Just How fast Does a 944s "Feel?"

[lali]

ORIGINAL: lockup

I found my S2 (in retrospect) to be deceptively quick. I knew my new barge (330D) wouldn't match it in a straight line, but thought with the sports suspension pack the 2001 RWD saloon should at least match the 1991 coupe.

No such luck! The Beemer moves around in an uninspiring way near the limit and I consistently find myself going everywhere 10mph slower than when I was in the S2, which by comparison leaned in to the corners, gripped and slungshot me out with no apparent bother.

Thats wierd, I have got a 330d Sport and its not only quicker across country than my S2 but its also just as quick as my old E28 M5 was. I was a little dissapointed at its lack of urge once you get upto 120-130 mph but hey you cant have everything.

If Im honest my brothers Bora TDI (130) feels a lot quicker than the S2...

 

[sawood12]

It's difficult to compare N/A cars with turbocharged cars based on feel due to the turbo's kick up the backside accelleration. An S2 is often thought to be as quick as a 944 turbo on road, which I can believe, but a 944 turbo feels a hell of alot faster simply due to its on-boost accelleration. I'm pretty sure an S2 is a quicker car than a Bora TDi, and the fact that the BMW 330d has 'dissapointing performance beyond 120mph suggests the car might be geared for a narrower speed range where the S2 is geared for more consistent performance across it's complete speed range. Alot of the guys in the states put S2 gearbox's into 944 turbos - lower diff ratio makes the car accellerate much, much quicker at the expense of top speed which is cut down to around 130-140 mph. Incidentally it also effectively reduces the gearbox to a 4-speed as 1st gear is so low it is practically useless.

 

[Fen]

ORIGINAL: lali

Thats wierd, I have got a 330d Sport and its not only quicker across country than my S2 but its also just as quick as my old E28 M5 was. I was a little dissapointed at its lack of urge once you get upto 120-130 mph but hey you cant have everything.

If Im honest my brothers Bora TDI (130) feels a lot quicker than the S2...

That and my 530d impressions lead me to wonder if it's a slightly ailing 330d that feels slower?

The reason the BMW diesels run out of puff into the 120+ range is because they are still diesels with the relatively low red line that entails and they are still only 5 speed (they don't need to be six as they aren't as peaky as the VAG and Ford etc. 4 cylinder diesels) so it is to do with gearing as you suggest, Scott. They could pull a taller gear than the current 5th quite easily and that would doubtless give them a higher top end, but to be honest I'm quite happy with the performance of mine at any speed I'd be prepared to drive on the road.

 

[colin129]

I used to have a MkII Golf GTi and went to test drive a 944Lux, the difference in performance was such that I decided to keep the GTi, a couple of years later, I test drove an S2 (proir to buying my baby) and the difference was a quantum leap.

If you cane it, it is a quick car, I keep up with apparently faster machinery, but maybe that's got something to do with the way I drive it, meaning that I've had it for 10 years and know what it can do rather than I drive like a nutter. I also understand that there are 'quick ones', and mine is supposed to be quick.

My new diesel is very slow, despite a resounding 92bhp and, apparently, nearly 150lbft of torque. The turbo doesn't start spinning until nearly 3,000rpm and has a very narrow power band meaning it pulls quite well between 75 and 90 in top!! Mind you, 47mpg compensates a little.

Could someone please explain this mith about diesels and torque? Torque is supposed to be a measure of pulling power and as far as I understood, a torquey car will maintain a speed without having to change down a gear but the reality seems to be that when you show any diesel a hill, they start going backwards. Lorries and vans in particular, I know about the weight issue, but I'm not talking about acceleration, but maintaining the same speed.

Give me a large capacity petrol anyday, though obviously fuel consumption is an issue, 28mpg in give and take conditions and over 30mpg on a run ain't bad from a 3litre!!

And, from the ealier post, I still feel special every time I get in my S2, even after nearly 10 years, though now it only gets w/end use, the feeling is even better!!

 

[carlmthompson]

Diesels vs Petrol. Always good for a few opinions!

I have had a few of each (Diesels, petrols and opinions[]).

I've had a 325TDS which when chipped was faster in the real world than my old 328i. This of course was just the "feeling" because of the low down grunt, and the any gear acceleration - I have no doubt in a straight line the 328 would show the Diesel a pair of heels.

I can compare the TDS to the 44T as I had both at the same time. The TDS made the 44 seem slow around town, especially pulling out of junctions and away from the lights. I have no doubt that this was down to gearing. The TDS would do 25MPH in first, the 44 does nearer 40 (or higher?) Again all down to low down torque rather than higher up torque - by the time the 44 is getting started, the TDS is pretty much done. At 70 MPH in top, the TDS would take off like a scalded cat, whereas the 44 requires a change down to 4th or even better 3rd. All down to the torque spread and the gearing - the 44 in the right gear would see off most modern machinery whatever it's tipple!

At the mo, I have two Focus Diesels, and by any stretch their not especially fast cars, but they're not bad up hills, have low down torque which make them feel pretty punchy around town, and compared to a 1.6 petrol Focus I had for a while (which is much faster on paper), they are positively quick. They also return high 50's MPG on the motorway, and still maintain mid 40's around town - show me a comparable power petrol that can do that! The payback is that they're noisy - especially on startup.

Diesels are getting much better - my father has a Focus TDCI, and that is a quick point to point car whatever you might think (250lb ft enough?). Six cylinder diesels are alot smoother and tend to have a V8 rasp once you've got it up to temp. Don't knock em - until cars start running on Hydrogen, they are the future of motoring for anyone doing more than minimal mileage in a world where fuel is nudging a quid a litre!

 

[Fen]

To be fair a 306 is hardly the epitome of diesel development and I'm very surprised to hear it starts to go at 3,000 rpm as most diesels are past their peak by then and only have a few hundred rpm left before the suddenly hit "the wall". Similarly vans are designed with other priorities than accelleration.

A decent diesel uses its torque and it takes a fairly steep incline to see it need to drop a gear. BTW Carl I spent last week with a Mundano TDCi on a 56 plate that apparently had 155bhp according to the young lad running the Enterprise depot it came from. It was very peaky and not quick. It felt OK round town, but given that you were in third by 35mph that sort of took the shine off it. It seminded me a lot of the Ibiza TDI I had; lots of gears, but still not enough to always have the engine in the sweet spot at any speed and you are constantly stirring the stick around the 'box to make progress at any speed - wich can't then be done smoothly.

It will be a joy to be back in the hearse this week with it's decent power band so that only 5 gears are plenty (4 unless it's required to really pick up its skirts from a standstill) rather than 6 being inadequate. The downside is I "only" get 37mpg out of it where the Mundano got 42, but it is a tonne and a half plus of estate car with an auto 'box and lots of leather and electonics to lug around so I don't think it's doing too badly.

 

[carlmthompson]

ORIGINAL: Fen

BTW Carl I spent last week with a Mundano TDCi on a 56 plate that apparently had 155bhp according to the young lad running the Enterprise depot it came from. It was very peaky and not quick. It felt OK round town, but given that you were in third by 35mph that sort of took the shine off it. It seminded me a lot of the Ibiza TDI I had; lots of gears, but still not enough to always have the engine in the sweet spot at any speed and you are constantly stirring the stick around the 'box to make progress at any speed - wich can't then be done smoothly.

It will be a joy to be back in the hearse this week with it's decent power band so that only 5 gears are plenty (4 unless it's required to really pick up its skirts from a standstill) rather than 6 being inadequate. The downside is I "only" get 37mpg out of it where the Mundano got 42, but it is a tonne and a half plus of estate car with an auto 'box and lots of leather and electonics to lug around so I don't think it's doing too badly.

Funny that, but if you take a look at the stats for some of the smaller engined Diesels with "big" power, they have less torque than the lower models, or the same torque, but peaking further up the rev range. VW's are a good example of this. I guess in trying to give the engine BHP, the usability, and therefore the usable rev range seem to be sacrificed.

As you know I was thinking of a 530d at some point, but after living with the estate, I'm thinking of a Mundano TDCI 130. Mainly 'cause it'll return around 10 mpg more than the 530d, be cheaper to buy (and newer), and in Ghia X trim, will have the toys without having to search for them.

It's funny how when you get older, more than just the 0-60 becomes important when buying a car! At the end of the day, the best car for me as a daily drive is the one that does the job of 70 on the motorway without costing me a fortune!

 

[Fen]

"Mine" was a Ghia X. I couldn't live with the awful steering wheel that was leather (effect) around quarter to three and very shiny plastic wood around the rest of the rim. Talk about a contrast in textures! Plus the plastic just gets greasy from hands.

Also the cruise control was very much just around the speed set rather than the bang-on I'm used to and the switchgear was very cheap and nasty. I'd buy a manual 530d if I were you - they supposedly do 15%+ more mpg than the autos so you're not so far behind the Ford, plus they are cheaper as they are manual.

 

[sawood12]

ORIGINAL: colin129

Could someone please explain this mith about diesels and torque? Torque is supposed to be a measure of pulling power and as far as I understood, a torquey car will maintain a speed without having to change down a gear but the reality seems to be that when you show any diesel a hill, they start going backwards. Lorries and vans in particular, I know about the weight issue, but I'm not talking about acceleration, but maintaining the same speed.

The secret to Diesels high torque is the long stroke which is needed to compress the fuel and generate the heat needed to combust the fuel - lower octane, lower knock resistance therefore no spark needed for combustion. This is why previous generations of diesels had that pinking / rattly sound to them. The longer stroke means the radius of the crank shaft arms are longer therefore more mechanical leverage - less powerful explosion acting on a longer lever arm to generate more torque. This all means diesels can push higher gears than petrol engines hence more torque and better fuel consumption. However due to the higher compression ratio the engines need to be much stronger than petrol engines therefore more weight. This all has an adverse effect on things like brake pad/disc life, tyre life in front wheel drive cars, etc.

Therefore it is no myth that diesels produce more torque. However explaining what torque is is more dificult. I always refer back to my cycling days. 1st gear, which is the one where you pedal like the road runner but barely go fast enough to stay upright, is the high torque gear. You go slow but you can climb the steepest incline. It's the sheer mechanical twisting force you get at the wheel. When you put your foot down and accellarate it's torque you are feeling not power.

 

[colin129]

ORIGINAL: sawood12



Therefore it is no myth that diesels produce more torque. However explaining what torque is is more dificult. I always refer back to my cycling days. 1st gear, which is the one where you pedal like the road runner but barely go fast enough to stay upright, is the high torque gear. You go slow but you can climb the steepest incline. It's the sheer mechanical twisting force you get at the wheel. When you put your foot down and accellarate it's torque you are feeling not power.

Thanks for that, its all very interesting, but nothing much happens when I put my foot down in the Pug, except between 2800 and 3400, which isn't much of a power band. I was hoping for a bit more low down torque from a diesel really.

The 944S2, 16valve don't forget and therefore supposed to be peaky, will pull stongly in top all the way from 30 upto a hundred and naughty, that's what I call torque.

Of course I know its not fair comparing 92bhp with 211bhp, but I'm yet to be convinced by the diesel engine. One day I'll get to try a modern diesel and be able to make a more informed opinion.

 

[Fen]

The Pug diesel was supposed to be a good engine when it was launched. That was mid 90's though, so it was designed in the early 90's. Diesel engine development is moving much, much, much faster than petrol engine development. I had a the VAG PD 130 engine in my Ibiza, which was at the time the pinnacle of 4 cylinder diesels - 4 years ago. Now the same engine is considered their poorer offering and a friend who has an A4 with the replacement 2.0 engine nd previously had the same 1.9 I had in an A4 says they are like night and day.

My hearse is also 2002 and has what was then the second generation of the 2.9 straight 6 BMW diesel in its ultimate spec. Now the ultimate is a twin turbo unit based on the same core engine producing shedloads more power and torque (used in the x35d models) and there has been a couple of other states of tune that moved on from mine in the intervening period also.

The Pug itself is the old engine also. My father-in-law has a '96 306 also and it's a Dturbo. Later in the life of the 306 the diesel became the HDI which was supposedly like night and day (I used to have a 306GTI6 and spent time on Pug forums). Current Pugs still use HDI engines, but I bet they have moved on since the one the 306 had.

Overall then a 10 year old diesel engine is as comparable to current ones as possibly a 70's petrol engine and back then they typically ran carbs, points, pushrods etc.

 

[944Turbo]

Comparing a 1.9 diesel and a 3litre petrol is hardly fair though an older 3 litre diesel would probably feel torquier than the 1.9, I have a 4.2l patrol and it is one of the last, they went to a 2.8 turbo after that (96ish) and lots of people complained probably because the delivery changed. There are people who turbocharge the 4.2 though. Interestingly the petrol engine is the same just with a different head, that produces lots of torque too but is very rare in the UK as it consumes vast quantities of fuel.
Tony

 

[Fen]

I didn't realise your Patrol was a diesel; I knew it was 4.2 with no turbo so assumed it was petrol.

We ran short wheelbase 4.2 petrol Patrols in Saudi during the early 90's. They did 320km or so to a full tank, but I don't remember the tank capacity. I think they cost about 40 Riyals to fill, that being about £7 at the time and fuel costing 16p/litre or so, so they may have had 45 litre tanks. That's roughly 200 miles on 10 gallons which is probably about right. The single LWB we had had a bigger tank, but it was much less fun to drive. For fun the 4.0 litre Cherokee with manual gearbox that we often got as a courtesy car was best, but the 5.7 litre F350 crew-cab pickup (with chest-high bonnet!) was pretty good, too.

 

[944Turbo]

Mine has a standard 95 litre tank and will do 475 miles but you have to drive it slowwwwwly to eek that out drive it hard it drops into the high teens I thought the petrols were in the 9-15mpg range.
My old man has a diesel high top LWB in Botswana that has the standard 95l plus a 100l tank in the boot, still costs a lot less to fill it up there, than mine here.
Before he owned it it drove through a heard of cows killing 2, it has/had fairly substanial bull bars which were mangled but it only put a small buckle in one front chassis leg, otherwise you wouldn't know.
Tony

 

[Fen]

I may be wrong about the cost of filling the ones we had. I know they did about 320km to a tank though as one drive we did regularly was circa 600km and the only filling station anywhere near the middle of it was about 306km in.

I hit a water tanker in one which made quite a mess of it, but the bottom of the tank was level with the top of the grill hence it peeled the bonnet back and hit the A-pillars. I still have a scar on my hand from pulling it out from under the windscreen when it landed on the dashboard and steering wheel.

 

[944Turbo]

ouch![][]

 

[Guest]

Well, it turns out I've been a bit hard on my 330d. For a start the pressure was low on the offside front, which didn't help matters. Additionally, those fiendishly clever teutonic types have conspired to build a speedo that works, so the speed shown in the bimmer correlates exactly to that shown on the satnav. The S2 was about 10% optimistic, which means that I'm now going faster than I'm used to at a given indicated speed.

So there's not that much in it. I would still say that the S2 was a finer handling car when I approached my limit. Small adjustments to the throttle would allow lines to be tightened at any point through a turn. I find the bimmer to be a touch understeery, possibly nose heavy?

Note also that my 330d is the 184bhp version, so it's underpowered compared to the S2

 

[944Turbo]

what about the torque?

 

[Guest]

944S2 is 211/207 (bhp/lbft) in to 1310kg
330d is 184/287 in to 1595kg

Per tonne gives,

944S2 161 / 158
330d 115 / 179

Due to the lower reving nature of the 330d, it will be geared higher to compensate, affecting torque at the wheels. Top speeds / RPM are somthing like,

944S2 149 / 6500
330d 141 / 4400

giving RPM/100mph of,

944S2 4360
330d 3120

4360/3120 = 1.4

<somebody check this "science" please>
which implies the 944S2 is geared 1.4x lower than the 330d. So if I assumed the gears were equivalently spaced, I should divide the 330d torque/tonne figure above by 1.4 to get equivalent torque/tonne at the wheels:

Normalised torque/tonne
944S2 158
330d 128
</somebody check this "science" please>

Ipso facto my 330d has less torque at the wheels per tonne in equivalent gears than my much cherished and sadly missed 944S2. Yay for the porker.

Howsat?

 

[Fen]

My analysis of your figures tells me the 330d needs to be chipped. You know it makes sense (225bhp / 365lb.ft peak or thereabouts).