A friend of mine has an 04 STI with a full exhaust, intake, etc... basically maxed out on his stock turbo. We went from a 55mph roll, I started in 3rd gear. Right off the bat he put almost two car lengths on me before I even got into 4th. It was really pretty bad. That was the only run we did that night. I couldn't believe it was that bad. I mean my 91 NSX creeped away from his STI when it was almost stock(intake & catback) and that car trapped 104mph. The Z embarrassed me.

Afterwards I started thinking wtf... somethings gotta be wrong. My friend agreed. He said he's raced many Z's before and has never stomped one as bad as he just beat me. Unfortunately I didn't get to run him again that night but I wondered if I would get the same results with VDC turned off? So tonight I went out and decided to try to set a benchmark for my Z. Maybe we could compare it to other stock and modified Z's to gauge real world performance. I had an idea. Tonight I found an empty flat stretch of road and prepared the in-car timer. I accelerated up to 25mph in 3rd gear, almost exactly 2,000 rpm's. VDC off. Took a deep breath, nailed the in car timer and synchronously buried my right foot. At redline I clicked the timer to stop. The end result was 10.42 seconds. I did it once more for quality control, haha. Up to 25mph in 3rd gear, set the timer, foot to the floor. 10.40 seconds. So I'll say 10.40 seconds is accurate for my car.

If I was smart I would have done back to back tests with VDC enabled. Oh well.

If anyone gets the chance to try this please post your results! It's much cheaper than a dyno pull and to me is much more of a real world performance number. Elevation where I am? ~300 feet. Thanks!

 

Dude, our cars are not that fast, esp. against the type of car you raced against. If you want a fast car with bolt ons, you need to search elsewhere.

What speed were you at at the top of 3rd?

 

VDC will always kill your pw. If u want to race on a straight away, leave it off.

 

I think it was almost 90mph at redline. I could be wrong, I was paying attention to the tach, not the speed!

When I had my 91 NSX I was doing the 1/4 in 14.0 @ 104mph, and from a roll on the highway I would rip his STI apart from anything over 60mph. Damn, maybe the top end of the NSX just spoiled me... lol

 

starting in third at 55 puts you in a weak spot of the powerband.

 

There is already an accurate way to measure your performance. Its called a time slip. Compulink is accurate to 1/10,000 seconds. Plenty of time slips posted in the drag racing forum.

 

Obviously timeslips are nice but unless you live close to a track its not worth sitting in 2 hours of traffic to pay $25 for two or three runs down the strip only to be disappointed in your 60' and ET due to a crappy launch and/or bog.

Besides, I never race from a dig, if anything I'm concerned about highway rolls. That's a nice timeslip though! Which of your mods would you say was worth the most? Have you got on a dyno?

 

It was the VDC and his mods ---- youll hang with a stock Sti if they dont brake boost but if he can drive and your not modded --- you really wont have much of a chance at that point

Especially at night with cool temps

I have seen bolt-on EVOs go 115 pretty easily and some as high as 119 --- whole other world with just a few mods

 

VDC has absolutely nothing to do with what happened. VDC doesn't affect a car going in a straight line.

If he had wheel spin then TCS would have kicked in but since the OP stated that it was from a 55 mph roll, I seriously doubt he broke the wheels loose. Therefore, no TCS effects either.

 

Yea I had no traction problems. Didn't know if VDC actually prevented the car from going full throttle or not. It felt like the car was really down on power- or maybe I was just expecting too much.

I talked to my friend again, he suspects his STI is making 270awhp and probably 300awtq. I drove his car the other day and holy ****, with gearing that short it feels a lot more like 400tq and 400hp!

 

(1) you said the NSX pulled on him when he was STOCK. and that car ran 104

(2) the Z is a mid-high 13 sec car @ 101-102

(3) he maxed out the wrx turbos.... they come stock with 300hp... comeon now, what did you expect? lol

(4) why are you pulling from 25 in 3rd gear? that isn't an accurate gauge of roll performance... doa quick rip from 40-80 in the proper RPM range and see... then do the same w/o VDC. also try 25-80 (prop. rpms)

don't bag on the Z, I don't know what you expected.... what does your freind run in the 1/4? high 11's @117?

 

race him from a 40 roll and 2nd gear

 

Sorry, when my 91 NSX had an intake and catback it walked his STI with the same mods he has now. My NSX trapped 104mph but I don't feel that's an accurate reading of top end speed that car had. To make a long story short, by changing from the stock 5-speed to the updated 6-speed transmission the NSX probably would have been trapping 108, possibly higher.

Thinking back I probably shouldn't compare the Z to the NSX since those cars didn't even begin to roll out until you were over 80mph. I'm gonna run my friend's bolt-on 95 M3 and see how it goes. He's got a chip, intake, OBD2 header and midpipe with UUC catback....probably 270bhp with 3.64 gears and a bit of weight reduction(2900lbs dry).

 

You gotta pop it into 2nd straight off the bat, I dont know what you were thinking putting it in 3rd, lol. Better luck next time

 

2nd at 55mph? Redline in 2nd is only about 60mph so 3rd was the correct gear. He was probably around 3000rpm which is where our engine really starts to pull.

 

ive noticed that my car doesnt accelerate as fast with the vdc on. i raced my buddy in his cobalt ss and he put like 1 1/2 cars on me and i was like WTF. realized vdc was on turned it off and i put 1/2 a car on him. his mods are intake, reflash and pulley. mine were pop charger and plenum spacer.

 

Unless you are seeing the Slip light illuminating or hear/feel the brakes pulsing, then VDC is doing nothing.

 

well, being a DSM person myself (owned two 1g DSM's), I can tell you if he had an intake, full exhaust, and a boost controller, he definitely would own your ***. A turbo car responds to mods so much better than NA. A full turbo back exhaust on a DSM is good for 30-40 HP. I have never heard of an NA car getting that much of a gain in power from an exhaust. And if the STI has 300Hp stock, those stock turbos maxed out is probably closer to 400Hp. now that is crankhp, but still, that is about 100Hp above the Z. Plus, he probably has a ****load more torque than you do.

My last DSM was a 1g FWD, built engine, 3" turbo back exhaust, 780cc injectors, MAF translator, 60 trim turbo, FMIC, and all the supporting mods, and it would beat my Z from a dig, if allowed to get to 60MPH (wheelspin off the line sucked) and on the highway... it was just plain sad. Thats why when someone asks me about how fast the Z is -- I just laugh. Cause it takes a lot of money to really make one of these cars fast. But it looks just damn sexy cruising...

 

I would say a roll from 55 mph in third is "no man's land" in a Z. 45 mph in 2nd would have given you better results or 65 mph in third.

 

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