Top Gear USA Tonight!

[Arkaign]

now you're just being retarded. dynos will *always* read less than crank HP. the GT500 was rated at 500, TG tested 450, which is about 10% drivetrain loss (give or take).

do you *really* think ford lied about the HP of its top car?

lol no joke. Rednecks everywhere would surround Dearborn, MI with pitchforks and shotguns if Ford were caught with the unbelievably easy to catch false HP claim. If anything, the GT500 slightly overdelivers to the wheels, particularly with the last couple of years.

This argument is painful to my brain, as it defies common sense. I love TG:UK, and will keep watching until they either switch hosts or cancel it, but this was indeed a glaring screw-up or intentional example of blatant deception.

DBZ is a sharp fellow, I have a feeling he's just trolling us for kicks.

 

[exdeath]

All chassis dynos show wheel horsepower. Rule of thumb is divide by .87 for rough flywheel horsepower.

Only way to measure engine horsepower without drive train loss is one of these:

The latter is where brochure numbers and official ratings are derived from: the engine in a cell on an engine dyno by itself, not in a car on a chassis dyno spinning a roller.

Sometimes a car will dyno close to it's advertised horsepower, we call these cars severely underrated. eg: stock 03/04 Cobras put down 370 whp to the tires when they were advertised 390 bhp. In reality its 420 bhp (crank) not 390. Same with a lot of 90's Japanese cars that claim to be 276 bhp and put down 280+ hp at the wheels on a chassis dyno. :awe: (bhp = brake horsepower as in engine brake aka dyno bolted to the crank, whp = wheel horsepower measured at the wheels on a roller, the dyno everyone is familiar with).

 

[Aharami]

1 - Calcs are done by default on all but the most arcane dynos. Look, I've even had one of my old cars on a Dyno:

I was always under the impression that Dyno = whp

 

[Arkaign]

I always under the impression that Dyno = whp

Your impression is correct. The most important reason for this is that the dyno has absolutely no way of knowing the correct % of drivetrain losses for whatever vehicle is spinning it, and of course it can only most accurately read what it's connected to : the wheels.

They have devices for measuring raw engine hp, which exd kindly posted above.

It may seem confusing to some that CF:SAE, etc is posted on dyno results depending on the programming / setup, which is really just to adjust the WHP to a corrected standard SAE level to compensate for altitude/conditions. It's still WHP to WHP comparison/correction, nothing to do with crank/mfg specified motor power output.

 

[Pariah]

Rutledge(SP?) is good, probably the only person there worth keeping. Like it was said earlier, he needs to up the charisma and take on the "Clarkson" role. There will never be another person that has the ability to pull the absolute most appropriate metaphor out of thin air like Jeremy Clarkson.

Clarkson doesn't pull any metaphors out of thin air. All of his dialogue is carefully scripted beforehand by him. Andy Wilman has said so on a number of occasions and even praised Adam Carolla for being funnier than Clarkson and his ability to improvise on the spot when the original TG US pilot was filmed. No one from TG US needs to play the Clarkson role. It isn't possible, and the best thing for them to do is to come up with their own unique version of TG.

I'm fairly certain that they knew about drivetrain losses, and that crank hp =! wheel hp.

I don't think they do, because they made the same error in a later episode. I think it was the 10k supercar challenge. They dynoed all 3 vehicles to see how much power they had lost since they were new. All they did was compare the dyno results to the spec sheets from when they were new, and not surprisingly they all had huge power losses because the drivetrain loss was never mentioned.

Yes. They. Bloody. Do. And the CTS-v didn't exist at that time, so it was the only comparable 4 door uber sedan not from Germany. Deal with it.

The CTS-V has been around longer than the SRT8. The CTS-V was released in 2004, the 300 SRT8 in 2005. The M5 would have kicked the CTS-V's ass as well, so the end result wouldn't have changed even if the competition for the M5 had.

 

[Howard]

Same with a lot of 90's Japanese cars that claim to be 276 bhp and put down 280+ hp at the wheels on a chassis dyno. :awe: (bhp = brake horsepower as in engine brake aka dyno bolted to the crank, whp = wheel horsepower measured at the wheels on a roller, the dyno everyone is familiar with).

That's due to a gentleman's agreement not to release cars with more power than a certain amount, rather than to any drivetrain losses.

 

[Pariah]

n/m

 

[Pariah]

Sometimes a car will dyno close to it's advertised horsepower, we call these cars severely underrated. eg: stock 03/04 Cobras put down 370 whp to the tires when they were advertised 390 bhp. In reality its 420 bhp (crank) not 390. Same with a lot of 90's Japanese cars that claim to be 276 bhp and put down 280+ hp at the wheels on a chassis dyno. :awe: (bhp = brake horsepower as in engine brake aka dyno bolted to the crank, whp = wheel horsepower measured at the wheels on a roller, the dyno everyone is familiar with).

No, actually the Japanese manufacturers were just knowingly lying because they sort of had to.

Why Japan finally got its foot off the brake

 

[DivideBYZero]

now you're just being retarded. dynos will *always* read less than crank HP. the GT500 was rated at 500, TG tested 450, which is about 10% drivetrain loss (give or take).

do you *really* think ford lied about the HP of its top car?

I thought this forum was better than this. Why call me a retard? I've actually fucking dyno'd one of my cars, but sure, start name calling, good one.

Yes of course they always read lower, point out where I said they didnt, *BANGS HEAD AGAINST BRICK WALL*, but they are adjusted for PT losses, fuck, what's so hard to understand here...


And arkaign, come on man, you're splitting hairs and I am certainly NOT trolling you. Corrected or adjusted, whatever word I used was to mean for powertrain losses, I have not once mentioned environmental factors, so why prove the "Six rules for debating on the Internet" right yet again?

What we *may* have here is a difference in Dyno practice in the UK vs the US. Exhibit A:

That's my Dyno plot from my Scooby. 246Hp. Now let me tell you, if that thing was putting that power down at the wheels it would have gone into space. It wasn't. That number is corrected for powertrain losses, as are all Dynos I have every heard of in the UK.

In fact, the number is on there, call them up, ask for Iain Ball the test engineer named on the plot and ask him. :shrug:


EDIT2: I've also actually been in several engine test cells, as shown by exdeath, in my time. I worked for Ricardo Engineering for a while.

 

[Fenixgoon]

I thought this forum was better than this. Why call me a retard? I've actually fucking dyno'd one of my cars, but sure, start name calling, good one.

Yes of course they always read lower, point out where I said they didnt, *BANGS HEAD AGAINST BRICK WALL*, but they are adjusted for PT losses, fuck, what's so hard to understand here...


And arkaign, come on man, you're splitting hairs and I am certainly NOT trolling you. Corrected or adjusted, whatever word I used was to mean for powertrain losses, I have not once mentioned environmental factors, so why prove the "Six rules for debating on the Internet" right yet again?

What we *may* have here is a difference in Dyno practice in the UK vs the US. Exhibit A:

That's my Dyno plot from my Scooby. 246Hp. Now let me tell you, if that thing was putting that power down at the wheels it would have gone into space. It wasn't. That number is corrected for powertrain losses, as are all Dynos I have every heard of in the UK.

In fact, the number is on there, call them up, ask for Iain Ball the test engineer named on the plot and ask him. :shrug:


EDIT2: I've also actually been in several engine test cells, as shown by exdeath, in my time. I worked for Ricardo Engineering for a while.

True, so the TG test could have been reading 10% over. :hmm:

happy? raw dyno charts are not adjusted for power train losses. all people do is take the peak power and divide by 0.9 to 0.8.

take for example these S4 dyno runs from APR (http://www.autoblog.com/2009/10/28/report-evidence-mounting-that-2010-audi-s4-is-underrated/)

even the "SAE corrected" run is still measuring wheel HP and does not take into account drivetrain losses (hence why people suspect the S4 is closer to 400hp)


edit: also, overraction for the lulz. there have been much worse things said to much dumber people on ATG (mjinz et al.).

 

[exdeath]

That's due to a gentleman's agreement not to release cars with more power than a certain amount, rather than to any drivetrain losses.

No, actually the Japanese manufacturers were just knowingly lying because they sort of had to.

Why Japan finally got its foot off the brake

I know this...

Still what you call underrated.

 

[DivideBYZero]

edit: also, overraction for the lulz. there have been much worse things said to much dumber people on ATG (mjinz et al.).

Yeah, sorry mang, I was in a mood. I'm all better now. :awe:

 

[Zap]

Back to Top Gear USA....

Something's been bothering me about the second episode with the Evo in the snow. What tires were they using? The Evo surely comes with Summer performance tires, which would absolutely suck in the snow, yet they basically said "oh look just put the car TC nanny in snow mode and voila!"

 

[PlasmaBomb]

That reminded me of the probable worst moment in TG:UK history (luckily, there are relatively few) :

When they dynoed the classic Mustang and a recent GT500, and complained that there wasn't 500hp to the wheels I'm fairly certain that they knew about drivetrain losses, and that crank hp =! wheel hp. It might have sounded tongue-in-cheek during the episode planning process, but it came across as complete bullshit in the episode, and less-car-savvy folks were probably left with a false impression, when in fact if you dyno pretty much anything, you're not going to see the advertised hp at the wheels (grossly underrated vehicles notwithstanding).

EDIT : Oh yeah, the other one that was blatantly stupid was the drag race between the SRT8 300 and the M5. Because comparing a $40k Chrysler with a $90k BMW makes so much sense.

1) They don't make a huge deal of the power, it's meant to be tongue in cheek. What they do make a big deal about is the lack of IRS, which is overdone in my opinion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReRG_x1s1No

2) Is this the clip you were talking about? That wasn't Top Gear, that was Jeremy Clarkson for his DVD...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8maP4CB1Nk

I don't know where he gets £28k from... looks like it cost £40550.
http://www.autocar.co.uk/CarReviews/FirstDrives/Chrysler-300C-6.1-V8-SRT-8/213476/

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Just watched the second episode.

Cinematography is much improved.
Introduction of the EVO looked good (back drops and noise before the reveal).
The interior car shots aren't bouncing all over the place despite the EVO X running rougher terrain than the Viper last week.
Rutledge did a better job with the Aston, last week he was kinda annoying. Though I didn't like Adams intro for him. I don't like the chrome trimmings on the Aston.
Presenters seemed more settled, although still lacking interplay. Was Adams burnout staged? "Mr Clutch"... just didn't seem to hit the spot.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

I thought the third episode was considerably better than the first two - nice to see they're making some progress . . .

 

[Fenixgoon]

just watched episode 3 - great job, lots of fun. at first people were saying adam was the weakest of the hosts and i disagreed, but now i'm starting to agree.

great to see the hosts developing chemistry.

episode available directly from the history channel!: TG-USA Ep3 @ History Channel

 

[PricklyPete]

I thought the third episode was considerably better than the first two - nice to see they're making some progress . . .

Agreed. I would have liked for the Mustang to make a run around the track with the Stig...but everything else about the 3rd episode was much improved and worth a watch.

 

[punjabiplaya]

I have two complaints, one of them can't really be changed

1. the runtime - the ads make everything feel like it's rushed
2. the chemisty - I know it's lacking because it's new, but it feels like they have sitcom writers who are forcing them to hate each other

 

[Zap]

episode available directly from the history channel!: TG-USA Ep3 @ History Channel

Thanks for the link. BRB.

 

[Aikouka]

Thanks for the link. BRB.

If you're like me and find out that you have some Amazon VoD credit lying around (they toss it out like free candy from a white van!), then you can get it from Amazon in HD...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...SIN=B004FE1PLA

I watched it and the quality was decent, although it seemed movement had a little bit of artifacting.

Overall, it's getting better. The best part was probably with the Caddy on the jump.

The one thing I kind of miss in the hosts is really just... I think the enthusiasm. You know when Clarkson is introducing a guest (for example), it seems so full of energy. I guess it's just what you expect from a presenter... charisma. Maybe they'll get more into it after awhile .

 

[Zap]

Finished watching it a bit ago. Good times! I loved the campfire bit and the Caddy over the jump had me rolling! If they can keep improving like this every episode...

 

[Excelsior]

Finished watching it a bit ago. Good times! I loved the campfire bit and the Caddy over the jump had me rolling! If they can keep improving like this every episode...

While they were drinking the moon shine around the campfire I kept thinking..."I hope they throw some on the fire....."

 

[Kaervak]

Another huge improvement. The audience reactions seem a bit forced. Kinda like there's a big applause sign in the studio somewhere, but otherwise the episode was quite good.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

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