Seems old C&D didn't like our C43 much but who cares. Still some great reading!

 

Our cars are fastest 0-100mph @ 14.9! And We run the same 1/4 mile time as a manual M3 US spec, that should shut up some of the E36 guys that claim the e36 manual will pull on our cars.

 

Back then C&D had a massive errection over anything that had a propeller on the hood.....Must be all that advertising $$$$ that BMW dumped on them over the years.

Oh, and Audi is disposable garbage. Yes, I said it.

rjp

 

Yeah, I wish C/D would redo this article today with used version of all four of these cars! HAHA It would take them months to find a SAAB/S4 that would even run long enough to put through this test again. I cant find a viggen for sale anywhere.

 

The August 1998 Motor Trend had the M3 0-60 @ 5.5 C43 @ 5.8, 1/4 mile M3 14.0/98.6 C43 14.4 /99

June 1998 Road & Track M3 0-60 @ 5.6 C43 @ 5.9 Lexus GS400 @ 6.1

Keep in mind the C43 was about $15K more then the M3.

Most important is that the M3 and C43 both have about the same trap speed...higher C43 ET maybe because the M3 launches faster

 

The M3 is always tested as a manual, that why its getting a better 0-60 time. The C43 has always had problems getting out of the gate quickly. The M3 still cant match the C43 0-100 where the C43's V8 really shows off. I wonder how MT got a 14.4 in the 1/4 mile with the exact same trap speed as C/D's 1/4, where they only ran a 14.6....

 

This is a R/T article of the M3 vs C36 and the M3 didn't run quite as well this time around. Also, C36 is slower in ever way than the times R/T recorded for the C43.

 

You just gotta know where to look to find Viggens for sale!

http://www.saabnet.com/tsn/class/9-3.html

I remember the very bad press that followed the Viggen when it first came out – torque steer was the main complaint. The Saab tuners did come out with some fixes, if I remember right there were braces added to the steering rack mount points. Lots of power to be had from the motor, easy to tune. The car didn’t come with an LSD to begin with, but probably should have. LSD is available though, and lots of them have been added to cars. I think the funniest comment about the Viggen I read was in evo magazine – pros: very fast in a straight line; cons: rarely goes in a straight line. The chassis itself was a development of a late ‘80s Opel/Vauxhall design, so it was already dated by the time the Viggen came to the market. Things kinda went downhill for Saab from there…only turning around with the new 9-5, although I still have trouble with that car’s looks.

The other memory I have of that era was reading about the S4’s 250hp stock, and thinking that was an ungodly amount of power to have in a sedan. This was in my Saab tuning days as a university student and trying to eke out every last drop of power from that car’s original 160hp. I had no idea what a C43 was until years later. Now you have Maximas pushing out almost 300hp. Ah, those were the beginnings of the horsepower wars, and why we have near on 500hp in sport sedans now!

 

I never have understood why the cult like following with Saab? Every single one ive ever driven, I could think of another car in same price range that was better built and cheaper to maintain. I guess everyone has their own thing.

 

Well, as a (former) member of that cult, I'd say the main attraction of driving Saabs was the thoughtful, but perhaps slightly odd, engineering. I did all of my own maintenance and work on my old 900. There was tons of room to work in the engine bay, which can't be said for a lot of other marques. I could change a clutch in about 45 minutes. Try that in any other car. The engine is mounted 'backwards', so that the accessories are near the firewall and the clutch at the front of the car by the rad. The trans sits underneath the engine. The trans case incorporates the engine sump as well, but they don't share oil. The car was very easy to drive in all conditions, and good in winter conditions too. Saab's preponderance of turbos means that if you want more power, you just tweak the boost. Saab was the first manufacturer to mass produce turbos on sedans (I think only Porsche 911 turbos and the low volume BMW 2002 Turbo came before them).

A few years back with the introduction of the E60 M5, BMW was going on about how innovative they were by using the spark plug as an ion / knock sensor, but Saab was doing this back in '93 with their Trionic engine management.

And Saabs looked different from other cars, at least back in the day. The 'Classic 900' shape is still very pleasing to my eye, and whenever I see one I grin (and then feel bad that I sold my old car). Very practical design, with basically wagon type load capacity, flat trunk floor, but in a coupe-ish looking 3 door car, with turbo power. The car's a hatchback, but doesn't look like a typical hatchback.

I read one auto journalist's thoughts once - Saab, Volvo and Subaru build cars for friends; everyone else builds them for customers. But Saab really lost the plot though, especially in the past 10 years or so. Everyone saw through the 9-2X and 9-7 as thinly disguised, sheet metal changes on existing Subaru and GM products. I really wish Ford had bought Saab instead of GM back in the day, Volvo's cars look good!

Myself, I kept wanting Saab to do cool things. I still think if they want to take the fight to the German marques, they need something that likes to oversteer, has 350hp at least, and AWD. Then I realized also that whatever mods I did to my old 900, it still wouldn't handle like my S2000. Or put out lazy torque like a V8. And I figured that while Saabs and Swedish cars in general are excellent cars for everyday use, very practical (I still think my old '98 V70 wagon is objectively the Best. Car. Ever.), the Swedes just don't cultivate performance in their cars like the Germans, so I jumped ship.

 

Ford did change Volvo for the better for sure! The new Volvo S60 might make its way into my garage over the next two years as my DD... AWD, 300HP and Looks that could KILL! Simply an amazing new car from Volvo, the interior and safety features are also outstanding! The better half will drive the S60 DD and ill still be modding my C43 into a C55... Waiting for the C63 prices to drop into the low 30k range so I can ****** up one of those!

 

Try the junkyards for the Viggen (they were OK till GM got /em). Audi is probably in a landfill where it belongs.

sorry but owning an Audi is a true test of patience. Heck, the VW is that and an exercise in futility.

I won't touch those POS cars anymore.

rjp

 

Yeah, both Audi's I owned almost drove me nuts. I would only make it a week at a time with out the engine light coming on for something new! Weird thing is, both the audis I owned were know for being to fitted with their more reliable engines 2000 A4 with a 2.8 na and a 2002 A8 with a 4.2 na.

 

I did an alternator swap recently on a B6 (?) What a POS.

I ended up chopping the damn alternator mounting bolts out with a sawzall.

The entire nose has to come off to do any major work.

Oh, and after that I dated this chick with a 98 Vr6 POS that farted parts all the time. I know about crack pipes and waterlogged coils and all kinds of issues. It had barely 100K miles Junk junk and more junk.

rjp

 

I have a little experience in this area and can tell you the manual is at a disadvantage in zero to sixty testing. This will tell you why. Skip down to the second to the last paragraph of that link. The M3 is faster to sixty because it's actually faster. The gearing and weight are why.

 

You always make me feel so stupid in the most educated way and I rather enjoy that about you sir.

However, it states German's dont use simulated roll outs right? But they do test all their car 0-62mph and not the typical 0-60mph we do right? Doesn't this also add to the times the Euro guys are tracking? If this article is claiming the 3mph can make a 1/2 second difference to sixty than certainly 2mph more can have near that same?? If not please explain why, you always do a good job of it!

 

You might enjoy this as well...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNqg8...8DCA94&index=4

 

6.5 0-60? I really hope not. I need to bite the bullet and go buy a GTech and see what numbers my car is really turning. It sure doesn't feel like 6.5 0-60..

 

The short answers are: The German "manufacturers" don’t use roll outs and the Mercedes-Benz kits list 0-100kmh in some kits and 60MPH in others. No one compares 0-100Kmh against 0-60 MPH numbers. Although I used to work with a guy who is probably faster from 0-100 kmh than most people to 60 mph.

In the press kits, German manufacturers appear to list repeatable numbers. Numbers a customer could duplicate. For example, if Porsche advertising used the numbers their staff drivers get, customers would scream bloody murder. That’s because customers can’t come close to driving as well as a staff driver. I’ve been around the big track at Willow Springs more times than I can count. My fastest lap was as a passenger while Tommy Kendall was driving an S65. Put me in ANYTHING and I could not go as fast as Tommy in the S65. Why? His skill transcends any hardware difference. Zero to anything involves getting the car rolling and then flooring it. Just floor the throttle and you’ll spin the tires. So how do you ‘get the car rolling’? It requires technique. Rollout eliminates advantages introduced by the skill of the driver.

That website is mine. The reason I wrote 3 MPH can take an extra half-second is because most people simply can’t hook up. It’s common for people to spin the tires, be too conservative on the gas, or jerk all over the place because they waffle between the two.

 

What about cars with launch control that show different numbers with different reviewers?

 

Cars with launch control have the same time to speed / time to distance issues that cars without it have. Barometric pressure, temperature, humidity, how good is the test surface, what's the condition of the car, etc. Some BMWs have launch control. If the clutch is cool, set the car to use it's most aggressive shift logic, hold the shifter forward, floor the throttle and the engine will rev to some predetermined RPM, leave it floored, and let go of the shifter. You'll see redline and the car will take off. Doing that in San Diego, Palmdale, Sacramento, Vegas, Phoenix, and Denver in the same car will show varying results. Doing that with different cars in different cities will show greater variances.

 

So you just take them all and average them out and some where in there is about what you might see if one of these cities...