Acceleration:
As I just mentioned, my two launches were characterized by lots of wheelspin followed by a large throttle lift by yours truly. Normally, I launch at about 2000-2500rpm since that's the best match of power and traction, and try to allow some wheelspin to keep the engine in its power band. Since I was carrying two additional people (and didn't want to bog out and embarrass myself) I instead fired up at between 2500rpm and 3000rpm. The first was at nearly 3000rpm and forced an immediate throttle lift, while the second was lower but more aggressive and went into World of Outlaws-class wheelspin so I shut down even harder. My passengers seemed to be entertained, but I felt rather ham-handed. Clearly more practice with the winter tires is needed.
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The acceleration resulting from this Stevie Wonder-ish driving technique was not very impressive: the acceleration runs ranged from an unadjusted 14.4seconds @ 99mph (not too bad) to a 14.7seconds @ 98mph. Bah. My 0-60 times were quite slow too, due to my launches and my two passengers: 6.5 and 6.7 seconds. Not my finest hour.
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Power:
The highest power output was 211bhp @ 6300rpm. After atmospheric corrections that reverse-calcs out to about 255-260bhp. I had to estimate the cars' weight due to the additional passengers and didn't run across the scale before-hand, so I'd expect that figure is a bit low given the nice cool air. But then again, that wasn't the purpose of these runs...
Technique:
Well, the obvious point here is that I needed less throttle due to the cold temps, winter tires, and winter tires. Oh well. You can see from a quick comparison of the launch Gs and RPMs how much the wheelspin cost me -- at least a half-second each time. I may have been hanging around Chad too much... :)
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Otherwise, the other thing I could have improved on is timing the 1-2 shift. When you compare the RPMs from these two runs against my best run you can see I short-shifted slightly between first and second. Shifting just shy of the limiter would get me a dramatically improved 0-60mph time, as well as a meaningful improvement in the quarter mile. Since my torque peak is at 4800-4900rpm, and the 1st-2nd shift drops it below that to 4500rpm, every hundred RPM or so helps.
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Corrections and Other Factors:
As per my standard I've corrected the quarter mile results to the weight of a single person, quarter tank of fuel, and SAE J1349 standards. You can check out the correction spreadsheet if you're curious. My times were improved greatly by a nice 11% gain in power due to the cold air, but slowed down nearly as much by the 300lbs extra I was carrying in passengers. In the end, it turned out to be nearly a wash.
| Recorded Data | Corrected Data | |
|---|---|---|
| Best Run | 0-1/4 mile in 14.4 seconds @ 99 mph | 0-1/4 mile in 14.3 seconds @ 99 mph |