Quote:
Originally Posted by kenchan
i agree that dropping weight does wonders for handling but you live in houston. ive lived in houston decades ago so i know what it's like. there's no such thing as canyons or any kind of serious curves you'd carve in your area unless you go to the track. so im guessing your primary goal is acceleration since your roads are flat and straight, and some braking benefit.  |
I drive all over TX, but even just here in Houston there are plenty of curves and corners, but they're generally brief violent affairs, not long sloping stuff. At speed some of the highways are a blast too. My favorite is the Woodlands Autobahn (aka Hardy Toll Road). Perfect pavement, and some really nice curves with pretty dramatic elevation changes in places too. Gotta hit it in the early AM on a weekend to find it relatively free of traffic though.
Quote:
you see, ive been modding cars basically for street use for many years. after all the weight reduction and intake/exhaust forced induction mods, suspension, etc ive done, it comes down to this... most sport/sporty cars these days are built pretty damn well out of the box. especially for street it runs very well. you make changes to the car you sacrifice something else. unless you do dramatic sacrifice you're not going to gain much.
street cars you shouldn't have to sacrifice anything. 
|
Some of it's just sacrificing some labor and dollars, it's not all an even tradeoff. I wouldn't characterize most of my tradeoffs as trading one performance aspect for another and netting roughly the same overall performance benefit.
There are lots of tweaks that can be made where it's just not worth it to the factory on labor and/or sticker markup to make certain small improvements. A lot of the decent tradeoffs are also just personal taste on performance vs noise, inconvenience, maintenance, and comfort/entertainment. The factory can't please everyone with the blend they pick there.
For some examples: I'm not willing to gut my radio/CD player completely. I do like having music in the car. But I can totally live without the subwoofer in the back, my music still sounds fine to me that way.
Or my recent addition of an oil catch can. The factory could have done that, it's all upside and no downside in terms of performance and engineering. The downside is in maintenance: they don't want to burden consumers with emptying out a catch can on a regular basis (or have the consumer face a blocked PCV system sucking liquid oil if they forget).
Better brake pads: possible noise issues, more brake dust on the wheels, more expense, etc. Washer fluid system: again it's just dead weight to me. I own a little squeegie to clean my windshield in my garage, and I don't mind doing it regularly when I stop at gas stations either. Good wipers and Rain-X work well enough for most everything else.
Smaller battery: all upside performance-wise. The downside is that while most normal car consumers pretty much never have to worry about their car's electrical system (so long as they don't leave the headlights on accidentally or whatever), I now have to consciously think about my charging/starting cycles (like, hey I just stopped and started the car 5 times without giving the alternator enough time to recharge from all that, so I guess I better leave the car running a while now).
You get the idea. The car is great out of the box, but it can be made a lot better if you're willing to sacrifice a little of your own time and convenience in areas that don't matter so much to you.