Be Excellent To Each Other

Those Ferraris are shit too. Especially the Punto

Some skunkworked Nissan with a body kit on it?

Yeah whatevs boys.
We'll certainly have good laugh at Porsche hospitality at Le Mans this year now.

Nismo and Nissan aren't the same thing. Nismo are a race-spec modding firm, like Abarth.

If you show a real motorsport fan this thread they'll certainly laugh, that's for sure.

I like the way we can get into an argument about absolutely anything.

Next stop, Mimi's knitting thread!

What's the shittest stitch that isn't even a real stitch, eh?

Farrow rib can fuck off.

I don't know anything about knitting though - I know a fair bit about endurance racing and motorsport in general, which is why I felt I had to interject.

Wait, I can knit but not purl. I don't even know how to purl.

Yeah I know, "fucking obtuse" doesn't even begin to cover it.
No-one in their right mind, out here in the real world away from forums, would claim a Nismo Note had even the slightest pedigree or cachet compared to an M-car, but the usual pedantry, nitpicking bollocks brigade are out in full strength once again. Fuck, these people must be bored.

Just PM me when you get the M135i lol; I won't be making endlessly snarky comments about how shit it is.

Stitch that!

The M135i is not an "M" car. Compared to, say, an M3 it has very little to do with BMW's M division.

Similarly, the NISMO Note isn't really a "NISMO" car.

So again, what's the difference? They're both essentially something trying to pretend to be something they're not.

Why turn your nose up at the Japs doing something, but lap it up when the Germans do it?

I'm not being pedantic for the sake of it, I genuinely don't understand why - as a petrolhead - you would seemingly blindly write off an entire set of cars for little reason other than the badge on the front. I thought much the same about your Skoda comments earlier in the thread (by all accounts, the Skoda Octavia vRS is a fucking stonkingly good car for petrolheads)

I can understand the dislike for electric cars (even if I don't agree with it) but I just really don't get this.

//edit: Also, I'm not saying that the Nismo Note has pedigree or cachet (just as I don't think the M135i has) - but from the sounds of it, even if it was a brilliant drive you wouldn't give a shit because it's a tarted-up econobox. That viewpoint is what I'm taking issue with. I guess it's the same as the Kia stuff earlier in the thread. The Mazda MX-5 was famously built as cheaply as possible, penny-pinching in every possible way but it didn't stop that becoming one of the most well regarded cars of it's class (even the later models would start terminally rusting within a matter of years) - would you turn your nose up at one of those?

You asked me what's the difference, image-wise, between the NISMO Note (compared to the standard one) and the M135i compared to a standard 120i - and I told you. That the M135i isn't a "true" M car (as you repeatedly keep emphasising for some reason) therefore isn't even relevant to the question that you yourself wanted answering.

As for your other comments, I take cars on their own merits. The Skoda vRS is a VW parts bin special if ever there was, complete with frontidrive Golf platform and ubiquitous, boggo 2-litre four. I'm sure it's perfectly brisk, worthy transport, but if that your definition of "a fucking stonkingly good car for petrolheads" (really?? A VW Golf estate clone?), then there's the problem right there. The M135i is *streets* ahead in terms of engine, handling, performance, badge, image, but more importantly rear drive and a clever M-diff.

Which makes sense, as no-one has said it on the forum, either.


We're knackered trying to chase after the constantly-shifting goalposts.

Good.

No, you told me what the physical differences were. What you haven't told me is why you're OK with BMW making a tarted up version of one of their econoboxes, but not Nissan.


See above.


By that logic, the M135i is a BMW parts bin special. The engine in the M135i is used in just as many BMW models as the engine in the vRS in VAG models.

I'll always go for RWD over FWD, so no arguments there, but if FWD is such a sin why do you sing the praises of the Mk2 Focus RS?

The "clever M-diff" is neither here nor there by the way - it was (still is, maybe, not sure) an optional extra - just as it is on the vRS. Same manufacturer too - a Quaife LSD, with again very little input from M division.

//edit: Actually, I'm mistaken - the optional LSD for the M135i isn't a Quaife (although there's a 3rd party Quaife available) - but general consensus is that the M Performance diff sucks balls compared to the Quaife one, so actually the vRS probably beats it there.

Quaife make LSDs that Australian 4x4 folk swear by.

...

I just thought I'd mention that. I prefer ARB myself.

Sorry, got better things to do. I’ve answered the question you posed and cared very little about it then, and even less now. Whatever the tiresome agenda is here, I'm not interested. You go on thinking front drive VRs Golf clones are petrolhead nirvana (lulz), and I’ll carry on admiring “not real M cars” like the M135i. Cool.

That Mk1 Micra though, eh lads? Phwoar!

You probably have answered the question, actually. Literally everyone else in this thread is probably too stupid so see it.

Sneaky-ass Zardoz.

Helen is not wrong about the epace, it bounces all over the shop, and not in the good way my mate's m140i did on the same road when he let me have a go for a back to back at lunch.

Also either the transmission programming is shocking or the ingenium petrol is a turd. Or both - it does very little until you build up to about half throttle then it drops about 40 gears. If you plant it drops more and you get to watch it slowly wind up to 300 rpm below the redline to get into boost. Then it starts moving (and a shitty exhaust note plays out of a speaker by your right elbow). This is in Dynamic with the trans in sport.

Also my left knee keeps banging against a piece of sharp rubbish plastic that squeaks after 1500 miles.

And it feels massive on the road but a bit cramped inside.

It is a bad car, which I did not expect at all.

I'm having an argument with myself about whether or not this new habit of playing engine noises in the cab with the speakers is a bad thing if it's done well (which it's clearly not here, but anyway).

The auto stop start is better than the skoda one, however.

Back to gripes: loads of tyre and cabin noise (with small wheels so a massive profile) and it jolts whenever it shifts up or down, even trundling around in comfort or eco. And the fuel economy is awful.

Probably don't buy it, mate.

Who do you think I am, Hearthly?

If it's literally simulating the exhaust noise, it can get to fuck.

If, like some cars, it somehow magically pipes the actual exhaust noise into the cabin, I don't mind that so much.

*whistles*

That was pretty much my first thought too, but the more I think about it, the more I think it isn't such A Bad Thing.

As the owner of what I'm pretty much positive is the noisiest car here, I know for sure that making a car sound fucking brutal isn't hard - just put the bare minimum of exhaust in as straight a line as possible, and the job is done. That's also pretty much all you need to do to get the most power out of the engine too (as far as exhausts are concerned) - just let the gas out with as little in the way as possible.

However, I suspect not a single road-going production car exists that uses this philosophy - they're tuned to hit the perfect balance that produces the right noise (for starters it has to be legal) - at the expense of performance.

If you need that noise to be outside the car, then you're basically saying "look at me, my car is loud" - no matter if it helps the car go fast or not. If the noise is inside the car, then you're saying "fuck yeah vroom vroom", and it shouldn't matter that it's not "real" - especially when the best real noise you could get is to cut the exhaust off anyway - all exhaust notes are faked at that level.

Also, the car doesn't annoy literally everyone you drive past, or want you to hide in the footwell if you overtake a hearse. Um, for example.

On the other hand, as we know, loud pipes save lives.

State of this. Complete mince.
Think about it. If all one had to do was fit "the bare minimum of exhaust in as straight a line as possible" to maximise engine power, well, the likes of Janspeed et al have been selling snake oil for 50-dd years (lol). Go look up "exhaust scavenging". When your exhaust starts blowing on your Focus/Mondeo, and hence there's very little in the way of flow restriction and it's as noisy as fuck, do you find the performance suddenly skyrockets or actually is shit?

Man alive, and you chastise me for daring to have an *opinion* about something you just don't happen to like?



You're right there pal.



Now on to the more subjective elements of your post. I like to listen to a thoroughbred flat six or unbridled V8 with taps fully opened regardless of whether anyone else is there - inside or out - or not. For me and people like me, it's about authenticity, though I doubt you would understand.

For this reason, people like me are never going to be satisfied with fake noise, inside or out. There's also the likelihood that, if we're *really* being honest, we like the idea that it pisses the killjoys off, too.

Well this thread has turned into a whole load of unpleasant twattishness.

Let me know when people are back to being civil.

Think it petered out ages ago. But you can try to stoke it up again if you like.

Eh?

Psssst... he's calling you a dick!

Fuck you, Zoodberg! You're not even a real doctor!

I wish I had enough money to understand.

Come stand under a gazebo near the Croydon one way system and quaff Lambrini with other likeminded fellows. We can all bray obnoxiously at people driving anything less than a Fiesta Zetec-S

Then you'll understand

*starts saving furiously*

I'll have to just make do with lording it over all the whippet drawn bathtubs I overtake down the cobbles.

Opinion is very much divided on the subject, but all of the testing I've seen done shows that the correct straight through exhaust maximises engine power - particularly on turbocharged cars.

Exhaust scavenging can be a problem, but the idea with a straight through pipe (as far as I know at least) is that each engine (possibly down to each individually manufactured engine!) has an optimal bore diameter and exhaust length to maximise power, and if you fit a pipe to that spec. on the car you'll get the most out of it, with no backpressure or exhaust scavenging.

Of course, such pipes are as loud as hell itself so they're only ever really done on cars that will never see a public road.


We agree on this, at least

The general impression I get with JLR products is that it's best to avoid early iterations of their products, it's almost as if they expect the public to beta test their cars. There's a revised version due out later this year which has the active ride, which is expected to rectify the overly damped ride.

Are JLR still anything to do with Ford? Just had a look at the E-Pace interior and it's very reminiscent of the current Ford Mustang.

No, they belong to TATA, the company that belongs to Rajan Tata, who is largely a steel magnate, but obviously owns lots of other companies.

"Opinion is very much divided"

Man, you don't give up do you? This post wasn't directed at you - I had enough of you with yesterday's endless, nitpicking bollocks about Nizmo Notes or whatever to last a lifetime. Way to wreck what was a lighthearted, fun discussion into yet another ill-tempered Beex snarkfest (you guys do this *so* well), continuing on with the "gags" this morning. Watch me care!

Briefly - because I know you must have the last word and I have grownup stuff to attend to - it is not, of course, the "straight through pipe" that is the issue, but this comment, emphasis added for your ease of reference:



Note, as I have said, it is categorically not the case that to get the most power out of a (four stroke) engine you need "as little in the way as possible" for the reasons I describe and the example I gave. Try disconnecting your primary and secondary exhaust silencers/downpipe and run the engine directly off the manifold - no resistance, short pipes, awful performance.

Now if you'll excuse me etc.

All magnates work with steel, don't they?

Stuff like top fuel dragsters though, they literally just have some pipes sticking up about a foot to shoot the flames and exhaust into the air. Isn't it just that most engines are designed to run with exhausts so in order to get the most power without one you would need to do other modifications? So in most cases just taking the exhaust off will decrease performance.

That's true Mark, yes, but crucially the pipes still are relatively small bore. It's not a case of just shoving drainpipes onto the exhaust for minimal resistance.

What, for scavenging? You only really need a downpipe for that to work if the engine is set up.

myp. myp.

MYYYYYYYYYPPPPP.

MGS really did jump the shark after Kojima left.