So let me see if I'm summarizing this properly:

I should buy a 60K M3 so I can race around in first gear. The rest of the time, despite the engine's awesome whizzing noises, the car is still slower than the 7-year old Z06.

Sweet.




EDIT: Isn't 1st gear where you care the least because you're already near the limits of the tires? I want more wheel torque in 2nd and 3rd, and I don't love having to shift out of 1st gear too soon.

The M3 and Z06 are also both slower than a fifteen year old Maclaren. So what?

I didn't think John was trying to say it was better than a vette. I thought he picked a car that is acknowledged as a beast to compare it to. It also lent weight to the discussion about how much of a difference gearing makes. :dunno:

Right on. I found it interesting that a car most people describe as "torquey" (the Z06) puts less torque to the wheels, on average, than a car people tend to describe as "not torquey" (the M3).

It's a good point, it's all about perception - there's years of legacy behind a 'vette, and a lot of it has to do with its "brutishness" - people would never think of a BMW, any BMW quite this way.

Ed

:+1

Good thread though.

Agree, great thread. :cool:

John, do you have the graphs and calculations set up in Excel (or something similar)? It might be interesting to let people plug in values for other cars. Not that I would want you to do the work, but if we could leverage the work you did from another webpage here at 'mudgeons? Just a thought.

Also because BMW gave the E90 M3 really soggy throttle response as a default.

I did a quick calculation of the area under the torque curve for each engine. From 1,000 RPM to 6800 RPM for the Z06 and from 1000 RPM to 8400 RPM for the M3. The total area is shockingly close. The Z06 has 0.7% more total area under the curve than the M3.

Shouldn't this thread be called "Talkin' Torque"?