I was racing around Cary all morning in my S2000 trying to find people to race with me and a Saturn Sky obliged. We hauled ass all over Cary and surprisingly that car stayed with me for the most part. I was a lot faster through the hard turns, but I think that's just because the older guy in the Saturn didn't have the balls to let his ass end slide around the curves like I was doing.

It was definitely the turbo edition of the Sky, cause I could hear it spooling. But either way, I was very surprised about it's performance and I may go test drive one to see how it handles.

Does anyone have any experience driving the turbo edition of the Sky?

3/31/2007 12:21:58 PM

how much hp does your s2000 have then?

looking online, the turbo sky has 260 hp and torque so i would kinda think its more like he was letting you win

3/31/2007 1:01:28 PM

240 HP without a turbo in my car, and no he wasn't letting me win...I am sure of that.

I checked the track times and my S2000 is a bit faster on 0-60

3/31/2007 1:03:52 PM

they're not as light though i don't think

they actually have things like... sound insulation

3/31/2007 1:04:28 PM

but his car has almost 100 more ft/lbs than you in torque. i thought that would have made a difference

3/31/2007 1:07:22 PM

things like weight and gearing affect performance as well....

3/31/2007 1:11:14 PM

the s2000 is 200 lbs. lighter than the Sky

3/31/2007 1:11:26 PM

not if he knows how to drive the s2k..

torque doesn't mean diddley once you get up to speed (if you can keep it in the peaky power band)

btw.. don't turbo your s2k they don't have torque and the stock bottom end doesn't like it..
the centrifugal supercharger works with the powerband better.


[Edited on March 31, 2007 at 1:14 PM. Reason : .]

3/31/2007 1:13:01 PM

^ yeah we did very few dead stop starts, I just kept my S2000 in the powerband, since I have had it 4+ years, I know how to make it perform properly.

^^^^ true, he does have more torque but that isn't all it takes to be fast

[Edited on March 31, 2007 at 1:14 PM. Reason : ]

3/31/2007 1:14:36 PM

yea, i guess if you werent doing many stops than that wouldnt have quite a bearing on what happens

3/31/2007 1:17:27 PM

technically hp is all that matters..
more torque just lets you know how broad your power band is and where it is.

i mean you can have a motor with 50 ft-lbs but if you spin it to 30k rpm
you have 300hp
you just have to gear the car to get near that 30k rpm really quick

[Edited on March 31, 2007 at 1:19 PM. Reason : .]

3/31/2007 1:19:22 PM

Quote :

"racing around Cary all morning in my S2000 trying to find people to race with me "

3/31/2007 1:21:29 PM

^ haha, there are more "mid-life crisis" guys over there, you just have to be careful!

3/31/2007 1:24:45 PM

what a ric0r thing to do.

3/31/2007 1:30:22 PM

^ well, I considered going mudding, but I didn't think my tires would perform real well off-road

3/31/2007 3:09:33 PM

that figures, going mudding is the off roading equivelant to racing around like a ricer.

3/31/2007 3:14:42 PM

^ yes, that was my joke, I enjoyed my morning activity and that is all that matters

3/31/2007 3:15:52 PM

on topic, i haven't driven a turbo sky yet but i want to. i have driven a regular solstice. performance wasn't impressive at all, but it was still a fun car. the extra power from the turbo should make it a blast.

3/31/2007 3:18:58 PM

both cars probably will get beaten by integra type arrrrgh.

3/31/2007 3:25:08 PM

^ haha

^^ yeah, I was pretty sure the base model solstice/sky would be no fun, since it is so low on power, but this new turbo engine option may be just what they needed in that car. From what I read online, it will be hard to find the turbo for a test drive though...

3/31/2007 3:39:26 PM

Quote :

"I was racing around Cary all morning in my S2000 trying to find people to race with me"

You need to get a life.

3/31/2007 3:41:08 PM

^ I assure you I have a life, but thanks for the suggestion. I have not driven my S2000 in over a month, since I have been out of state for some business and a couple weeks of vacation in Florida. I enjoyed my morning of cruising around.

3/31/2007 3:54:31 PM

bwahahahah


street racing ftl, next time wrap your dumb ass around a telephone pole.

3/31/2007 5:01:17 PM

I'd go to the track if it wasn't $500 fucking dollars a day.

3/31/2007 5:34:37 PM

haha, so much hate here..

Quote :

"yeah, I was pretty sure the base model solstice/sky would be no fun, since it is so low on power"

Does every car need 400+hp to be fun?

3/31/2007 5:35:43 PM

"too much horsepower is never enough"
-John Hennessey

3/31/2007 5:45:21 PM

^^says the dumbass that swore he was swapping an ls1 into a 944.

3/31/2007 5:48:03 PM

who drag races a s2000.. seriously oh wait garfus99 does. AND IN CARY assHOLE. if u hit my dog when ur in my hood ill fuckin kill u.

3/31/2007 7:59:55 PM

Quote :

"but his car has almost 100 more ft/lbs than you in torque. i thought that would have made a difference"

torque don't mean shit. horsepower, produced over a useable rev range, is all that matters.

more torque also means more weight and rotational inertia to deal with it, too.

4/1/2007 12:11:22 AM

^^ I was not drag racing and I didn't come close to hitting anything

4/1/2007 12:19:10 PM

ok, let me set the record straight...

I was on the outskirts of Cary and Apex driving spiritedly, I was not drag racing, I was not exceeding the speed limit by more than 5 or 6 MPH. I was not in danger of hitting anything or anyone or their pets. I was busy running errands and in between these errands I was driving hard and sharing my quick driving with other willing participants on the road. The main purpose of this thread was to get input about the Saturn Sky Turbo, not for everyone to voice their opinion on my morning activities. I am a safe driver and the only thing I did that would have even deserved a ticket was letting the back of my vehicle slide through the turns, which was very controlled and I was never in danger of wrapping my car around a tree. So please stay on topic!

4/1/2007 12:40:08 PM

I remember getting smoked by a saturn one day back when I had an accord... I never even entertained the thought that my accord was fast, but I was ashamed when I got beaten by a saturn

it'll be interesting too, if my RSX-S is totalled I think I'm going to get a cheap accord and go back to grad school... so my car history will go: 87 aerostar, 96 accord, 01 f150, 02 A4, 06 RSX-S, 9? accord...

I used to "drive spiritedly" all the time... I never saw anything wrong with it, and still don't... its when you get comfortable and then show off, that you slide across 4 lanes over a curb backwards hit a tree and up an embankment at a rediculous speed... then you start driving very defensively

4/1/2007 1:14:43 PM

i don't have a problem with your activities, but...

Quote :

"I was not exceeding the speed limit by more than 5 or 6 MPH."

Quote :

"the only thing I did that would have even deserved a ticket was letting the back of my vehicle slide through the turns"

does not compute.

4/1/2007 1:45:18 PM

I'm afraid that nobody wants to talk about your topic, but we'll be happy to continue criticizing your post if you want.

Quote :

"I was a lot faster through the hard turns, but I think that's just because the older guy in the Saturn didn't have the balls to let his ass end slide around the curves like I was doing."

Oversteering isn't the fastest way around a corner, so there goes that argument...

4/1/2007 1:58:45 PM

Quote :

"it'll be interesting too, if my RSX-S is totalled I think I'm going to get a cheap accord and go back to grad school... so my car history will go: 87 aerostar, 96 accord, 01 f150, 02 A4, 06 RSX-S, 9? accord..."

maybe i'm missing something. but i'm just not seeing it

4/1/2007 3:11:12 PM

Oversteering may not be the fastest, but it is very entertaining...I never claimed to be a trained competitive driver, but I apologize for my immature driving techniques.

thanks for the input of those that were on topic, everyone else can continue to do whatever it is you would like in here, but I am done

4/1/2007 3:19:27 PM

Quote :

"torquehorsepower don't mean shit. horsepowertorque, produced over a useable rev range, is all that matters"

fixed it for ya

[Edited on April 1, 2007 at 4:29 PM. Reason : ^ http://thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=450859 more input on turbo sky]

4/1/2007 4:28:07 PM

^ that is the most ignorant statement ever.

if you mention torque and rpm in the same breath you're talking about HP whether you know it or not.
You see HP is the time derivative of Torque think of it as torque/second.

Think of it this way... You can tighten a bolt to 350ftlbs ... but that bolt didn't go anywhere fast did it?
thats because you were not rotating it fast at all when you were producing that amount of torque thus there was nearly no horsepower involved.


basically "torque, produced over a useable rev range" is what horsepower tells you.... how useful your torque is at a given moment.

anyway i'm going to get flamed for this but whatever.
<--

[Edited on April 1, 2007 at 4:57 PM. Reason : -->

4/1/2007 4:56:16 PM

i'm not saying that torque isn't a totally worthless quantity for most cars

i'm saying that, in terms of hauling ass, horsepower (and making it over a useable range) is THE bottom line.

4/1/2007 5:46:48 PM

Horsepower is for selling cars, torque is for winning races

-Caroll Shelby

4/1/2007 7:51:44 PM

That statement is fucking wrong.

--Any mechanical engineer worth a damn.






and if cold hard facts don't do it for you and you need some anecdotal evidence to be convinced, look at F1 cars, sportbikes, etc. Their engines are not meant for torque. They're meant for balls-out top-end horsepower.

[Edited on April 1, 2007 at 8:09 PM. Reason : asdf]

4/1/2007 8:06:11 PM

remember shelby raced endurance races high hp cars low torque cars usually don't make it to the end.

4/1/2007 8:28:22 PM

This entire thread is pot calling the kettle black. I'm sure that NONE of you have EVER exceeded the speed limit, or toyed around with someone on the road, etc... get off your high horses and give the guy a break.

4/1/2007 8:35:47 PM

^^ well, there are also good reasons that Buicks aren't optimized towards lots of top end HP with no regard for torque. The fact remains, though, that power is the bottom line when it comes to hauling ass--not torque.

4/1/2007 8:38:17 PM

i haven't exceeded the speed limit in 8 months
its hard to walk over the speedlimit.

4/1/2007 8:41:50 PM

^^Exactly what he said.

Horsepower is a unit of power. Torque is not. This myth of torque having anything to do with winning races or being a performance factor is nonsense. Horsepower, specifically hp per unit of weight is the ONLY thing that is relevant. I think it is obvious that for horsepower to be usable it has to be developed over the peak range. In other words, you will not drive an S2000 in 3-4k range as you would grand prix GT or SRT-4 or whatever.

4/1/2007 8:45:42 PM

yep...and another myth is that all high-rpm, high power, top-end optimized engines are peaky. that's not the case at all--most of them make power over just as wide of an rpm range as, say, a pushrod V8...it's just higher up on the tach. that's not a problem to anyone who can drive worth a damn, though (at least not if you're racing...it might not be optimal for commuting around town or towing a trailer with minimal fuss).

4/1/2007 8:57:57 PM

although for around town driving torque is important

4/1/2007 9:13:46 PM

oh, sure. that's not what i'm saying.

4/1/2007 9:46:24 PM

i see what you're saying, and agree... but it doesn't apply to all real world situations, which i think is the point others are trying to make.

i remember we all had a blow out about the hp vs. torque thing in some thread years ago. back in jsquared days.

4/1/2007 10:16:26 PM