Good looking car, although it’s definitely not my type of machine.
That said… Here’s some criticism.
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You have enough torque and power-band to drop off some of those gears - could you imagine the hell of driving an 8-speed manual? I’ve driven 9/10 speeds, and they aren’t fun in traffic or anywhere besides the open road - I bet you could gain a lot of drivability, sportiness, and comfort by dropping some of those gears off, maybe a 6-speed tops, or going with an auto, or sequential if you want to keep it a “manual.” Completely too many gears to row through for a car like this - a FOUR SPEED would be a bad choice, but it would probably still score higher, and be more fun to drive, but I’d run a SIX speed myself, probably with a double overdrive.
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Your DR and SP numbers for a car of this era are just way too low - I could understand a DR that low, if it was a real sporty ride, but it just isn’t - What are your ratios like? What’s your wheel spin like? What diff are you running? My guess is you shortened the gears so much and really shot this thing in the foot - 125 mph top speed? Is this an '02 Kia with a misfire? Do you have eight gears with 8th direct??? Not even direct, probably, more likely it’s underdriven to hell. 34ish MPG is just okay, but I’d expect A LOT better from an engine like that, especially with eight gears to go through. Again, wheel spin, my bet is you’re leaving a lot of rubber on the ground - Are you using traction control?
-I do like the engine - Like I said, it’s got a great power-band and torque rating, although from a 2.5, you might be able to try to get it to spool a little earlier. Maybe, maybe not, I don’t know the build. The eco numbers and emissions are wonderful, though. I’ll have to go back and check some builds myself, but 400lbs seems pretty heavy for a motor like this, however, but maybe I’m just not used to building big four cylinders with turbos. I’m going off topic here, but I’d probably make the motor itself physically smaller, run premium fuel since this seems to be a “premium car,” push the static compression ratio up a bit, and try to get it to spool earlier. My motor would also have less peak power, 260HP is a lot for a front drive car, that’s like Focus ST territory - not undoable, but a lot. Who knows though, maybe my motor would suck in comparison - I like to make a few motors for a car before I settle on what I want for “production.”
TL;DR - Throw away that transmission, and build a better one - you could increase basically every stat with a new trans. Faster quarters, faster to sixty, and a higher top speed, better driveability and sportiness and mpg, along with less weight and cost - it’s a real no brainer. Not sure what your lap times and cornering looks like, but I bet some wider tires would help a lot, too. Really like the motor, solid plant right there, beautiful torque curve, and the car looks like a modern car, very new Dodge Dart. Make some changes, and that could be a super good car. Consider an AWD trim.
My two cents, take it or leave it.
As it stands, you have a car that would be roughly in the 28K-35K price range, and I sure as hell wouldn’t buy it at that, probably not even if I could get it for cost.
EDIT: And oh, god, the braking, you really, REALLY, need to shorten that up, by a lot, aim for around 100 feet or so, one 125 ft. max, I’d say. Again, wider tires will help a lot on that one. You are running ABS, right?
EDIT 2: Holy shit, I just saw your exhaust piping… No. NO. Make that smaller. Single 2.5, maybe 2.75 MAX. I’d rather run dual 1.75s or something like that.
EDIT 3: Oops, misread your HP as 260 instead of the 223 where it is. My bad, ignore those sentences there. 223 is still a bit of power, but on the much better side of “doable.”
