Official BMW E92 Coupe pics

  • Thread starter Poverty
  • 105 comments
  • 7,076 views
Poverty
Well this is true for UK roads. I would imagine its very different to the US due to the lack of corners and roundabouts and our twisty and bumpy B-roads.

Basically say you had a Civic Type-R, Evo 9 and a M3 and you decided you wanted to have some fun in your car along a generally unbusy B-road. You could go fast in the M3 but you would struggle to put all the power down and drive confidently to its limits due to the fact the roads very twisty and bumpy. The FWD car would also have trouble putting power down sometimes but as its a much less powerful car you would be able to drive it on the limits more often hence having more fun. The evo however would have super amounts of grip and steadyness which would give the driver huge confidence to puch the machine as it would just eat up the corners with the 4WD system. All the bumps and otehr imperfections in the road wouldnt pose much of a problem to the evo.
Click to expand...

I would say this is an oversimplification. I personally find RWD more easily exploitable overall, but that's partially because I've been driving RWD cars for years. I have also driven the cars you used as an example, except for the Civic Type-R --though I have driven it's sister car, the Integra Type-R and disagree with your assessment of their public road behavior.

For one, it's not hard to put power down in an M3. I suppose if you're a no-talent bass clown, you could spin it. Or if you're just plain dumb, you could push one into the weeds. But overall, it's just not a hard car to drive fast.

In fact, I'd be much more concerned about running into a stray animal/person or getting arrested for driving at felonious speeds (which you can easily do in any of your 3 examples) than getting near the limits because all three of those cars are pretty easy to drive.

In my experience, it has less to do with drivetrain layout than it does with 1) suspension tuning, including geometry and basic architecture 2) power delivery and gearing, 3) tires and 4) gross vehicle weight.

A Miata for example, is a beautifully balanced RWD car that is stupidly easy to drive fast. Contrast this with an early S2000 (pre-facelift) which is tricky at the limit because it really wants to rotate off-throttle. They are both RWD cars yet one needs to be apporached with a fair amount of respect while the other you can grab by the scruff of it's neck.

And btw, we have narrow, windy B-roads in the US... we call them driveways ;)


M
 
Poverty
Well this is true for UK roads. I would imagine its very different to the US due to the lack of corners and roundabouts and our twisty and bumpy B-roads.
Click to expand...
What is with this popular English misconception that American roads are all straight, dead flat, and perfectly smooth? Especially the British automotive press (who should know better before propgating it to the blindly accepting masses) are laboring under this complete misconception.

I've got miles and miles of roads within a few minutes of my house that will launch you airborne off the railroad crossing, over the guardrail at the curve, and 10 feet down into a creek in a heartbeat if you get too cocky.

Do you guys want pictures? Or are we going to file this under "All American cars have pushrod V8s and don't handle"?
 
If you come to Michigan I'll show you the crappiest, bumpiest, roads I've ever been on and I've driven in Europe.
 
Those taillights make it appear as if the trunk's never closed properly.
 
Duke
What is with this popular English misconception that American roads are all straight, dead flat, and perfectly smooth?
Click to expand...
For South Florida, yes.

As for the rest of the country, that statement's absolutely false, unless you count interstate highways.
 
lol you guys wanna see some of our corners. Most of your cars wouldnt even fit on the roads let alone go round one at speed.

I think the difference is wherever in the UK you go you will encounter corners, whilst in the US most people who use theyre cars go on the highway towards therye destination to get across town, when we would use trains. Just what Ive heard from some of you guys so I could be wrong, but the average UK car is alot smaller than the average US one.

And the funniest thing is our cars are getting bigger and cant fit in our garages anymore and a four door sedan will have major trouble parking ata supermarket car park these days, which shows even our cars are getting too big for what theyre accomodation/roads were designed for.
 
I'm looking forward to ///M-Spec's test, if any of us will even remember it by winter... :lol:

Duke
What is with this popular English misconception that American roads are all straight, dead flat, and perfectly smooth? Especially the British automotive press (who should know better before propgating it to the blindly accepting masses) are laboring under this complete misconception.
Click to expand...

There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, but I'd say that for many areas of the united states, it's a safe generalization.

A map of some u.s. roads:
us5uq.jpg


A map of some U.K. roads (same zoom level):
uk0qd.jpg


In general, European roads are squigglier and less north/west/east/south-orientated than ours.
 
"with a choice of two six-cylinder engines including the world’s first inline six with twin turbos," :scared:

did the "world" forget about TT toyotas and nissans?
 
filthyfish
"with a choice of two six-cylinder engines including the world’s first inline six with twin turbos," :scared:

did the "world" forget about TT toyotas and nissans?
Click to expand...

Keep reading the rest of the sentence. It finishes like this:

press release
with a choice of two six-cylinder engines including the world’s first inline six with twin turbos, high precision fuel injection, and an all-aluminum crankcase
Click to expand...

By high precision fuel injection, the marketing monkeys mean 'direct injection' where the fuel is injected directly into the combustion chamber, which neither the Supra nor GT-R had. Alloy crankcase is self explanatory. I believe both cars had iron blocks.

You have to understand the marketing monkeys. If someone makes a sandwich with ice cream, pickles and BBQ sauce, some monkey is going to write a press release talking about the "world's first ice cream, pickle and BBQ sauce sandwich". That's just the way marketing people are. They are paid to hype stuff up. If no hype exists, they will create some.

Wolfe2x7
I'm looking forward to ///M-Spec's test, if any of us will even remember it by winter... :lol:
Click to expand...

Oh, I will. I have a side bet with my dad that my 330 will make it up his driveway.


M
 
I read an article the other day about that twin turbo engine. The goal BMW wanted to archieve (and I suppose they did) by bolting on a pair of turbos was not to boost up the engine. Instead, they wanted to use their positive effect on efficiency and driveability. See this as an improved NA engine, not as a turbo-lagged "kick in the back"-machine. Hang on, I'll just get that article to put in some quotes ... *goes to the bathroom*

EDIT: Alright, here we go. These are parts of an interview with the leading engine developer from BMW, Klaus Borgmann, taken from the german car mag "AutoBild Sportscars":
Borgmann:"The primary goal in development was to combine the efficiency of a six cylinder with the dynamics of a V8. We wanted the specs of a medium sized V8, combined with the fuel consumption and - most importantly - the smoothness of our six cylinder." [specs of the new six cylinder: 306 hp and 295 lb-ft]
(...)
As a major goal were spontaneous reactions, a single turbo seemed to be too unattractive. Its reactions on accelerator movements would have been too indolent, and the characteristics too edgy at full throttle. So, the guys from Munich decided to use two turbos, each one powered by three cylinders. The advantages were much more spontaneously reactions of the smaller turbines due to smaller [and therefor lighter] rotating masses. This way, even small accelerator movements create reasonable propulsion, as little amounts of exhaust gases are enough to make the turbos spin.
(...)
To reduce the timespan between pushing the accelerator and the reaction of the turbos even more, the engineers used another trick. Using the direct fuel injection, the turbos are being kept spinning with large valve timing overlap [I don't know the exact words in english, what I mean is when the in- and outlet valves are both open for a short period of time to create a specific effect like this one] and an air stream of unused intake air. So, even when you're cruising, the turbines are being kept spinning with some pressure.
Well sized overpressure valves are another trick to improve fuel economy. As long as you don't access power, the exhaust gases are being disposed past the turbines. The advantage: the turbos do not raise the counterpressure, the engine has an easier time pushing the exhaust gases out and uses less energy. Only when you push the accelerator, the valves close and you get the boost you need immediately.
Another part of the story when it comes to efficiency is the use of high-strength steel for the turbos. Only a few years ago, the turbos needed to be cooled with fuel, which decreased the fuel economy. Turbos made of the new steel can resist the temperatures up to 1000 °C almost without any cooling.
(...)
Borgmann:"Even when driving progressively, this engine uses less fuel than the 3.0 NA engine [this one is based on]. Due to the higher torque, you unconsciously use higher gears all the time." That reduces fuel consumption so much that it even compensates casual power runs. Put into figures, the new six cylinder uses 2 litres less on 100 km [equals a jump from 20 to 24 mpg] than the BMW 4.0 V8. Additionally, this engine weighs 70 kg less than the V8, making the car more agile.
Click to expand...
Regards
the Interceptor
 
Ah well why not, that is an interesting concept. Especially when you look at European gas prizes.
 
Yeah, there really aren't many negatives to utilizing a small turbo (or small turbos) on an engine.

Take the GTI and the Civic Si, for example. Same power, same displacement, vastly different amounts and locations of peak torque. :lol:
 

Similar threads

Liquid
  • Poll
The Generation Game: BMW M3
2
Replies
41
Views
5K
CTznOfTime
CTznOfTime
motortrend
Toyota and BMW join forces
Replies
16
Views
2K
Prosthetic
Prosthetic
BJahalt88
BMW Concept M8 Gran Coupe 2018
Replies
3
Views
1K
Strangereal
Strangereal
T
Highest revving Cars in GT6 and GT5? (especially after being TUNED)
Replies
2
Views
3K
pedrocor
pedrocor
Jordan
SpeedBites.com (Beta)
Replies
8
Views
2K
p78
p78

Latest Posts

Back