27th Oct 2010, 08:45
I love these Z24 guys claiming to beat cars with 75 more HP and more than twice the torque! Please! Let me tell you something... driver ability has way more to do with your race results than the actual car. I once kept pace with a Porsche 911. I was right behind him at every turn and kept up with him. It is a funny story. He cut me off on the highway, and I was a young fool and got mad so I chased him. He was over revving it and really trying to lose me, but I kept right up with him. What was I driving? An '89 TOYOTA TERCEL! I had 80 or so HP to his 250. Did I come on here and say my Tercel is as fast as a Porsche? NO!
Look at the factual numbers on your Z24 vs. a 5.0 Mustang and you will see that there is NO WAY a Z can even come close to a Mustang in performance. I actually had a '90 Z24 5-speed which was faster than the next generation 4 cylinder cars and I couldn't beat any 5.0's with it... even speed shifting it through all the gears.
Am I saying you never have beaten a Mustang? No. But just because you have, does not mean your car is faster than a Mustang.
26th Oct 2010, 16:52
Redlining your car is not the fastest way to go. The Mustang 5.0 has a peak torque of 300 lb. ft. and it occurs at 3,200 rpm's on the Mustang. Torque wins 0-60 races, not hp, so you have to maximize it in order to win races. Redlining the car only wastes time, because when you shift at 4,500 rpm's in a 5.0 Mustang, you drop the clutch in the next gear and the engine turns... you guessed it right at the peak 3,200 rpm's. You don't have to redline a Mustang to get the most out of it... In fact you shouldn't, unless you want to lose that is. If I raced you, I'd be half way through second while you were still burning up your engine in first... then bye bye to you!
Now back to the 150hp Z24 beating the Mustang... Even with a turbo and another 50 HP, you wouldn't have a chance. The 0-60 times were at least 2 seconds slower or more for the Z, so how in the heck are you beating the Mustang? You gotta seriously have a lame driver to pull that one off!