Tuner Wars

[russellw]

Those who read MOTOR (or the thread here) know that they recently conducted a test involving 22 after market tuned cars which was won by a number of mega expensive cars that had been made even more so by the fettling they had received. They had also used their own BFYB formula to award the Evolve VW Polo GT that crown.

I thought it might not be a bad idea to look at two of the criteria they used - dyno power and400m times as a guide to applying some different math and see what we came up with.

Methodology

1. The MOTOR figures for rwkw and 0-400m times have been used.
2. The factory figures for fwkw and 0-400m times from the MOTOR guide page have been used as baseline figures. The fwkw numbers have been multiplied by 0.7 to arrive at an approximate rwkw figure for the factory numbers.
3. The performance based costs have been used - including all engine and driveline modifications but excluding wheels, tyres, brakes and other handling oriented items.
4. Cars that cost more than $110,000 in base form have been eliminated.

Dyno Results

Here we are looking at the cost per rwkw gained as an indication of where the most bang for the $$ involved has come from. Using this criteria, the winner is the Herrod modified G6ET which leads the field with a cost of $51.34 per kw gained.



0-400m Results

Similar math is applied here to establish the cost for each 1/10th second gain given that we know how expensive chasing those extra tenths can be. Again the Herrod modified G6ET proves itself a value proposition with a cost of $398.40 for each 1/10th gained and the remaining order unchanged from the table above.



Overall Value

For this we have used to different sets of criteria (as above) but with the total cost of the car taken into consideration.

The first table looks at the total cost per rwkw where the Herrod XR8 Ute takes the crown with a cost of $192.18 per kw ahead of the Herrod G6ET and Commodore SS-V sedan - testament to the value the base vehicles provide in the first place.



The second table looks at the total cost per 1/10th of a second - here the order is turned around to favour the more expensive base cars with the City Performance Golf R32 (which turned in an 11.99) taking the win ahead of the two BMW 335i's entered.



Braking

Some of the packages provided big dollar brake upgrades and it seemed like a good idea to see how these shaped up. The table below uses an index based on the vehicle factory weight, the braking distance and the cost of the brake package.

As you'd expect it's not very definitive and it tends to favour the lighter cars (where the $ spent can provide a greater gain) but it does highlight the relatively poor performance from the KPM big brake upgrade on the SS-V as it needed 5m more to stop than the similarly equipped VCM SS-V for half the brake cost. Likewise it proves that there is no substitute for light weight and big brakes as the shortest stopping distance went to the 1239 kg Polo which was equipped with 350mm front and rear rotors! That it stopped nearly 8 metres quicker than the worst of this bunch is a scary thought.



Cheers
Russ