Targa Forza

[Spiny Anteater]

Tried out this nice little recipe - not sure the results are that fast, but the car is a lot of fun

Take one British chassis, and lighten to a little over 21002300lbs. Stir in 4 big fat slick tyres.

Then add in a big American V8 and add parts to reach a PI of S700. Omit any thoughts of downforce - there ain't any to be had.

And the result is that an old friend makes it's return.



Loved this car in FM2, but when I first built it out in FM3 I had trouble driving it But, eventually I remember the old maxim - you don't drive a Cobra, the Cobra drives you. So I stopped pushing it for more speed and let it run at a pace the car was happy with. And the old girl came to life. Not fantastic in the fast corners which didn't help at the 'Ring, and not a great top end - even on the Benchmark Ring it only just hit 200mph. But it has great acceleration up to about 170mph, and has that controllable oversteer I loved in FM2. The 'Ring may not have been any great shakes, but around Kaido and Positano this car is immense fun.

So, the times - might as well get S Class started.

N: 115.816; 112.546; 133.367; 134.334
K: 124.358; 162.462; 114.314; 111.194
P: 98.265; 77.527; 97.865; 114.364

I think that gives me totals of 496.063 for the 'Ring, 512.328 for Kaido and 388.021 for Positano.

Incidentally, I'm another one who can't believe you ran this for close on 4 hours straight I'm on of those who has just tried to get a clean run and, unless it is noticeably bad (i.e. original Range Rover run at Positano D) have left it at that.

Another pointer to how nice to drive the Cobra is, for the first time I managed a complete run of all 4 stages of a course without incurring any penalties  and having to restart (Positano).

[ORG63]

I am also retired and I play the game at least 4 nights a out of the week starting around 11 pm and shutting down around 3:30 am.  Not having to get up to go to work is good. I have been a night person most of my life and self employed so before I sold the store, I worked when I felt like working. All so I don't have to share the tv with any one as the wife has one downstairs.  As for playing for hours on end I do get up now and then shake every thing out and  get a cup of coffee/ tea or use the little room.  It's all fun.

Don

[Blooze]

These P2P tracks take a lot of learning! Fujimi Kaido in particular is killing my overall times  
...
Hopefully, there will be a reasonable drop in the times as I put more and more track time in.

You're on the right track - nothin' heals those problems as well as seat time.  What is really neat is when you get comfortable enough with the track to start getting imaginative with the line.

For the D-class P2Ps it was a toss up between this car and the Scirocco. Both cars are D283 stock and both cars were even-steven throughout the upgrade testing on Tsukuba until I decided to drop the torquier Prelude engine into the Civic. It then became hands-down the better car.

Mercy!  That Prelude engine looks like a dandy thing to try.  I think I will put that one on my List...

I bought the Cobra for my Museum and have been looking forward to building it up.  I saw a thing on SPEED about the British hill climbs (From what I can tell they have a real "Targa" appeal to them...) and that little yellow rig looks like it would fit right in.  Good report - great looking car!

@Org63 - lol, Forza Motorsport - Hotrodding for olde faughts without much money...

Great work everybody!!

$

[Bob Boberton]

Just because of that picture and that report, I promptly dropped $1.4 million  on that ride. Spiny, how much is your commission?   

[PureStankonia]

Big edit for leaving the actual car out of the post.
C425 VW Scirocco GT, AWD swap, Golf R36 Engine swap, 306hp 267lb-ft 3268lbs

Nurburgring
131.031
123.233
148.815
148.749
551.828

Kaido
133.133
177.093
122.439
119.503
552.168

Positano
104.555
84.451
105.655
122.839
417.5

1521.496

[Spiny Anteater]

Just because of that picture and that report, I promptly dropped $1.4 million  on that ride. Spiny, how much is your commission?   

Not enough

Hope you like the Cobra, and glad the review has been positively received. It's a real marmite car - some people love it, some absolutely hate it. But it really does teach you throttle control. I think you will like it though - the broad characteristics of the car are not too dissimilar to that Fiat 131 you ran, just with much more power.

One person who didn't like it was my car's previous owner - I picked it up built up well into R3 for a "mere" 950,000cr. As it had one race in the history, I think I can guess that the race didn't go too well But good for me - most of my cars are secondhand bargains.

[Bob Boberton]

I took the stock Cobra out on the Nurburgring GP. After driving these really nimble Targa-built cars for the past few weeks, I overshot the first corner by A LOT and promptly started glazing the tarmac with rubber trying to right the wrong. LOL, what a show. Like you said, you really need to let the car tell you what it likes. It's an exercise in concentration, but for $1.4 million, I am going to learn to love it, DAMMIT!

But really, the sound of the engine makes up for all the niggles I may find.

I've been ogling the Shelby Daytona for a while now, I wonder if anyone is going to do a write-up on that one....

[Blooze]

I spent a good part of the day messing with Spiny's 370 B Classed Z car.  I was able to put down personal bests on all of the tracks except Kaido.  The little car needs to borrow some torque to help out on the mountain...

B 500 - 2010 Spiny 370Z
N = 127.227; 119.452; 145.048; 147.681
K = 131.081; 174.174; 119.970; 115.716
P = 99.099; 81.999; 101.902; 118.218


This is the result of me futzing with it.  A bit softer suspension and a modified gear set is all it got.  Same deal... it needs some torque.

B 500 - 2010 Nissan 370Z
N = 126.710; 118.802; 144.961; 144.912
K = 129.963; 172.939; 119.420; 115.598
P = 99.450; 81.799; 101.185; 117.284

$

I've been ogling the Shelby Daytona for a while now, I wonder if anyone is going to do a write-up on that one....

I just happened to pick one up today.  Now I'm broke.  I got to make some money before I do too much with it.  

$

[Bob Boberton]

Finally completed the C-class Targa. I was getting to a point where I felt the FWD setup was starting to hamper performance, especially for the hill climbs, and decided to go with an AWD setup.

The Car: Subaru 22B C425 (276 hp, 265 lb-ft, 2587 lbs, Sport Tires)

The Times:

N = 129.449; 122.583; 148.993; 147.050
K = 127.500; 172.267; 117.434; 115.317
P = 97.817; 82.400; 100.851; 115.950

I don't know if its the drivetrain, but the car feels numb and seems to have much more understeer than any of my FWD hothatches. It still got pretty decent times all-round, but it just wasn't all that fun to drive. You had to take the corners slow and tight and wait for what seems like an eternity to get the pedal back down to the floor. It almost felt like Braveheart and his clan waiting for the English to attack... Hooold, hooooold, hooooooooooold......

I don't think this car will be getting much post-Targa track time...

Bobby

P.S. was just watching a replay and noticed that, on upshift, the rpms start at peak hp and the power keeps declining all the way to redline!? Can this be right?

[Spiny Anteater]

That's quite some improvement Blooze just from a bit of suspension and gear work. I guess that shows in part the benefits of tuning for specific circumstances - my tune was an all-round tune to go anywhere but I didn't expect to see 2-3 seconds falling off some of the stages. Glad the car works for you though and it wasn't just in my head Thanks for the tune - it's another one on the Round Tuit list...

Bob - I installed the engine "downgrade" and full weight reduction in my 22B and that livened it up a bit. If you feel like you have to wait ages to get on the throttle, that sounds like an AWD feature to me - but you can reduce that by increasing the rear accel to a higher setting than you would for a RWD car (say 60% ish is my usual area). You may also want to look into moving the center diff backwards too - I usually end up with 65-70% of power being transferred through the rear wheels.

As for the power, the lowered rpm of the power peak is something that you see on quite a few of the Impreza's - I'd guess it's a characteristic of the boxer engine.

One final note, I wrote down the wrong weight for the Cobra - it's actually 23xxlbs not 21xx.

[Blooze]

Heh, I just happen to have a brand spankin' new 22b that has been on my 'round Tuit list since the day I bought it.  So I thought I would take it out to a twisty track and then offer my experieced tuning guru opinion as to what I thought the problem was.

I thought it ran great.  In fact - I set a new personal best for Amalfi Coast with it.  Stock.  The push was managable as soon as I got it into my head that coasting through a turn wasn't going to work. 

My thoughts on the "wait for it..."  In my opinion, Turn 10 has assigned a bit of historic status to the 22b (it cost more than the 2008 WRX) and therefore may have gone a little overboard with modeling the 12 year old technology of turbos and turbo lag.  It was hard to say, I was stock so I was dealing with slow shifts by default.

So - I suppose the smartest most "sage" thing I can say at this point concerning the feel of the car is "There's no accounting for taste..." 

I can add some specifics to what Spiny said, though.  The 22b has a torque peak at 3300 rpm, the power at 6000 rpm, and the redline at 8000 rpm.  You can run it up an additional 200 rpm before pinging the rev limiter.  So, unless you are operating the car below 6000 rpm, the power will always be "going" down."  However, since the car's torque and power curves are fairly flat (don't judge by that goofy graph in the Upgrade Shoppe), and because the car has a decent p/w ratio, this isn't much of a problem.

I hope I didn't confuse the issue - I just woke up and was feeling chatty - I guess...

  $

[Bob Boberton]

Thanks for the replies, guys. I may have been a little hasty with my estimation of the little Subie. Once I stopped trying to drive it like my FWD hatches, it started responding a little better. One place where it shines is its ability to brake deep into a corner. I can't do that with my FWD cars because I dial in a little bit of oversteer, and braking deep into a corner would make the rear step out. So I would brake straight and early, enter sharply, and step on the gas early at exit.

With the Subie I can apply brake pressure almost all the way to the apex and then rapidly transition to gas on the way out. The other thing that helped is using the lower rpms to pull out of corners. I don't know how many shifts I saved in a lap of Kaido, but it must be in the dozens.

This game is unbelievable. A slight change to driving style made a tremendous difference in lap times AND enjoyment.

After a pretty lengthy session with the Subie, I went back to the D350 07 Civic Si-R and found it pretty sloppy when I used to find it tight. Just goes to show, everything's relative... 

[ORG63]

  D350 VW Bora  awd

N= 135.917;  128.176;  156.184;  153.634

K= 138.450;  184.566;  129.917;  126.117

P= 109.384;    88.300;  111.133;  125.800



  C425 94 Mazda mx5 == Needs more power..

N= 136.601;  127.033;  156.716;  154.449

K= 140.184;  182.434;  128.067;  123.651

P= 109.300;    87.983;  110.234;  126.450


  A600 05 Subaru WRX  awd

N= 120.484;  115.133;  137.750;  138.533

K= 124.566;  166.967;  119.950;  115.315

P=   98.700;   81.050;  103.050;   119.534


  One more for today

 C425 91 BMW M3 E30

N= 135.884;  127.067;  153.333;  152.683

K= 135.900;  184.651;  127.133;  122.150

P= 107.133;    86.700;  110.133;  122.967

[chuckrateez]

   Well, I finally got a chance to take the  Mitsu GSX out for a spin on the Targa tracks, and it didn't disappoint.  Got PB's on all the circuit stages.  I think it's partially because I'm just getting to know them better, but the extra second or so gained by the AWD start is also helping quite a bit.

   I can't really argue with Blooze's claim that this may be the best car in the game.  Cheap and versatile; before I'm done with it, I wouldn't be surprised to see it hold PB's across the D leaderboards.

   Here's the times:

Nurburgring: 133.634; 125.175; 133.654; 150.134
Kaido:         136.553; 184.817; 125.042; 121.171
Positano:     105.539; 087.504; 107.858;    123.723


      Chuck

[Blooze]

I'm glad the little car is working out for you Chuck...  and just to emphasize the versatility part, I have builds for the thing from E Class all the way to A...

So I was ogling my newest purchase between periods of weeping over my devistated checkbook the other day when it occurred to me that spending $10 Million on a car and not driving it was about the dumbest damned thing I'd come up with in a while.  But there was more than just driving the car that was at issue.  With that resolved (see the Bench later on today), I set out to see what the Daytona would do on the Targa stock...

B 476 1965 Shelby Daytona Coupe
N = 130.096; 121.354; 146.746; 147.681
K = 134.000; 176.293; 126.560; 120.220
P = 104.821; 84.034; 105.655; 121.855

Now, though not Earth Shattering, that was fun!  The main issue I faced was working with the 4 speed.  I use TCS for the high Hp RWD cars, but I do my best to stay out of it when I can.  So when I say throttle control, I am not talking about accelleration in the normal sense of the word.  Throttle control in this case is backing off just a bit and a touch of brakes rather than a full down shift because it is faster.  It takes a while to get that down, just how much of each to be fast...

Before it was done, driving the car gave rise to an idea that has be plagueing me ever since starting out on this Racing Team RPG that I seem to have gotten off into...

$