Missed opportunity for Ford??

Sorry, what was that about idiots?

My friend in Germany has a 2.5V6 Audi A4. As fars as top speed is converned it is much faster than my Ford. I can't go faster than an indicated 125. He can cruise at 240kph. However on a sprint, no it doesn't appear to be faster than mine, I usually leave him standing on the run from Basel to Freiburg until we get past Lörrach when he passes me because the truck has run out of steam.

Your voice is muffled, are you sitting down?

Is 50:50 weight distribution considered nose heavy these days?

I believe in the states they had a Golf IV TDi that they raced on longer endurance type track events.

They were pre PD units and were maxed out at about 170bhp. Remmeber this is from a 1.9 8valve, non crossflow cylinder head.

I would guess 200bhp from the new 2 litre 16v TDI's would be fairly easily possible.

Tim..

How else can you compare performance between two differing engines ?!?!?!? If one has DOUBLE the power of other, then it's quite obviously gonna make the car a damn-sight quicker - whether it's powered by Petrol, Grass, Cheese, or Old Table Legs.

Broadly similar size, weight, and power.

No - why on earth would I think that ? The M3 carries a bunch more power, so it's gonna be a bunch faster !

This was exactly my point all along ! Someone said Disels were slow. They're obviously not - a 217bhp Diesel offers very similar performance to a 217bhp Petrol.

What ? The M3 makes masses more power - they're not equivalent at all !

Whether the engine is forced-induction or not, is completely irrelevent. You can have 200bhp of NA engine (Honda VTec), vs 200bhp of Turbo engine (Rover T16 say) vs 200bhp of Diesel engine (Pug's new 2.7 V6 Turbo). Performance between all three will be broadly similar - even though they're all completely different.

This is the whole reason we're having the discussion - you've completely missed my point :)

Definately the 180bhp model ?

180bhp Diesel A4 can hit 60 in a smidgeon over 8 seconds.

Your 200bhp 4.0 Ford Explorer can do it in 10.5 seconds. Your extra 25bhp upgrade will take something like half a second off that time - so it's gonna be somewhere around the 10 second mark.

It won't even NEARLY keep up with the A4. And your comment about it out-accelerating the 150bhp Diesel Golf (very similar performance figures to the A4) is clearly poppycock too.

hat would be a perfect engine for these modern over taxed times.

There is no bloody way that thing is 50:50, compare it to the 330i.

The 330d is 184 bhp, not 200. Still laughing?

The 3 series brochure says it is.

s/is/was

It's now 204hp.

Huh ?

You're talking about the old one. Current lump is 204bhp.

Oh dear.

No change there, then.

Loud, ignorant and arrogant, Steve Firth has the massive advantage of never having to learn anything, because he is always "right."

It's been this way since he was at primary school.

Indeed. I know that. You know that. Tell the dickwad diesel driving anoraks who think torque is everything.

I'm thinking of downsizing, chipped 320d???

Unladen weight of a 330d sport manual is 1615kg (damn, that's more than my bigger S60...1440kg - diesel would be 1515...) 204 bhp , 330i sport is

1505kg, 231bhp.

Therefore Steve is probably right, engine is near front, and the only real difference is going to be the engine, so that's 110kg more than the petrol.

At the smaller end of the range, 318i sport 1395kg, 320d sport 1490 kg - 95 kg heavier.

So we have the PWR of 102 bhp/ton for the 318i, 100bhp/ton for the 320d, 126 for the 330d, 153 for the 330i.

Now... with the diesels being turbocharged, we could chip them... 181bhp for the 320d, 231 for the 330d, that's going to be 121bhp/ton for the 320d and

143 for the 330d.

So, we can probably conclude that the 330d is never going to be as quick as the 330i as it has less power AND more weight, even if chipped. And as I've thought for a while, the 320d is the best buy 3 series - 143bhp/ton for a chipped one sounds nice to me...

errrrr riiiiiiiiight. Its power AND torque that define performance. Without one the other is useless!

But that's not possible. For a given power the diesel will be heavier. To compare a diesel of the same power with a N/A engine of the same power will give the advantage to the diesel.

Yes and here's the truth, direct comparisons are only possible for restricted ranges of cars. But would you, for example like to guess which is faster,The Toyota Landcruiser fitted with a 4.2 Litre turbo-charged diesel or my Ford with a 4.0 N/A V6?

That's pretty much like for like.

Or the one that started Carl drooling. Lets compare the performance of a Golf TDDi with the equivalent petrol car, a 1.8Turbo Golf. Both Turbo charged, both similar displacements (the diesel has the advantage at

1.9L, so I'm being fair here) the cars have identical trim and both cost almost exactly the same.

Care to guess which one is not just faster but pushes the face of the other deep into the dirt? Hint, it isn't the diesel.

In fact the much-raved about GT Tdi is a complete and utter slug just managing to better 10s to 60. You can a Ford Focus that is faster and five thousand pounds cheaper than the Golf TDi GT, you can get one three thousand pounds cheaper than spits in its eye and for the same price you can have one that rips the head off the Golf, and hocks a gig sticky greeny down its open wind pipe.

Care to compare the BMW330 petrol (N/A) vs the BMW330d (Turbo)? Oh look same result, diesel's a slug and it's a direct comparison because the cars are exactly the same bloody price.

Yes a smidgen as in nearly a full second (8.7).

I don't know where you get 10.5 from the Explorer 4.0V6 has a 0-60 of

9.6 before it is modded.

No, it's 9.2.

Yes, that's what he told me as well. In truth it doesn't seem to work that way. Now it may be as you claimed in another post that I've not met a good driver in one of these cars, and he may be a shit driver. However I've never rated myself as a dragster driver and I reckon the vast majority of drivers could beat my times in the same car but his diseasel doesn't even get close until we get to 60mph. After that the road is his. Now IIRC his car is a six-speed manual, that could explain an awful ot, because by the time I get to 60, I'm in second gear on an autobox and all I've had to to is do bury the pedal to the metal. While he's had four chances to fluff a gearchange already.

The post referred to the Golf 130 and the 150. I can certainly out-accelerate the 130 and I'm fairly sure that the moron in a Golf that shot up the arse of my car flashing his headlights was in a Tdi 150 and he looked surprised when I clogged it, left him for dead and then pulled over to let him past. Wasn't you was it?