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Drew Dowdell

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Everything posted by Drew Dowdell

  1. Drew Dowdell
    I also want to point out that I am not against turbo-charging when there is no way to put a larger engine in... I realize I'll never get a 3.6 liter into an Encore.... but if I have a choice between displacement and turbo with peak power outputs being equal.... I'll go with displacement every time. Just because Mercedes failed at it doesn't mean GM will.
  2. Drew Dowdell
    The base Northstar is a mild tune also, it got a 50hp jump in other iterations. It doesn't matter what these engines can do if they are never sold that way.... And don't try and tell me an ATS-V Coupe loaded to the gills with every performance option is tuned for economy and a base Stingray isn't. Again, I've driven these cars back to back and the ATS-V feels softer. The only way the ATS-V starts to have the same kind of pull is in track mode, but again, that's cheating because it just forces the RPM higher, the Corvette can do the same trick. The Solctice Turbo guys do NOT have 340 lb-ft at 1800 rpm with the throttle 3/4 closed. At 1/4 throttle you're driving a plane old GM 2 liter 4cylinder with no boost and maybe 100 lb-ft of torque. There is no displacement being replaced. Yet at 1/4 throttle in a Northstar, you're getting all 4.6 liters working for you. If you do step into it on the turbo, then you've just negated the whole reason for downsizing engines in the first place... The fuel economy. Even the fuel economy argument seems to largely be a farce as well. The Regal and Lacrosse get roughly the same fuel economy on the highway. The heavy LX cars that you like to bash get excellent fuel economy. The fusion 2.0t, Accord V6, 300c V6, Regal 2.0t, 2017 Lacrosse V6, and Altima V6 all get right around the same fuel economy when you account for weight difference. 20 - 23 city and 29 - 34 highway... And the V6es in all of these (where available) are more pleasurable to drive than the 4Ts (again, where available) in NORMAL driving. The Lacrosse is getting 31 mpg and has 310hp on regular fuel even ... And that's in grandma tune. Hyper, you keep talking about these peak numbers. I am talking about non-peak. There is simply more effortless glide from larger displacement engines and seemingly no fuel economy penalty.
  3. Drew Dowdell
    Regal didn't have anywhere to go but up. You're probably right about the Encore.... I haven't seen a refreshed one on the streets yet, I would have thought they'd be out already. The dealer where I bought mine does have 3 in stock though.
  4. Drew Dowdell
    The "wake up" you are referring to is just spinning the engine faster to get the turbo spooled up. You don't need a tuner for that, just hit the sport mode button to get the remappings and the lower gear holding. The point is, that I don't need to "wake up" the 6.2 liter, I've got all 6.2 liters working for me at 1/4 - 1/2 throttle... no need to wait for a turbo to spool, no need to goose the RPM to get that kind to torque. It's a case of nearly equivalent specs on paper leading to different driving feel in the real world. Another example is the first Regal GS tuned to 270hp/295 lb-ft on the 2.0T/6-speed auto. The GS, while a fantastic road car, simply does not feel the same as the pull of an old LD8 4.6 Northstar / 4-speed auto with roughly the same power specs (275hp/300 lb-ft). The Regal GS may be a better car in every other way, but a Lucerne CXS just feels like it has more pull when poking around town even though it is heavier than the Regal. On the track, I'm sure it would be no contest the other way. Even the current Lacrosse with less torque but the same transmission feels like it has more pull in normal driving. Another is the Mazda CX-9 v. GMC Acadia V6. The Mazda has substantially more torque than the Acadia, the the Acadia feels more powerful in regular driving. I drove the Acadia, CX-9, and XT5 nearly back to back... and the GM V6 is the winner here in feel every day of the week even though the Mazda out torques it on paper. The examples I have in my head where I've driven two vehicles back to back with equal power on paper, but different types of engines is long... and I could really go on for days. The only counter example I have to date is the Volvo S90 T6 AWD 2.0, but that one is supercharged AND turbocharged. It really does have the feel of a larger V6 when rolling around town and absolutely smashed a Kia Cadenza 3.3 in acceleration. I was in the Kia following a colleague in the S90 and lost every single acceleration run.... badly. A lot of this is a disconnect between car enthusiasts/ media, and non-enthusiasts. Car enthusiasts/media spend too much time looking at numbers only during peak performance driving levels and not enough at how it feels when a vehicle is driven normally like non-enthusiasts do. Again, a counter example: It's why my Encore is rated as "way too slow on 0-60" by just about everyone in enthusiast and media land, but in normal city driving it feels acceptable... with the sales numbers to back it up. I'm an enthusiast, so I'd like more power, but I've got to admit that for my partner who doesn't care about cars, he thinks it is plenty fast enough.
  5. Drew Dowdell
    Yeah, you can't take their cars away from them... the biggest punishment would be to leave them with the car and rescind the buyback offer.
  6. Drew Dowdell
    All I know is that a N/A 6.2 liter feels more energetic and effortless than a 3.6TT in normal driving.... and that's just a pushrod 6.2... or as SMK calls it, a "truck engine" (comparing a Corvette Stingray Convertible to an ATS-V Coupe)
  7. Drew Dowdell
    At how much throttle? You're not hitting 23 psi at 1/3 - 1/2 throttle where most people drive. Even on my boat anchor 307, half throttle off of a red light will put me into the back of a Camry. At those throttle positions, you're getting little to no boost. People don't drive around at full throttle 23psi boost more than 5% of the time. Turbo is an attempt to replace displacement. So most of the time a 4.0tt is really just a 4.5 - 5.0 at 1/3 throttle, while a 6.2 is still a 6.2 no matter where the throttle is. (Ignoring AFM for now)
  8. Drew Dowdell
    Price, low take rate, only offered on the DTS which was geared towards the least technically adept buyer in the first place. The people who would have been most interested in it would have more likely been Escalade, STS, XLR, and CTS buyers... not buyers of "old school" Cadillac that came with a bench seat standard. It was GM's ineptness at product packaging at the time, nothing more.
  9. Drew Dowdell
    I dunno. In both cases, people are taking advantage of the spirit of the rules. Mind you, I've benefited from this in the past... picked up a mower that had been returned. It was a gas mower and the tag says "Customer states 'Makes a loud noise'". Took it out in the parking lot, fired it up, and it ran fine for 7 years after that.
  10. Drew Dowdell
    That's part of the settlement. VW is paying above market rates to buy back the cars and deep discounts to those customers who purchase new VWs.
  11. Drew Dowdell
    The VSport 3.6 should be sufficient. It's already built. It's already mated to the 8speed auto.
  12. Drew Dowdell
    Peak HP is largely irrelevant because it is only obtained at full throttle. No one drives like that even 5% of the time. The Escalade feels smarter off the line because it has more grunt at 1/3 throttle. 1/3 throttle on a turbo charged car isn't going to get you the kind of thrust you are talking about because the boost hasn't kicked in yet, even at 3,500rpm. Further muddying the waters is dynamic throttle response dictated by the computer.
  13. Drew Dowdell
    People are just being petty and trying to take advantage of the situation.... Tale as old as time..
  14. Drew Dowdell
    He's not single.... His girlfriend is already picking out houses.
  15. Drew Dowdell
    I don't think twilight sentinel was ever dropped, the name was, but the concept never was. Automatic high beams were dropped somewhere in the late 80s. They made a brief return in the Sigma body STS and then were gone again until recently.
  16. Drew Dowdell
    My 85 Lincoln had them and they were a nice feature. Since nearly all cars now have some sort of forward facing sensor already, this shouldn't be that hard to do.
  17. Drew Dowdell
    I'll be keeping this in my back pocket.
  18. Drew Dowdell
    I love the sound of the Hemi and the GM small blocks under full throttle.
  19. Drew Dowdell
    Whether a DOHC V8 sounds better or a Pushrod V8 sounds better is just the difference between Vanilla cake with Chocolate icing or Chocolate cake with vanilla icing.. They are two different kinds of great. I love both.
  20. Drew Dowdell
    We all hear the holiday songs over and over this month, but sometimes your mind plays tricks on you. What lyric do you always hear wrong even if you know the right words. For me, it's "No Place like home for the holidays" I always hear the lyric "... from Atlantic to Specific... gee the traffic is terrific...."
  21. Drew Dowdell
    Clearance sales for a dead model.
  22. Drew Dowdell
    For the mid engine car, absolutely, should be geared towards HP... But I'd like to see a torquer version, lower top rpm but thicker torque band that starts lower, for use in the Escalade and possibly the CT6.
  23. Drew Dowdell
    Sure, it can be a new Omega (won't that be confusing...). Power it with the 1.6 diesel, 2.0t, and 3.6 in Europe. Add a 3.0t for US and AU.
  24. Drew Dowdell
    Mitsubishi Mirage it is!
  25. Drew Dowdell
    Sure, if you spin it to 18,000 rpm, but you still have no torque. And no one is getting 500hp from 4 liters unless there is some forced breathing going on, so as soon as you do that you have additional complications and weight. A 6.2 liter will have awesome torque off the line while a turbo 4 liter is still waiting to spool up.
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