This here is a discerning customer who isn’t holding back on his opinions! I like and am more than a little relieved that I wasn’t in the firing line lol
seems i forget to renamed my engine 
well thats seems im out from the big list then
Looks like I will get a top-17 finish (at worst) after all… I fixed my car just in time.
I think the Deneb RE’s mediocre fuel economy will be its weak spot… it’s close to 18mpg
At least i made it look nice 
1 Like
#More Cuts
December 2, 2012 - It’s another day and I need to figure out how else I can thin out the herd of cars that I will be looking at to buy. I always preferred a car to have an excellent power plant. You also cannot have a good muscle car without a big beefy V8. However there are some V12s in the field too. Looks like I’m going to have to consider engine reliability and power outputs to make this a little more manageable.
##Round 3
@Der_Bayer, Hammercat Vizor 6
This car cleared the looks stage no questions asked. I didn’t even look at it twice. That’s probably the only reason it made the first cut. Unfortunately, the Hammercat is only powered by a 333 HP Inline 6. That was disappointing. This car was clearly designed to be a sporty little coupe. I’m sure that the car gripped the road well and did it with little frill. This car had the appearance of a roadster that was all about feel and control and less about power. There is nothing wrong with that and I deeply appreciate a car that is all about the feel. However, I want a car that will pivot when I stab the throttle in a curve. I prefer having to feather the throttle as I manage a stupid amount of torque I have on tap from an excessive motor. This car just will not be able to give me that. I’m sure it will appeal to other markets.
@CamKerman, Senia Rocket Mk. 9
I wanted this car to perform well. It looked absolutely sharp and it had a 649 HP V8 powering a RWD sedan. Someone knew the kind of thing I was looking for in a car. However, I was a little concerned about squeezing 649 HP out of a 6L V8. It’s a relatively small displacement for so much power without a power adder. I did some research on the engine and it turns out that the block and top end are all pretty well designed. It turns out that the engine’s weakness are the steel connecting rods. The flatplane crank opens up the window to spin the motor really fast, but the connecting rods just do not have what it takes to endure sustained outputs of 600 HP. That’s a shame, especially considering the power all comes at the end of the rev range. Some titanium connecting rods would have given greater endurance and probably could have resulted in a few hundred more RPMs.
@lordvader1, Hercules
This car just suffered from trying to do too much with standard equipment. This car absolutely had the looks of a muscle car (although it screamed Chevy Camaro to a Ford guy like me), but the engine components just couldn’t cash the check the stat sheet was writing. From my reviews, it seems like there was no one weakness in the motor. In fact, it was amazingly tuned to the point of having a flat torque curve without the assistance of sustained boost through a turbo. However, the engineers didn’t invest any money on making sure there were high end components for a high end power output. It’s a shame considering the sticker price was $24,860. I would have gladly paid $30k for better quality. I don’t care about dyno sheets. Those are just numbers. I care about being able to drop the hammer, make use of plenty of power, and not worrying about whether I’m taking significant lifespan out of my engine every time I get over 4000 RPM. I cannot say that about this car, and thus, I cannot justify buying it.
@findRED19, Barracuda FSX-R
I really liked the FSX-R. It was old school muscle. It was promising to see such a clean vehicle from 1970. I had a few issues with the backstory. I don’t know that the mileage is actually 36,000 and not 136,000 as old school odometers were pesky and sometimes only had 5 digits as this vehicle does. I’m also very concerned about the vehicle’s road racing history. I don’t know how much torture that 455 CI V8 has had to deal with. I also am concerned with just how much work this car has had done to it over the years. It’s far from original and it doesn’t have the sentimental value to me as I’m sure it does to the prior owner. I can’t bring myself to spend a good deal of money on a car that has been modified, restored, and tweaked over the years. The car also just inherently suffers from being an older vehicle. With 455 CI, I would hope to see north of 400 HP. I certainly could think of ways to eek out more than the 382 HP the factory dyno sheet shows. With the car having already been modified extensively, I may have been more inclined to buy if this was an old body that had a newly rebuilt motor dropped into it.
###12 cars down, 13 to go.
Writing this during the Ford GT’s return to the 24 Hours of Le Mans is proving to be extremely difficult…
5 Likes
@KLinardo lol wut
engine reliability 63.4
average reliability 66.5
lets scale this to 100.000 kilometers
every 63.400 kilometers something needs to be replaced/serviced for the engine
every 66.500 kilometers something needs to be replaced/serviced for the other parts
50 driveability so its still tameable unlike a mustang that hits a crowd
49.8 sportiness, tameable but still sporty
plus a almost 50/50 weight distrubution, for lovely snow drifts
As to reliability, you were less reliable than the remaining cars in the field. I’m not saying that it was bad quality, I’m saying that the rest of the field was more reliable and offered comparable power.
Your stats are commendable, I’m sure, but this challenge was advertised as subjective from the start. Part of the challenge is getting me into your showroom. You failed to do that in this case.
Mustangs are completely tameable. It’s the drivers, not the design that causes issues. Pull my driving record and you’ll find that I don’t have that issue. Thanks for venting your frustration.
2 Likes
Looks like I’ve made the top 13. At least I’m within my lucky number.
Great to see that my ambitious entry is still in contention.
Cutting entries in stages with this many entries adds extra suspense to the results. I foresee this catching on in future.
It looks like paying particular attention to the Muscle Car template is paying off so far.
EDIT: My reactions so far to the cuts:
With this I actually breathed a sigh of relief. The Hammercat looked really good. But when I realised what powertrain it had, it certainly seemed more Euro than 'murican.
First reaction: oh dear, my engine is the same size and puts out nearly as much. I do believe I also used steel connecting rods, but was my redline tuned more conservatively? I definitely didn’t push it so hard as to start causing serious issues and kept the reliability of about 75 if I remember correctly.
Wow, the feels pitch backfired spectacularly 
@koolkei Don’t you find the wheels in that body look really small?
2 Likes
the ragrets… just 1 click away to my car fulfilling the safety rule…
let’s see how i do if i did pass the test.
Track tab please?
bugger I knew i should have put a scoop on it I just was not happy with the look with a bulge. But my car was really just a factory drag car with some bells and whistles
it’s a supercar not a track monster. it has luxury everything inside. not premium, luxury interiors @$34980
just for fun i made a ‘race ready’ version
@strop yes. yes i do. but i just can’t fit big enough wheels without significant stats drop
Makes sense. The only way to have enough traction with that much horsepower is to add lots of weight. My car beats yours to 60mph, although yours pulls ahead in the quarter after your wheels grip up. I’m still faster around the track, despite having 300 fewer horsepower 
@koolkei Yeah I agree, it’s one reason I baulked at using the body. I wish there were a way for wheel arches to be filled in for smaller wheels but that’s pretty impossible as it stands, and fundamentally too.
Also I’m in @phale’s boat, car with 200hp less, faster to 100 but slightly slower to the quarter, and faster around the track (though I notice, not by very much! Sticking with all steel kept me a good 300kg heavier than if I went all Al).
I had to boot it up and look lol. This car was too heavy for me to seriously attempt going for track times, but on that note I did want to tune it to achieve its potential, as it is a real driver’s car.
Airfield: 1:16.65
Green Hell: 7:44.84
Not the fastest around the track, but also, I bet, far from the slowest. It does its best to make use of a good 340bhp/metric ton.
Geez, those cars are a bit on the quick side. I thought I was doing well with my 1:20.56 around Airfield and 8:04.68 around Green Hell. Granted, I do have 5 seats in my car, but wow, I’m wondering if I made the right choice.
Well, @KLinardo did say he’d be most convinced by a sports sedan done right. So I’m assuming that those of us who went coupe will be facing a slight uphill battle.
I was able to make a decent car with 2 + 2 configuration but I thought the back seats would be a total joke, so decided against it. I couldn’t find a sedan body that didn’t have a weakness for what I was aiming for.
Also, @phale, your car has the same body but is about 240kg lighter than mine. It’s also cheaper. Did you use standard trim and aluminium in your body somewhere?