[ScarletExpress]

I had a lot of fun despite being sorely disappointed in the results, even though I know the weather made a huge impact. Everyone was running slow times! Only the turbocharged vehicles seemed to do well. My buddy's 2011Mustang GT could only muster 105 mph trap.

A couple of observations:

• Launching in sport mode seemed to cut times
• The times improved by .5 seconds or more, each run
• Even on the fastest run, traction was an issue off-the-line
• Third to fourth seems to be a steep difference in gear ratios

Somehow I managed to beat 2 out of 3.

And now the desire to mod has really gone haywire. I want this car to be a 100 mph sleeper no matter what the weather.

I am left on each run, car #5451

Corrected figures

 

[karfreek]

Very cool. What tires are you on? Up here the weather was almost oppressive with the humidity. I bet it was not much different yesterday.

I love the video, thanks for sharing.

Your times are still better than a lot if the muscle cars from the 60s that are held in such high regard today.

Jay

 

[Baldeagle]

I wondered if you had a chance to race last night. I live southwest of Englishtown and had a nasty thunderstorm last night. Glad you were able to race and get in three runs. (On my race day they had to close the track early due to rain.)

Sorely disappointed? Scarlet, you did great. A 14.6 @ 97 is what 9th gen V6 autos do. That is essentially the same as Donny’s car – which also has an SRI. Your driving technique looked excellent. You got off the line with a little bit of controlled wheel spin – perfect. You extracted everything from the car it had to offer. As Karfreek wrote, your family sedan is faster than most old school muscle cars!

As an aside, what is this Dragtimes.com DA calculator you (and TH23) posted? I see it states your car could have theoretically posted a 14.23 @99.5 mph in ideal conditions. Is that real? I know weather affects performance, but I plugged in the numbers from my race day and got a weather corrected time for my stock 6-6 of 13.97@103.7 mph. That just seems a little optimistic for a stock 6-6 and makes me wonder if the calculator is optimistic for all cars.

Great video. Glad you had a chance to race. Thanks for posting.

 

[outersquare]

lol ppl in the north complaining about weather at the track, any track in socal gets 100+F and they are all altitude also.

 

[nayr14]

Looks good, it sounds like VSA is beeping when you're on the gas. I don't know anything about launching but when I'm in my coupe and turn VSA off it's a lot easier for me to lose traction and pedal feels more potent. Did you try a run with VSA off and work the throttle for traction?

 

[ScarletExpress]

Very cool. What tires are you on? Up here the weather was almost oppressive with the humidity. I bet it was not much different yesterday.

I love the video, thanks for sharing.

Your times are still better than a lot if the muscle cars from the 60s that are held in such high regard today.

Jay

Thanks. I'm using the miserable Michelin MX tires it came with. Winter was hard on them they needed replacement before even hitting track... hence why I wasn't shy about burning the shit outta them...

I wondered if you had a chance to race last night. I live southwest of Englishtown and had a nasty thunderstorm last night. Glad you were able to race and get in three runs. (On my race day they had to close the track early due to rain.)

Sorely disappointed? Scarlet, you did great. A 14.6 @ 97 is what 9th gen V6 autos do. That is essentially the same as Donny’s car – which also has an SRI. Your driving technique looked excellent. You got off the line with a little bit of controlled wheel spin – perfect. You extracted everything from the car it had to offer. As Karfreek wrote, your family sedan is faster than most old school muscle cars!

As an aside, what is this Dragtimes.com DA calculator you (and TH23) posted? I see it states your car could have theoretically posted a 14.23 @99.5 mph in ideal conditions. Is that real? I know weather affects performance, but I plugged in the numbers from my race day and got a weather corrected time for my stock 6-6 of 13.97@103.7 mph. That just seems a little optimistic for a stock 6-6 and makes me wonder if the calculator is optimistic for all cars.

Great video. Glad you had a chance to race. Thanks for posting.

Thank you sir. The DA calculator shouldn't be too far off. I notice that as temps fell my runs increased in speed and I know car can quite possibly reach 99 on a cool day. Just 3 degrees indicated difference from first to last run was almost 1.5 mph.. next time I go, I'll invite you (probably fall)

Looks good, it sounds like VSA is beeping when you're on the gas. I don't know anything about launching but when I'm in my coupe and turn VSA off it's a lot easier for me to lose traction and pedal feels more potent. Did you try a run with VSA off and work the throttle for traction?

All three runs had traction control off. I had considered trying to run with it active but I find the wheelspin manageable..

 

[maxpower02]

Scarlett,
Nice run...last night was so humid and warm....If you run in cool late September air, bet your numbers will improve... Would love to go to Raceway park with my V6...but..its leased and I don't want to break it...lol

 

[newfmp3]

didn't car and driver get 13.9 out o their v6 sedan? they compared it to the 3 series bmw at the. same time. I have noticed that mine is a bit slower in heat/humidity for sure. My old Mazdaspeed 6 was a lot quicker...a lot.

 

[ScarletExpress]

@newfmp3 I'm not surprised...

@maxpower02 I definitely intend on going back in the fall perhaps. Whenever temps drop but before winter gas hits the pumps.

 

[FreAkInZ]

I'm surprised by the amount of tire spin you got when you started. I have the stock Eagle ones and when I torque brake to 3000 RPM, release the brake and floor it the tires stick to the asphalt and the engine rpm drops quite a bit.

 

[TH23]

Nice runs! :thmsup:

I'm also surprised by the amount of wheelspin you got there. Mine just chirps the tires and takes off. Then again, that's on the streets and not on the track.

If you go back in the fall, I'm sure you'll see better times. Also, if wheelspin is an issue next time, just drop the pressure in the front tires to around 25 psi. That should help, even with the crappy Michelins haha.

Your corrected times seemed to be a reasonable representation of what this car can do. I think that C/D's time set everyone into a frenzy believing this car is quicker than it really is, myself included. Edmund's time (corrected) of 14.4@98 is much more realistic, and makes 14.2@100 with an intake definitely plausible. People just got misled when they saw C/D's time, as well as Takeda's ridiculous dyno results for their short ram intake. The result was that they expected this to be a rocketship with just an intake, and it just didn't happen. The truth is, while the engine is powerful, the car is just too heavy to make the best use of it. Look at the Altima 3.5 and Camry V6. They're 150 lbs lighter and make almost the same amount of power. If the Accord were that light, I'm sure we'd be seeing better real world times, even if it's just by a few tenths. Also, there's no way an intake adds close to 20HP at the wheels. That's impossible on an engine this size. Maybe 10 with a similar increase in torque, but definitely not 20.

I really think that the easiest way to improve performance on these cars would be to ditch the heavy-azz stock wheels in favor of a lighter set.

A short story from the nearly-forgotten days of the 6th generation Accord V6: Upgrading to the 2002-03 TL-S rims was a big thing back in the 6G Accord days. The problem was, those wheels weighed 50lbs with tire (about the same as our stock wheel/tire combo, maybe a bit lighter), while the stock 15's were only about 40 lbs with tire. Adding even 10 pounds of rotational mass to each corner is devastating to acceleration, in case you didn't know. An engineer once told me that for each pound you add to a wheel/tire combo, the result is the equivalent of adding 8 pounds of weight to the car, multiplied by 4 (1 for each wheel). So if your new wheel/tire combo is 10 lbs heavier per corner, then it's like you added 320 lbs to the weight of your car (roughly the equivalent of having 2 invisible passengers). Needless to say, everyone who installed them and then went to the track were sorely disappointed with their results. There were guys running mid to high 16's with intake, headers and exhaust, when they should've been running a full second faster. It also explained why most of the quickest times for the car were recorded by people using the stock wheels or lightweight aftermarket wheels.

So my theory is that switching to a lightweight set of rims with stickier tires would improve performance on these cars more than any bolt-on mod can. Of course, it's more expensive than an intake or exhaust to upgrade your wheels, but I think it's a good place to start if performance is a priority.

 

[Baldeagle]

Your corrected times seemed to be a reasonable representation of what this car can do. I think that C/D's time set everyone into a frenzy believing this car is quicker than it really is, myself included. Edmund's time (corrected) of 14.4@98 is much more realistic, and makes 14.2@100 with an intake definitely plausible. People just got misled when they saw C/D's time, as well as Takeda's ridiculous dyno results for their short ram intake. The result was that they expected this to be a rocketship with just an intake, and it just didn't happen.

I agree TH23. We know the V6-6A puts down about 15-18 less WHP than the V6-6MT which explains how in real life the 6A has a 98-99 mph trap speed verses a 102-103 mph trap speed for the 6MT. But how did Car and Driver get a 6A-V6 that mislead everyone? Did Honda send them a prepped car? A 97 mph trap speed is damned fast, unless you expected a 101 mph trap speed. C&D needs to be more responsible.

 

[yanks1]

very cool indeed... beside the tires used other issue getting off the line is the FWD. I pull out sometimes hard in S Mode and the front wiggles a little before launching full speed ahead. But after that it really takes off

 

[FreAkInZ]

Had you removed the spare, you would have made it at 98

 

[Graycar]

I agree TH23. We know the V6-6A puts down about 15-18 less WHP than the V6-6MT which explains how in real life the 6A has a 98-99 mph trap speed verses a 102-103 mph trap speed for the 6MT. But how did Car and Driver get a 6A-V6 that mislead everyone? Did Honda send them a prepped car? A 97 mph trap speed is damned fast, unless you expected a 101 mph trap speed. C&D needs to be more responsible.

Doesn't Car and Driver use "rollout" starts when measuring acceleration and trap speed? That tends to improve 1/4 mile time and trap speed, relative to a true stand start.

An explanation by Edmunds....

"The term "rollout" might not be familiar, but it comes from the drag strip. The arrangement of the timing beams for drag racing can be confusing, primarily because the 7-inch separation between the "pre-stage" and "stage" beams is not the source of rollout. The pre-stage beam, which has no effect on timing, is only there to help drivers creep up to the starting position. Rollout comes from the 1-foot separation (11.5 inches, actually) between the point where the leading edge of a front tire "rolls in" to the final staging beam — triggering the countdown to the green light that starts the race — and the point where the trailing edge of that tire "rolls out" of that same beam, the triggering event that starts the clock. A driver skilled at "shallow staging" can therefore get almost a free foot of untimed acceleration before the clock officially starts, effectively achieving a rolling-start velocity of 3-5 mph and shaving the 0.3 second it typically takes to cover that distance off his elapsed time (ET) in the process.

We believe the use of rollout for quarter-mile timed runs is appropriate, as this test is designed to represent an optimum drag strip run that a car owner can replicate at a drag strip. In the spirit of consistency, we also follow NHRA practice when calculating quarter-mile trap speed at the end of the run. So we publish the average speed over the final 66 feet of the quarter-mile run, even though our VBOX can tell us the instantaneous speed at the end of the 1,320-foot course, which is usually faster.

On the other hand, the use of rollout with 0-60 times is inappropriate in our view. For one, 0-60-mph acceleration is not a drag-racing convention. More important, it's called ZERO to 60 mph, not 3 or 4 mph to 60 mph, which is what you get when you apply rollout. While it is tempting to use rollout in order to make 0-60 acceleration look more impressive by 0.3 second, thereby hyping both the car's performance and the apparent skill of the test driver, we think it's cheating.

Nevertheless, some car magazines and some automobile manufacturers use rollout anyway — and fail to tell their customers. We've decided against this practice. We publish real 0-60 times instead. But in order to illuminate this issue and ensure we do justice to every car's real performance, we've begun publishing a clearly marked "with rollout" 0-60 time alongside the primary no-rollout 0-60 time so readers can see the effects of this bogus practice."

http://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/features/how-we-test-cars-and-trucks.html

 

[karfreek]

Had you removed the spare, you would have made it at 98

Also, racing on a 1/4 of gas vs a full tank saves you 80lbs.

Jay

 

[karfreek]

Doesn't Car and Driver use "rollout" starts when measuring acceleration and trap speed? That tends to improve 1/4 mile time and trap speed, relative to a true stand start.

An explanation by Edmunds....

"The term "rollout" might not be familiar, but it comes from the drag strip. The arrangement of the timing beams for drag racing can be confusing, primarily because the 7-inch separation between the "pre-stage" and "stage" beams is not the source of rollout. The pre-stage beam, which has no effect on timing, is only there to help drivers creep up to the starting position. Rollout comes from the 1-foot separation (11.5 inches, actually) between the point where the leading edge of a front tire "rolls in" to the final staging beam — triggering the countdown to the green light that starts the race — and the point where the trailing edge of that tire "rolls out" of that same beam, the triggering event that starts the clock. A driver skilled at "shallow staging" can therefore get almost a free foot of untimed acceleration before the clock officially starts, effectively achieving a rolling-start velocity of 3-5 mph and shaving the 0.3 second it typically takes to cover that distance off his elapsed time (ET) in the process.

We believe the use of rollout for quarter-mile timed runs is appropriate, as this test is designed to represent an optimum drag strip run that a car owner can replicate at a drag strip. In the spirit of consistency, we also follow NHRA practice when calculating quarter-mile trap speed at the end of the run. So we publish the average speed over the final 66 feet of the quarter-mile run, even though our VBOX can tell us the instantaneous speed at the end of the 1,320-foot course, which is usually faster.

On the other hand, the use of rollout with 0-60 times is inappropriate in our view. For one, 0-60-mph acceleration is not a drag-racing convention. More important, it's called ZERO to 60 mph, not 3 or 4 mph to 60 mph, which is what you get when you apply rollout. While it is tempting to use rollout in order to make 0-60 acceleration look more impressive by 0.3 second, thereby hyping both the car's performance and the apparent skill of the test driver, we think it's cheating.

Nevertheless, some car magazines and some automobile manufacturers use rollout anyway — and fail to tell their customers. We've decided against this practice. We publish real 0-60 times instead. But in order to illuminate this issue and ensure we do justice to every car's real performance, we've begun publishing a clearly marked "with rollout" 0-60 time alongside the primary no-rollout 0-60 time so readers can see the effects of this bogus practice."

http://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/features/how-we-test-cars-and-trucks.html

Car and Driver uses a $11,800 VBOX for testing.

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/do-inexpensive-performance-meters-work-feature

"You might be wondering how C/D 's much-heralded VBOX stood up to the timing lights. We tested it with the drag lights, and it was more accurate than the best meter in this test, the AX22. Both of these systems are so close to the drag lights, however, that it's barely worth mentioning that a difference exists. We're talking about discrepancies that are less than half a percent."

Jay

 

[Graycar]

Car and Driver uses a $11,800 VBOX for testing.

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/do-inexpensive-performance-meters-work-feature

"You might be wondering how C/D 's much-heralded VBOX stood up to the timing lights. We tested it with the drag lights, and it was more accurate than the best meter in this test, the AX22. Both of these systems are so close to the drag lights, however, that it's barely worth mentioning that a difference exists. We're talking about discrepancies that are less than half a percent."

Jay

Thanks, and they do use a "3-mph rollout." There are so many variables to take into account that it seems pointless to quibble about a few tenths of a second.......for my purposes, at least.

 

[karfreek]

Thanks, and they do use a "3-mph rollout." There are so many variables to take into account that it seems pointless to quibble about a few tenths of a second.......for my purposes, at least.

:thmsup:

Jay

 

[ObsidianEX-L]

I'm surprised you did this on one of the hottest, most humid days of the year. No doubt the motor probably got heat soaked from all that humidity.

You'd make better numbers, especially with your SRI, on a cooler day.