FG FPV GT Rspec vs VF HSV GTS by MOTOR Mag

[GTMOND]

The GTS is pretty impressive, but power wise are very optermistic with rwkw anywhere from 300s to 325, similar to the GT. But The GTS is impressive otherwise, other than looks which are subjective. I wonder if the FH Falcon is having any chassis work or is just cosmetic changes.
With similar real power figures, straight line figures would be similar I guess.

[Rodge]

Originally Posted by 2242100

Rodge, I was told by a Wheels journalist over a year ago that they were no longer testing 2 up and apparently the R Spec manual test was done 1 up. Not surprising when you look at it's end speed of 189 kmh and the speed also suggests that it was putting out way over 335 kW and that makes sense because it has a temporary overboost feature (the same as my standard FG Turbo).
Actually if you compare it's rolling acceleration with the manual HSV that they tested later in the September 2013 issue, you will see that it finished the 400 metres almost 6 kmh faster than the Commodore.

R Spec 100 kmh to 189 kmh at 400 metres in 8.07 seconds.
HSV 100 to 183.2 kmh at 400 metres in 8.1 seconds.

When it comes to lap times I think it's worth keeping in mind that the overboost feature probably wouldn't last too long once a driver starts running hot laps, so the big difference in times between the two perhaps isn't surprising and the HSV seems to be very well sorted with it's smart suspension, it's certainly a good car. But to me it just doesn't seem to be putting out 430 kW though, I've seen the Cadillac perform better and it's supposed to be less powerful.

On the subject of the New Zealand test times, if they use the GPS Racelogic Performance Box (that I have) or the Racelogic Video VBox, they could possibly have the 1 foot rollout feature enabled and that will typically register a time about 3 tenths quicker than the true time, I believe that's the standard that US Motoring Magazines use. Also at least one of the other VBox models can be used in either 5,10 or 20 hertz modes, so if they were using the 5 hertz mode on one of these units, they could get up to 2 tenths rollout before the unit starts logging.
If they print 0 to 10 or 0 to 20 times, I suggest you look to see if these are a lot faster than the Australian magazines.
As far as the 0 to 100 times are concerned, I'm confident that both cars could actually go under HSV's claimed 4.4 seconds if only they could get enough grip. On a high grip surface my own untuned standard FG XR6 Turbo Auto has managed a 4.56 second time (in 71.67 metres) with a 90 kg driver and full fuel load at high altitude, also the 1 foot rollout feature wasn't enabled.

When it comes to powerful front engined car performance comparisons, I think you really need to compare rolling acceleration times once they are out of first gear where traction can be such a problem.

For A long time now I've taken more interest in the 80-120 k.p.h. times than any other performance measure simply because that's the best proxy for how quick a vehicle is in real world conditions.
You've made some interesting suggestions about how various mags set up their timing equipment and i don't know how N.Z. Autocar do it so can't comment on that other than to say I woulsd assume they test the same way for all vehicles. They don't print 0-10 or 0-20 times so we can't give any visibility from that.

There's a bunch of timnes that are all more or less the same that they've tested. 80-120 k.p.h. times for the BMW M5 & Mercedes-Benz E63S & HSV GTS & the new Audi RS6 which are all around 2.25 - 2.30 seconds.

Slightly off that pace they've twice tested an FPV GT and got 2.51 seconds each time and twice tested a Jaguar XFR which also got identical 2.51 secopn times on each ocassion. Based on their testing it appears a SC FPV and a Jaguar XFR are slightly off the pace of the very best high performacne Euro sedans but nonetheless fantastic performers and a very satisfying drive.

I agree that overboost certainly can't go on forever but makes for some interesting applications especially in colder weather with stock Dunslop tyres

Perhaps worth noting that if FPV stripped out their spare wheel and jack and ran with a can of goo like HSV does with the GTS a stock GT would be bang on 100 kg's lighter than a GTS.

Each to their own, I have a very high level of satisfaction with my GT-P but am happy to acknowledge the engineering effort that's gone into the GTS and am comfortable accepting its a more "complete" package than anything FPV have been capable of providing, albeit at a different price point.
I think the GTS represents an extremly good effort for a small niche Australian manufacturer and clearly foots it with some of the vastly more expensive cars from Europe.

[stazza]

Rodge, have you considered just biting the bullet and buying a GTS so we may all be at peace? You just keep saying the same **** every thread. Just BUY one already ffs. This will never end until you buy one.

[Chopped]

I wonder how hard it would be to just think "Oh look a GTS thread, I don't like that car so I will just ignore the thread and move on"....

[BENT_8]

Originally Posted by stazza

Rodge, have you considered just biting the bullet and buying a GTS so we may all be at peace? You just keep saying the same **** every thread. Just BUY one already ffs. This will never end until you buy one.

Lol...oh the irony.

[Professor Farnsworth]

I am SICK of getting reports about this thread. Can you all just stop trolling and act like mature adults. If I have to delete any more crap the thread will be closed.

[2242100]

Rodge, the 2.51 time for 80 - 120 on the FPV is about right, but if the HSV that Autocar tested managed to nail 80 - 120 in around 2.25 - 2.30 seconds, then I think that does point to their test car truly having around 430 kW.

So if that's the case then I have to ask, "what's wrong with the Australian press test cars" ?

I've seen three tests where 80 - 120 in the 400 metre run took from 2.63 to 2.70 and I know that the temperature was good in at least the Wheels manual test, where it works out to 2.7 seconds.

I've just been looking at the 5 car comparison test in the current Motor magazine and they have listed the following 80 - 120 times.
1) Audi RS 6 - 2.19 sec.
2) BMW M5 - 1.97 sec.
3) Jaguar XFR-S - 2.51 sec.
4) Mercedes E63 S - 2.31 sec.
5) HSV 2.60 sec.

So except for the Jaguar (with an equal time to Autocar NZ) the others are well ahead.

Autocar NZ may be in a position to give you more info on the complete run. and the conditions.

[Rodge]

Autocar N.Z. are now sponsored by Z Energy here and as a result of that are using Z's 95 Octane fuel, (Z don't have a 98 Octane fuel here). Many of those cars specify 98 Octane so that might explain some of the difference mate.

The Jag, Mercedes E63S and Audi RS6 times you've quoted above are all with 6/100th's of a second of the Kiwi mag's times with the noteable exceptions being the M5 and the HSV GTS. In the HSV's case I'd suggest this is likely to have something to do with the fact that both Wheels and Motor's testing was done with a manual whereas N.Z. Autocar tested an auto. The M5 discrepancy is harder to explain but perhaps seeing as that little twin turbo V8 is running a really high boost pressure of 21.7 p.s.i. the engine responds really well to the correct 98 Octane fuel ?

Sheeting this all back to the SC FPV's I think what these times of these expensive Euro's and the GTS show is that by comparison for the relativly modest money being asked for a brand new SC GT now on special at $65,000 drive away I think the FPV is fantastic performance for a car that's substantially cheaper.

Is it worth paying a really substaintial price premium for another couple of tenth's of a second with these other cars...I don't think so and doubt my super wide angle bum-o-metre could even tell the difference

[2242100]

Actually you don't need to explain the M5 discrepancy because I just took a closer look at it's standing start numbers and the time between 80 and 120 calculates to 2.23 secs, so I'm thinking that the printed 1.97 sec time has to be a typo by Motor.
On the subject of the transmissions in the HSV tests that I spoke of, the only manual was the one tested by Wheels. The other two tests were with Autos and they were in Motor and the new Evo Australia magazine (a very good magazine so far). Also they were the faster times.
As far as the 95 octane fuel is concerned, it may be very nearly as good (in it's anti knock qualities) for high performance cars as the 98. I say that because whilst it may be 3 octane rating points behind on Research octane rating (RON) it may only be 1 point behind on Motor octane rating (MON) and I understand the latter involves the more rigorous test and it's the one that you most need to take notice of. The Mon number will typically be around 10 points lower. I've been told that in the USA they give an average of the two numbers, which is why their pump fuel has lower Octane Rating numbers.
I researched this about 4 years ago and at that time most 95 fuel was just 1 Mon point behind the 98, or I should say that's what the manufacturers aimed for, because different fuel batches do vary within certain tolerances.
Whatever the case though, I'm still confused as to how the NZ test HSV could manage an 80 - 120 in 2.25 to 2.30 secs, because that's comfortably ahead of what I've seen locally and is more in line with the 4.15 sec 0 - 100 time that you spoke of. Perhaps their test car really had 430 kW, it would be great if you could find out the 400 metre end speed from Autocar NZ. End speeds tell a lot about a cars power level.
You make a strong point about the great value for money that the SC GT represents, and that seems to apply across the Falcon forced induction range. I think the general motoring public have no idea of how well most of them perform. I came from a Smallblock V8 Commodore and had no idea that my new FG Turbo was going to be anything like as fast as it is.

[Rodge]

I've tried to get more info out of N.Z. Autocar about their times with the GTS and havn't had a response. They don't do full drag strip runs either so no visability available on that account. Maybe it was an especially good example that had been well run in and the other magazine's testers had examples straight off the line and the engines were a bit green, who knows ?

Thanks for the info on 95 v 98 Octane that's interesting considering the price difference between these two grades these days and its useful to have the M5 80-120 time thing cleared up. Totally agree with your comments on forced indcution Falcon's, no wrong choices as they all offer incredible bang for the buck. BTW welcome to the forum mate

[tweeked]

Rodge, are you saying that they test cars that are specified 98 RON minnimum on 95 RON due to a sponsorship - surely not??? Running the risk of damaging a forced induction motor, and using a fuel no one owning one should use - thats not very smart..

The rollout comment was interesting and very important to get clarified. I know many personal test devices have this as the default setting to mirror track timing. The Aussie mags set to true timing with no rollout. .1 to .3 difference generally.

[Rodge]

They used to be sponsored by BP and use 98. Yeah I agree that what you've mentioned is a disappointing aspect. Its probably reflective of the commercial reality of trying to maintain tight budget constraints...I think many of the print media publications are under pressure. Regardless of how their timing gear is set up their times for the GTS were materially quicker than for the SC GT they tested.

[MercuryT]

Rodge is quite right (as far as I've read, it's a big thread!). The GTS is clearly the better car and those arguing are off the mark.

Considering the price and more recent platform it's working off though, so it should be!! It is an unfair comparison.

And as much as I don't like the look of the VF, the RSpec is no oil painting either (especially those truly awful/tacky alloys). Not as attractive as the 'regular' version in the right colour combo to be honest, of which I've seen some here which look absolutely fantastic.

[2242100]

If Z FUEL'S 95 RON is only around 1 MON point behind 98 RON fuel, as I was suggesting in my post that it possibly could be (based on research I did about 4 years ago) then perhaps the manufacturers may consider that it's good enough for their cars.
Actually I've just started looking at the Octane Rating subject again to see how the 98 and 95 RON fuels currently compare on MON ratings, and I came across an RACQ article that shows just how careful some owners need to be when it comes to using 95 RON. It's well worth reading I think. It seems that there can be important engine safety differences between different 95 fuels.
I googled :-
ethanol blends and octane rating motoring racq

On the subject of acceleration times and rollout, I've noted people often criticize motoring journalists for not being able to match their Dragstrip times and of course the Journalists are often hindered through not having prepared Dragstrips to test on, but also I think it's worth looking at how the Dragstrip timing systems work. The following should shed some light on the subject for some forum readers that are interested in quarter mile performances.
I'm not sure if all of this applies worldwide, but I believe that at least in Australia and the US they set up the timing gear so that a 22 inch test wheel (a 22 inch disc attached to a handle) can get 1 foot of rollout before the starting beam is activated. However a lot of cars have larger diameter wheels and in practice a Commodore/Falcon sized wheel can get at least around 15 inches of rollout before the 1/4 mile count starts and any time spent moving in the rollout zone (after the starting light) is added to your reaction time and not counted as part of your 1/4 mile time.

I've got data from a 4.66 second (two up) 0 to 100 kmh run that my standard FG turbo achieved and the 60 foot time was 2.19 secs, which seems to be a fairly ordinary time, but if I apply the maximum rollout that I can get at the dragstrip, the time comes down to a quite good (for a standard car on street tyres) 1.91 seconds. That's almost 3 tenths (.28 sec) off all the times including the quarter mile time if the run had gone that far. With a slower launch the difference can be greater of course, and can easily be 4 tenths or even more. So when people start comparing 60 foot and quarter mile numbers they need to keep this in mind.
One point to note though is that the quality of the launch won't have much effect on the 1/4 mile end speed. I think that's well demonstrated by another 0 - 100 run that was done with a much slower 2nd gear launch. On this run the car took 5.66 seconds to get to 100 which was exactly 1 second longer and the 60 foot time was a much slower at 2.77 seconds (or 2.33 sec with maximum rollout applied). But even though it was much slower it only covered an extra 6.33 metres on it's journey to 100 kmh. So if we think about what would have happened if the car had been doing 1/4 mile runs, then it becomes evident that with the faster 0 - 100 time it would only have an extra 6.33 metres (more than the slower run) to cover before reaching the end of the 1/4 mile and hence only 6.33 extra metres to make up more speed.
A car like a standard FG F6 Auto for example will only pick up around half a mile an hour of extra speed over the last 6.33 metres of a quarter mile run, so I think that shows how relevant 1/4 mile end speeds can be, whereas the 1/4 mile times can often be pretty rubbery because of rollout and varying traction levels.

A few final minor points. Dragstrip 660 foot speeds and 1/4 mile end speeds are the average speeds over the previous 66 feet. Australian magazines test over a slightly shorter 400 metres and record the actual end speed. So with all things being equal with say a car like a standard FG F6 (and assuming practically no rollout) the same run should take around half a tenth longer over a quarter of a mile (vs 400 metres) and the dragstrip timing gear should spit out a 1 kmh slower end speed than a magazines Racelogic timing gear should record.

[Rodge]

Autocar tests 100-0 k.p.h. stopping distances like many of the other magazines and here's how the FPV and HSV stack up and some others for comparison, stopping distance metres (m) rotor size also for comparison front (f) rear (r) and fully fuelled kerb weight as measured by them (w)
FPV SC GT 36.52 m f 355 mm r 328 mm w 1839 kg's
BMW M5 34.18 m f 400 mm r 396 mm w 1978 kg's
Audi RS6 33.17 m f 390 mm r386 mm w 2035 kg's
HSV GTS 30.63 f 390 mm r 372mm w 1902 kg's

[40RDT]

Originally Posted by Rodge

Autocar tests 100-0 k.p.h. stopping distances like many of the other magazines and here's how the FPV and HSV stack up and some others for comparison, stopping distance metres (m) rotor size also for comparison front (f) rear (r) and fully fuelled kerb weight as measured by them (w)
FPV SC GT 36.52 m f 355 mm r 328 mm w 1839 kg's
BMW M5 34.18 m f 400 mm r 396 mm w 1978 kg's
Audi RS6 33.17 m f 390 mm r386 mm w 2035 kg's
HSV GTS 30.63 f 390 mm r 372mm w 1902 kg's

GTS has got some serious braking performance for a car under 100k

[Rodge]

If I buy one am I still able to come on here and waste half my life talking cars or is there some sort of exorcism to the LS1 forum ?

[Rob 351]

Nah Rodge, it'll be cya later & off to ls1 forums for you...lol.

[2242100]

Rodge, one thing I have to say about the HSV is that in the Motor comparison test it comfortably outperformed the other three rear wheel drive cars up to 70 kmh (just beyond first gear). All of these cars obviously had the power to launch much better but were clearly hampered by the surface.
Of course the 4 wheel drive Audi was in it's element and blitzed them all with a time of 2.49 seconds, but to me the HSV's launch was very impressive when compared to the others.

0 - 70 kmh times were :-
BMW M5 3.57 sec.
JAGUAR XFR-S 3.34 sec.
MERCEDES E63 S 3.40 sec.
HSV 3.02 sec.

The car certainly has impressive grip, but it's a pity that it's 400 metre end speed was way behind the others, so by comparison it was lacking grunt (and I'm yet to see a decent end speed from one). But of course, if the NZ cars are as fast as the Autocar NZ test suggests, then I think they've got it all.

By the way if you can remember, what sort of 0 -100 and 80 - 120 times have you seen published for FG F6 and standard FG Turbo's. Also what about 0-100 for the GT.

[Rodge]

0-70 is useful for traffic light drags 3.02 to 70 k.p.h. sounds like a lot of fun to me
0-100 for a regular SC GT is a bit sad really, blame the pretty ordinary Dunlops I reckon, they go better with decent rubber, I can attest to that anyway the Kiwi mag tested two examples at different times and got 5.13 and 5.15 seconds, major difference to the 4.15 they got from the GTS !!

I dug out some old Autocar magazines for ya.
Best times for an F6 were 4.99 seconds and 2.64 for the 80-120.
G6ET at 5.29 and 2.88 for the 80-120, very impressive times for fairly modest money.
They compared the G6ET to the Holden Calais V V8 in that June 2008 issue and you might be interested to know the times for that were 5.72 and 3.35 seconds, (that was the auto equipped 270 kw 530 nm version, i.e. before cylinder deactivation reduced the tune in the current model auto's to 260 kw's and reduced the torque a bit.

[Rodge]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/motoring/n...ectid=11194959

Local rag getting in on the fun.

[2242100]

Thanks Rodge, the F6 and the Commodore 80 - 120 numbers were about what I expected and the G6ET's 2.88 sec time was also somewhere near what it should be, but that's well ahead of anything I can remember seeing in our local magazines, I recall standard FG turbo times of only around 3.2 to 3.3 secs.

It's hard to figure these things out sometimes and with the Turbo's I don't think it comes down to tight engines as my car was a rocket from day 1.

I certainly can't say Ford cheated by giving the magazines faster than standard cars to test.

[Alan D Segal]

Originally Posted by Rodge

If I buy one am I still able to come on here and waste half my life talking cars or is there some sort of exorcism to the LS1 forum ?

Just do it. At least then one person here will have driven one and could actually offer an informed comparison against an FG GT

[fgpsi]

I love Rodge !

[mattrobbo26]

Not sure if this has been asked but has anyone seen any dyno videos on YouTube. Just saw one of a vf gts 314kw and one of a vf clubby 248kw didn't have a torque graph but this seems very under whelming.

[ford man xf]

Who cares, 90% of FPV & HSV owners mod their cars anyway.

[Auslandau]

Must be in the 10% :( But when you have 328rwk with a warranty ...... for a daily, why mod

[nstg8a]

Originally Posted by ford man xf

Who cares, 90% of FPV & HSV owners mod their cars anyway.

85% of all statistics are fabricated....

[rancidpunx]

Its been around for 6 months now and production cars are getting onto dynos and proving the 430KW is massively over rated, http://www.hsvforum.com.au/showthrea...and-After-Dyno

But its got big torque so the way it makes its power compared to a GT is what keeps things interesting. Kinda like an F6 vs GT, the F6 makes big torque early. Horsepower sells cars, torque wins races.

[ford man xf]

Originally Posted by Auslandau

Must be in the 10% :( But when you have 328rwk with a warranty ...... for a daily, why mod

Second hand XR6's and F6's always seem to be modded, had a look at a few before settling on an XR8. This is why I wan't to buy a new FH XR8, will be keeping an interest on pricing closer to the release date.