GT6 Duel of the Week 2 - The Last Lap

[ThrasherDBS]

I think it's safe to say that this duel is probably gonna go on for another week, because holy cow, pretty much nothing has happened in the past week other than our friend Baron calling it quits.

So the Time Trial is up on my club, again. Both the drift event at Deep Forest Reverse, and the Time Trial at Twin Ring Motegi is going to go until 11/15. That gives you guys another week to post some times and some scores.

The Calsonic GT-R and the Castrol Tom's Supra I remember being the first two cars you can pick in the S class category in the arcade mode of GT3. And incidentally the first course in arcade mode was Super Speedway... which was part of Twin Ring Motegi. (Well, not officially at that point, since Polyphony didn't secure the rights to the branding.) Anyway, it's a very interesting setup for this GT3 themed duel.

Twin Ring Motegi Trial:
Calsonic GT-R - 1:51.930
Castrol Tom's Supra - 1:50.770

Considering these are GT500 class racing cars with very similar sorts of setups, they felt pretty much the same. If I had to force a difference in control, I suppose the Supra felt a little more loose and free with its maneuverability. It's notable that the Supra has 6 less horsepower than the GT-R, but the power band on the Supra delivers a fair bit earlier than the GT-R, enabling good acceleration on the technical bits of the track.

The Castrol Tom's Supra wins this one for me.

 

[MisterWaffles]

Yep, duel's on to another week. Wake up people of GT6!

 

[Draggon]

Both the drift event at Deep Forest Reverse, and the Time Trial at Twin Ring Motegi is going to go until 11/15. That gives you guys another week to post some times and some scores.

I'm working on the drift event today. Sadly, I'm a long way back from the scores @ThrasherDBS posted. I'm not quitting, yet 👍 It's surprising how much grip these racecars have, even on CH tires. I've been running the Woodone Supra, if that matters. Maybe I should switch.

 

[ThrasherDBS]

I'm working on the drift event today. Sadly, I'm a long way back from the scores @ThrasherDBS posted. I'm not quitting, yet 👍 It's surprising how much grip these racecars have, even on CH tires. I've been running the Woodone Supra, if that matters. Maybe I should switch.

The Woodone is higher performance than the 2000 Castrol Tom's Supra, you might wanna do cars from the 2000 JGTC season.

 

[Draggon]

OK, the TT and dorifuto have been completed. My impressions: I ran the Nissan first in the TT. It was what I expected, an average GT500 with no surprises. I can't really say it was weak in any area except perhaps on-throttle understeer. Then I ran the Supra, and woha! Besides the better brakes, this thing has got great rotation. I found it gets through the turns a whole lot better than it's rival. While there was only .200 seconds between my best times in each car, the Supra was much easier to drive.

Nissan Calsonic Skyline 1:51.271
Castrol TOM'S Supra 1:51.052

As for the drift event the Supra was better there too. It feels like there is too much grip at the back end of the Nissan ( which would make sense with my experience of understeer in the TT ) Many times I take into account the "fun" level of a car when it comes to a review or rating. Well, I wasn't having much fun drifting the Nissan. It was a whole lotta work.

Nissan Calsonic Skyline 12,474 points
Castrol TOM'S Supra 12,623 points

Overwhelming verdict: Castrol TOM'S Supra!

 

[Nismonath5]

Sorry for the inactivity, but I got exams on for the next few weeks so won't be rolling in spare time. I'll give the TT a crack when I get the shot, possibly tonight if I can get enough done!

 

[ThrasherDBS]

You guys have two hours to get some times in on the online trial and/or the drift trial. So far @Nismonath5 is the only one who tackled the drift trial. We've had these open for two weeks, guys. It can't be just a competition between me, him, and @Draggon

 

[ThrasherDBS]

Alright, so I've been charged with tallying up the results and declaring the winner of this duel, whilst starting a new one.

Skyline: 0
Supra: 2

This week's winner is!:

Toyota Castrol TOM'S SUPRA '00!

​

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In the way of the online trials, it was almost as dead as the voting in this thread. It's an interesting day when a whopping 2 points is still a landslide victory.

Week #118 Results​

Time Trial at Twin Ring Motegi Road Course

Nissan CALSONIC SKYLINE '00
1st. @Draggon - 1:51.271 (Offline)
2nd. Some guy - 1:51.930

Toyota Castrol TOM'S SUPRA '00
1st. Some guy - 1:50.770
2nd. @Draggon - 1:51.052 (Offline)

Drift Trial at Deep Forest Reverse

Nissan CALSONIC SKYLINE '00
1st. Some guy - 13,602
2nd. @Nismonath5 - 12,977
3rd. @Draggon - 12,474 (Offline)

Toyota Castrol TOM'S SUPRA '00
1st. Some guy - 16,752
2nd. @Draggon - 12,623 (Offline)
3rd. @Nismonath5 - 12,382

Big Congratulations to @Draggon and @Nismonath5 for actually participating in the online trials for the past two weeks.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Since I've been tasked to drum up a new duel, I think it's amazing that a certain matchup has been neglected. Referencing @MidFieldMaven and his expansive Midfield Raceway database, it seems as though this could very well be a close matchup.

For this week, get ready for

Week 119: Initial D!

Toyota SPRINTER TRUENO GT-APEX (S.Shigeno Ver.) '00

VS!

Mazda Éfini RX-7 Type R (FD) '91

This week's Time Trial will be at Trial Mountain, and the drift trial, in spirit of the season, will be at Autumn Ring Reverse. Let's see some good turnouts this week!

 

[Draggon]

Oh goody, I missed the Shigeno AE86 week over at the COTW. Glad nismo showed up, it's been pretty much a 2 way competition. I think I've figured out why I can't create a room for any of the events. I've gotten some corrupt data. I've gotten those glitches where everything but the driver and wheels disappears during replay. Same thing happened to the old console before I gave up on it.

I'm going to try a reistall on the old PS3 first and see if I can make a room.

 

[ThrasherDBS]

It'll be good to see the events filled out with more participants @Draggon. 👍

For those of you that are getting sick of Japanese cars, how do you guys feel about an unrelated fun event like we did a handful of weeks ago?

 

[Rinsky]

I just joined this club today because most of the members in the Car of the Week TT club are in this one as well. So seeing as that club is so much fun with some great people I figured this club was probably just as good.
So Hello Everyone, I look forward to the upcoming events.

 

[ThrasherDBS]

Hey, thanks for joining us! It's always nice to see new faces.

Both of the trials are up, and they go until 11/29 at 1600 Pacific Standard Time. The reasons for the two weeks is due to the turnout for the past few duels, and at least for our American members, to accommodate for Thanksgiving in the coming week. So go on, and set some good times and some good scores!

 

[Rinsky]

Hey, thanks for joining us! It's always nice to see new faces.

Both of the trials are up, and they go until 11/29 at 1600 Pacific Standard Time. The reasons for the two weeks is due to the turnout for the past few duels, and at least for our American members, to accommodate for Thanksgiving in the coming week. So go on, and set some good times and some good scores!

Sounds great and two weeks will be plenty of time to log some hours in on testing. I will do my best to be competitive.

 

[Draggon]

I want to give a shout out to some dude's brother, "some guy". Thanks for keeping the duel alive, and good job on getting the top spot in 3 of the 4 events we had last week.

And hey @Rinsky , good to see you over here!

@ThrasherDBS what are you thinking of, something like "open swim"? That was fun.

 

[ThrasherDBS]

@Draggon I really got a kick out of that Corvettes on dirt thing we did a while ago, and I was thinking a Viper variant of that would be awesome.

Anyway, back to the fight at hand. We've tackled lots of old rivalries in the two years we've been doing this: Lancer vs. Impreza, Skyline vs. Supra, Ford vs Chevy vs Dodge, Ferrari vs Lamborghini, you know what we're about. We haven't done the "pop culture" route of duels for the most part, and for good reason. An orange, highly modified Supra can go toe-to-toe with a black Dodge Charger in Hollywood, but we're about testing cars in their stock forms. A race down the L.A. river between a blue Shelby Cobra and a red Ferrari Daytona may have been a spectacle in the Gumball Rally, but in GT6, they're too mismatched in performance. And we don't have the necessary vehicles for a showdown between a blue 1974 Fairlady Z and a black 964 Porsche 911 (or expies of such) down the Wangan Expressway to be any entertaining. But, we can at least recreate the famous rivalry from Initial D between a 17 year old high school kid, who delivers tofu to a mountain hotel every morning, and a hotheaded early 20-something who wants to become a racing driver someday.

In the manga and the show, it's explained that part of the reason the Toyota is fierce in the setting of a mountain pass (and in the right hands, of course) is due to the fact that there are constant corners to slow down for and that there's little room to try and overtake. While a more powerful car will absolutely pull away in the straights, the Trueno can make up the difference in the corners. It's also explained that on a proper racing track, the car would have nothing on the opposition unless a lot is done about the power output.

What does this mean for the scope of our little tests? Well, in GT6, a narrow downhill mountain pass doesn't really exist (sure there's course editor, but only looped tracks can be raced online). Trial Mountain is the closest we've got, and it's significantly wider, significantly balanced on uphill and downhill sections, and decidedly less corner heavy than the mountain passes of Haruna Akina. A random showroom Trueno would get obliterated, but thanks to the curb weight being dropped by 100kg and a handful of common AE86 upgrades that the rascally kids back in the 80s and 90s would put on their cars, Shuichi Shigeno's personal Trueno gives the legacy of the AE86 a fighting chance. Also, the FD it's going up against, while it was touted as the "best handling car on the market" at the time, doesn't have the 350 horsepower modifications, worked suspension, or aftermarket aero parts that Keisuke Takahashi's RX-7 did. In other words: a showroom model RX-7. So let's see how the "hachi-roku" and "FD san S" does in the hands of a early 20-something video game player, who in real life, has not driven faster than 80 mph.

Trial Mountain Trial... Mountain Trial... you know what, I've already done this gag to death.:
AE86 - 1:42.438
FD3S - 1:42.223

It was actually pretty close between the two. The Trueno is a lot more composed in the corners, where the light-rear of the RX-7 could get you into trouble easily if you weren't careful. In the hands of a savant-driver, 17 year old that's primarily motivated to drive really fast so he can get home and get more sleep before school, no doubt the Trueno is capable of beating the RX-7. I am most definitely not one of those so the RX-7 went faster.

Usually I don't bring up the results of the drift trial here, but I actually found it to be a little relevant as well. Initial D is popular because of all the drifting after all. It's said that the AE86 is a car that "teaches" its driver. From what I've gleaned from that, it means that the car only starts drifting when more skilled tactics are employed than just "powering-over" due to the car not having a whole bunch in that department, and also because of how balanced the car is. Meanwhile, I got my start drifting in Gran Turismo with a nearly-800 horsepower Dodge Challenger with automatic transmission, and I absolutely relied on powering over to get the car sideways, and the car was heavy enough to actually keep the car grounded so it actually balanced out. When I started getting serious about it, I learned how to employ other techniques. (Not counting using the E-brake, that's too much upset at once. Rarely do I use that). I actually started getting used to driving with a manual transmission, and I did so in an FC-generation RX-7. While I stubbornly cling to using an automatic transmission in actual racing, my drifting style employs a bunch of shift lock induced drifts (or as close to it, since there's no clutch function in GT6) along with feints, so with me, drifting with a manual transmission is mandatory. Having taught myself how to properly drift with an RX-7, I wound up doing a little better on the drift trial with it as well. Though not gonna lie, Autumn Ring's points awarding areas are a little odd at times, so be careful when you try it.

The RX-7 wins!

 

[Nismonath5]

Well, in GT6, a narrow downhill mountain pass doesn't really exist (sure there's course editor, but only looped tracks can be raced online). Trial Mountain is the closest we've got

Wouldn't Circuit Sierra be closer in the sense that it's twisty, narrow and in many ways more of a natural road than a racetrack?

 

[ThrasherDBS]

Wouldn't Circuit Sierra be closer in the sense that it's twisty, narrow and in many ways more of a natural road than a racetrack?

At the same time, do you want a trial on a track that long?

I think the ones we've done in the past that were nearly 20 minutes long really dragged. Sierra's course takes flipping ages to complete a lap on.

 

[Nismonath5]

At the same time, do you want a trial on a track that long?

I think the ones we've done in the past that were nearly 20 minutes long really dragged. Sierra's course takes flipping ages to complete a lap on.

Yeah, true... that's exactly what we need though, is a twisty mountain route to race on!

 

[Draggon]

I think the ones we've done in the past that were nearly 20 minutes long really dragged. Sierra's course takes flipping ages to complete a lap on.

Yes, I found myself doing 4 or 5 laps, then just parking it for the duration.

 

[Rinsky]

Circuit Sierra is my favorite track in the game. All depending on the Tire Compounds used its takes 8, 9 or 10 minutes per lap. I'm not trying to convince you to do it but if you did I'm definitely fine with it.

 

[ThrasherDBS]

Duel is going for another week in the spirit of the holidays, and also because I'm the only one who posted a vote.

I have been appointed as the official host of the online trials, and as such, the drift duel club I host has now been rebranded as the official club of this thread.

I also posted a snow trial on Chamonix East for any Viper of your choice, and free-reign to any tuning setups (sans nitrous). That fun trial ends on December 6th, so enjoy it while it lasts!

 

[Draggon]

Duel is going for another week in the spirit of the holidays, and also because I'm the only one who posted a vote.

Well my excuse is that I wrote my results and mini-review days ago, but forgot to click on the button that says "post reply". Fortuately this board doesn't erase what you've written if you leave a page.

I don't have a lot to add to @ThrasherDBS 's in-depth review of this week's challenge. I ran the AE86 first and was impressed with it's grip and speed. If I was to critique anything I think I has a bit too much grip somewhere. It felt, to me, like the grip was not balanced between the two ends. Then I drove the RX-7. I always forget the magic of this car. While it was a tad bit loose at the back, it gets faster laps when you hang it out a bit. As for the lap times, the Mazda was almost a second quicker. Dorifuto challenge to follow.

Happy thanksgiving everyone!

S.Shigeno AE86 1:39.622
enfini RX-7 '91 1:38.659

Verdict: enfini RX-7 '91.

I mean, really, did anyone expect something better than an RX-7?

We

 

[mica3speedy]

Is there an online club setup for this event? At one point I thought there was? Anyway here are my impressions from a slow poke driver

The rx-7 is a blast to drive, and that back end likes to come out. It's completely manageable, yet fun! Now I felt slower going around the track, but that just wasn't the case. The Sprinter feels more planted, with more grip in back. You can coax the back end to come out but it wasn't as much fun as the rx-7. I'm not much of the drifter, so I just did Trial mountain.

Results:
Rx-7 1:48.228
Sprinter Trueno: 1:49.056

Verdict: Rx-7 for both being more fun and setting a faster lap time!

 

[Draggon]

Yes @mica3speedy the name of it is Duel of the Week Club 2.5. The club # is 1076108. Welcome to the group!

 

[MidFieldMaven]

Mazda Éfini RX-7 Type R (FD) '91
252 hp / 6,500 rpm
217 ft-lb / 5,000 rpm
1,260 kg (2,778 lbs)
434 pp

Toyota Sprinter Trueno GT-Apex (AE86 Shuichi Shigeno Version) '00
207 hp / 9,500 rpm
127 ft-lb / 7,500 rpm
825 kg (1,819 lbs)
434 pp

RX-7 has 45 more horses, 90 more torques, and 435 kg (959 lbs) more weight. Their PP is identical.




132 mph - AE86
134 mph - RX-7

That AE86 is one special car. Could use a bit more torque, but hey, it's faster than a turbo FD around Mid-Field. Well maybe it isn't fair to call it faster, but it certainly isn't slower, either. Too close to call. I vote for AE86.

 

[Vic Reign93]

This weeks duo was somewhat tricky to decide on as both get to the same point via 2 different routes.

The RX-7 goes for perfect 50-50 weight balance and turbo power and torque, while the AE86 SS goes with a high revving NA 4 banger with the emphasis on lightness.

The AE86 was let down by its weight balance of 58-42 which lead to some understeer at corner entry, but was for the most part a stable ride.

The RX7 by contrast was quite twitchy and easy to coax into oversteer due to the extra torque and power, but was quicker when kept in check.

But what Maven’s laps at Midfield show is the numerous uphill sections of Trial mountain stacked the odds in the RX-7’s favor as the AE86 needed to be near the redline for peak power where as the RX-7 made peak power at 6,5k Rpm compared to its 8k redline.

So at a track where hills are common, the RX-7 has the edge, but in the drift event the AE86 fought back with a higher drift score.

So we compare prices and the RX-7 cleans house at 38,500cr to the AE86 SS’s 52,500.

In summary, logic dictates that you take the RX-7, it’s cheaper, more powerful and has higher tuning potential.

But at the same time, the logical choice isn’t always for everyone, some of us like having an engine that’s capable of over 10k rpm in a lightweight, rear drive chassis that eggs the driver on and on the faster it goes.

Head says RX-7, heart says AE86 SS. 👍

My vote, AE86.

 

[Rinsky]

Two completely different cars with two completely different driving characteristics.
After reading what others have said about the two I kinda had an idea of what to expect so I pulled out the 2000 Toyota Sprinter first.
Light weight with an angry little motor this car loves to stay in the high rev range making most of its power. The Sprinter likes to be pushed hard into every corner and holds its line with very little rear kick out. It might struggle just a tad on uphill sections but makes up it speed in the corners. Really a fun car to drive hard.

Next was the 1991 Mazda RX7
I've always loved this bodystyle the most out of all the RX7 or RX8. I expected to jump right in and beat my lap time from the previous car run in just a few laps...wrong. The first thing I noticed is that the RX7 does not like to be pushed hard at all and easily loses grip when pushed hard into corners instantly going into a powerslide also the power of the RX7 easily kicks out the rear of the car making very hard to gain any traction. Braking early was the key into the corners and picking up the throttle late on corner exits to keep Maximum Traction relying on straight line speed to regain lost time.
To my surprise the RX7 just didn't have enough room in the straits at Trial Mountain to overcome its short falls in the corners.

Toyota Sprinter AE86: 1:42.436
Mazda RX7 FD3S: 1:43.730

The AE86 gets the win.

 

[ThrasherDBS]

Just under 24 hours remain on the duel, be sure to get your times in! I'm impressed with the turnout for this one but let's see how many more we can get!

The Viper trial of course is going on until December 6th, so you guys have plenty of time on that one.

 

[Draggon]

Excuse my late attendance, the reindeer bought me a PS4 and GT Sport, and I've found myself consumed....I've done the snow thingy in the Viper, and the dorifuto events. I had not too much trouble drifting the RX-7, and enjoyed it enough to use it to gold the new drift seasonal. The AE86 was difficult to break loose and took more work than fun to get over 10,000 points. I s*** at snow and dirt, and don't know how to tune for that, so I left the Viper stock and turned down the power limiter. After I got comfortable I turned it up, but never got to full power. I did have a grand old time and was surprised at its ability in the snow. I'm within a second of the hot shoes, so I'll call that a win for me!

AE86 dorifuto 13,424
RX-7 dorifuto 15,902

Verdict: RX-7!

SRT Viper Launch Edition: 1:18.532

 

[MisterWaffles]

New duel coming in the next few hours...