gen throwing it on a scale. Does this imply that a C5/C6 would lose 100 lbs if I shove a comparably strong SRA under it? Somehow I doubt that.

But for the sake of discussion, let's say it is 100lbs. Now how much of that is sprung versus unsprung in comparison to a SRA?

Of course an IRS has an obvious advantage over bumps but we never really talk about why. Obviously it's independent but in addition to that the unsprung weight goes way down with IRS.

Getting rid of unsprung weight pays huge benefits and I think that is forgotten too readily (or maybe it's just not known).

A better question might be, would you take a moderate overall weight penalty if you could decrease the unsprung weight by a significant degree? Yes, absolutely. Even though it's actually a few pounds heavier, the car will feel much lighter on its feet.

For the record, I don't believe it is necessary to pay ANY weight penalty with regard to a well engineered (aluminum arms, cradle, etc.) IRS versus a similarly well engineered (Watts link, etc) SRA.

Maybe some sort of trick fabricated aluminum / magnesium, gusseted SRA would provide what we're both looking for but I don't think either of us would want to pay for it.

 

I'm no suspension engineer, so I can't talk explain why an IRS weighs more, other than to say that they do look a lot more complicated to me than the SRA. And every source I've seen that talks about weight and IRS indicates a penalty. We do know that the VE IRS added something like 50 pounds (don't remember the exact number, and it was actually in kg ) over the older VZ IRS, which itself must have been heavier than a good SRA.

I could believe that an all Al IRS could be no heavier than a steel SRA, though that's hand-waving on my part.

For a Cadillac, IRS is a must. For a pony car, I think it's an expensive, heavy luxury. But it would come for free (probably cheaper than free) on Alpha, so this debate is really in Ford's corner, where I understand it's not a given on the next Mustang.

If the next Mustang really does lose weight, I suspect it will be in the I4 and V6 models, and 3250 versus 3350 pounds is probably a reasonable guess for a high 200s I4 Ecoboost model, though I'd think the weight penalty for IRS will depend on the weight of the car it's holding up and the amount of power you want to put through it. Maybe it'd be more like 60 pounds (random guess) for an Ecoboost I4.

For your autoX, maybe the I4 would be best?

 

Well... that depends on your definition of "best". We have different classes for a reason.

I take the position that the scalpel like precision of say, an S2000, just isn't as much fun as the chainsaw approach used by the Camaros / Mustangs (and even the Corvettes I suppose).

Different strokes for different folks.