Hey guys, this is the official DQE Speed Academy thread. The Speed Academy is the performance center of DQE. This is where HP (High Performance), SR (Street Racing) and XX (exquisit and extreme) cars, as well as tuning other factories’ cars takes place. I decided to make an extra thread for this because it would have gotten too confusing if i posted all this into one thread.
First of all, i’ll define the shortcuts a little bit.
HP: High performance. A buffed up version of the standard car meant to be faster but still usable every day.
SR: Street Racing. Not so much about everyday usage, this is the ultimate performance upgrade. There will only be a few of these.
XX: exquisit and extreme. This is a performance upgrade for the big luxury cars. The standard luxury cars usually have big, low-end engines, and the Speed Academy will put them on steroids.
Now i’ll post the current line-up of all the HP, SR and XX cars. (The Dragonfly SR won’t be in this line-up because there will be a new one very soon!)
Mantis HP:
This thread will contain more HP/SR/XX cars, and we also accept tuning commissions! So if you’re unhappy with the way your car looks or performs, post it here in this thread and the Speed Academy will do its best to make you happy!
Here’s the Dragonfly HP! It will be powered by the 2.5L I6 which you find in a normal Dragonfly, only it’s turbocharged! And it produces almost 500hp, which makes for pretty good acceleration!
But if that’s not enough for you, then the Dragonfly SR is your car! This has a 3.3L twin-turbocharged V8 which revs to 9000RPM and makes 640hp! And because the rear seats have been removed and replaced with a roll cage, this is lighter than the HP too. Plus, it’s AWD and features a very quick 7 speed double-clutch gearbox. That makes it go from 0-60 in 2.6 seconds and a quarter-mile time of 9.6 seconds! The top speed is limited at 300km/h because this car is more about acceleration than top speed.
Alright, guys. Here’s the AdVance XX! The only luxury van that can do 0-60 in 3.2 seconds and will still use less than 10 litres of fuel per 100km. All these numbers are, of course, made possible by the now turbocharged 6.0 V8 engine. The NA version of it can be found in the normal AdVance.
I know the wing looks pretty ridiculous on a car like this, but if daddy decides he wants to go to the german Autobahn and open the throttle, what are you gonna do, right?
So this has no competitors (yet) and that’s why this is a unique car. It manages to be really fast, very comfortable and spacious, practical, every day usable (thanks to the AWD) and still not too thirsty. Honestly, what more can you ask for in a family car?
Here’s a car that will exclusively be shown in the Speed Academy, the Peregrine. That’s because there is no “normal” version, it is the fastest car DQE will build, a hybrid hypercar. But there’s one problem: there are no electric motors in the game yet. So for now, i designed the platform and the combustion engine.
The way this will work is this: with the combustion engine alone, this car weighs just 900kg thanks to carbon fibre chassis and panels and a very small and light engine. The 4 electric motors (one for each wheel) are supposed to give me 150hp each while weighing 100kg each (that’s what i think they’re gonna weigh). That will put the final car at 1300kg with 975hp, probably accelerating it from 0-60 in less than 2.5 seconds.
The car is obviously AWD. And when you drive on the combustion engine alone, the braking energy = the kinetic energy that is set free when you’re breaking] will be used to charge the batteries. So you can, for instance, drive on a mountain road with only the combustion engine, use the braking energy to charge the batteries by doing this, and then go back to town, turn the combustion engine off and use only electricity.
You can also choose to drive only with electricity, either FWD (using the front 2 batteries while charging the rear ones) or RWD (using the back batteries and charging the front ones).
And of course, you can use the whole system with its full 975hp to go completely mad xD
Today i have something “special” for you.
We all know the Opel Corsa (or Vauxhall Nova for the english speaking world). And as many of you know, “corsa” means “race track” in Italian. But the Corsa/Nova doesn’t have anything to do with the Race track, not even this Opel Corsa OPC (Opel Performance Center) displayed here:
I apologize for not being 100% accurate but it’s the best i could do and i think it’s close enough. Well, the styling is. The performance is all new, and it’s ridiculous. The 450hp comes from the Mantis HP’s 4.0L TT V8. The chassis and panels are now aluminium and it now has AWD and a 7 speed double-clutch gearbox. It’s not quite as fast or economical as the Mantis HP, but it will be cheaper. And a bit more “mainstream”.
with its 3.5L TT V8 producing 500hp it’s already faster than the Mantis HP but of course, it’s nowhere near as easy to drive or as economical. And that’s because it’s not meant to be. It’s a performance car, after all.
As before, this is the ultimate performance hatchback. It’ll out accelerate and out perform (at least on tarmac) rallye cars effortlessly thanks to its new 4.0L TT V8 which developes 750hp.
I’m going to use the 4.2 NA engine, in case you were wondering which i would actually put into it. There are several reasons for that: the 4.0 TT is old and needed a replacement, plus the 4.2 NA is more responsive, just as powerful, cheaper to make, cheaper to run and much much lighter. And it should be more economical too, in my mind. I don’t understand how it isn’t.
The turbocharged engine is more economical because of its lower power. Also, all turbocharged engines need much higher cooling than their NA equivalent.
It’s not the fastest from 0-60, nor is it particularly economical. But that’s not the point, this is a driver’s car. It has ridiculous amounts of torque, allowing you not only to cruise at low RPMs, but also to do massive burnouts when you please. It’ll be a great GT car, too because it will be very well equipped.
You’re probably wondering what this is doing in the performance-dedicated thread. Well, as you may have noticed, it has a new type of name, it’s named after a snake, or in general, a reptile. And that’s because it belongs to a new category of car for me: An Old-looking car with new tech and silly performance.
Despite being equipped with premium interior, advanced safety features, power steering and ABS, this car weighs less than 1000kg. Couple that with 556hp, All Wheel Drive, a 7-speed dual-clutch gearbox and 1.16gs of cornering, and the result is an absolute animal! But a civilized one, just not an economical one but it is reliable.
With its 4.2L NA V8 which makes 450hp, AWD and a 7-speed double-clutch gearbox, this car is able to go from 0-100kph in 3.0 seconds and reach 320km/h! It’ll also get you around most the circuit faster than most of today’s sports cars, including a Ferrari 458, while being more practical, more economical and tamer (as well as cheaper) than the Ferrari.
For about 100.000€, this is pretty much half the price of the Ferrari 458 while still being able to compete with it as well as live with it. An ideal sports car? It’s up to you to decide
Now this car is what i would call one of the most complete hatchbacks money can buy. It’s got 5 seats, a very luxurious interior, advanced safety equipment, AWD, an 8-speed double-clutch gearbox and a 5.0L twin-turbocharged V8. It “only” makes 400hp but the power curve is pretty good:
As you can see, it makes 350+hp from 3700-6500RPM with a peak of 400hp at 5600RPM.
That makes it do 0-100kph in 3.5 seconds despite the pretty big weight of almost 1700kg.
This has all you can ask for in a hatchback, other than a really low price tag. It will cost you around 55.000€, which is 5.000 more than the Audi RS3 but in the RS3 the options list is long whereas the Weta comes with everything as standard. Tell me what you think
On the Weta XX, maybe you could flatten out the torque curve a bit? It looks and performs great in all five categories. From an engineering stand point, it’s an incredible car, but as for my own opinion I think it would make that kind of car that you take to the track, drive to get groceries, floor it on the Autobahn, and park in your garage to protect it from weather.
I’ll be honest, I thought that price of €55,000 was a bit steep at first, but then I looked harder and now I think that car is a bit underpriced. But like I said, maybe work on the torque curve? Or, if you’d like, I can tweak it for you.
This engine isn’t a traditional “HP-style” engine, it’s something similar to the Grizzly XL (in case you’ve seen it), just much smaller. i know the torque curve looks really bad but it has to be that way for several reasons. 1) i wanted a broad power band and as you can see the engine makes 350+hp for almost 3000RPM, and a flat torque curve would mean that the power would constantly climp and then reach its peak eventually. 2) To flatten the torque curve, i would need to use a sharper cam profile and that would spoil the fuel economy. 3) this isn’t a high-revving engine and so low-end torque matters more than high-end power. And even though the torque curve looks pretty bad, you still get 500+Nm from 2200-5700RPM and that’s not too shabby, right?
edit: By the way, i don’t think i ever defined the use of this car. I call it a compact GT car, so it’s quite fast and comfortable like a “normal” GT car, but also very practical due to the compact hatchback body.
