Easy kill in Mexico. Two runs, one from 50-120, one from 70-140. Both times margin was roughly 3-4+ lengths. No idea whether he was manual or DCT.

 

Improviz...did you downshift at all? Good kill...

 

Thanks!! Both runs were w/tranny in sport mode: I manually shifted to gear I wanted (2nd gear in first run, 3rd gear in second run), and let the car do the rest. I actually love that feature; in my CLK if you manually shifted it into a gear in sport mode, you had to manually shift it out. The three-mode tranny on this is much more to my liking.

 

I love it,too. Passing is like a slingshot when I downshift to 3rd...

 

How sweet it is!!!! How do you say murder!

I hope you have more heads up on the wall in your den Impro!

 

Good Kill Bro- the DCT is faster than the manual via my world test drives but I dont see either catching the 55.

Now I do wonder how the 55 gearing at speeds from 120 plus (to 180) would affect it versus the DCT which has less parasitic loss and 2 more gears???

 

nice car..

I didn't know you upgraded.

Nice choice.

 

Well, it wouldn't be until the 55 hit 130 or so that it would suffer from the low fourth blues. But I won't be lining up to guinea-pig a 180 mph run anytime soon to find out!

Gustav & Co. ran a DCT vs a stock E55 a while back up to the limiters; it seems as though the M did slow the E55's rate of walk (possibly even stop it, difficult to tell) once it hit the last gear:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pEJ3I71vPc

 

Thanks! In retrospect, had I known the speed with which the economy was going to tank, I might have gotten a Corolla and kept the cash!! Otoh, wtf, you only live once I guess....hopefully we are at or near a bottom here, or else we're all in really, really deep sheeit.

 

Nice kill bud!

 

I thought it would be a little closer, stock for stock but then again based on trans, gearing, etc, very likely. Do you have a stock pulley?

Nice kill anyway!

 

Stock afaik...from its 0-60 and 0-100 I've gotten, it seems about what I would expect for a stocker. Did you watch the Gustav vid (above)? Pretty similar to my experience, although I may've gotten an extra length or two, but that could be (M3) driver, or any number of intangibles.

Anyway, thanks!

 

Not even close.

 

Yeah, I agree. I've been following the writings of Nouriel Roubini and a few other guys on this since before it started (one reason why I moved *all* of my 401K into money market funds when the Dow was at 13,600-ish), and so far he's proven to be remarkably accurate in his predictions....including the collapse in housing prices, the collapse of banks and investment banks, in commodity prices, the high threat of deflation, etc...for example, here is a summary of some key bullets/predictions he got right in his 2008 outlook, published in mid January of this year:


The US will experience a hard landing (recession) that will be severe and protracted rather than mild

The liquidity and credit crunch will get worse and the risk of a systemic financial crisis is rising

The Fed easing will be too little too late and it will not prevent a recession

The rest of the world will not decouple; it will rather recouple with the US hard landing leading to a global economic slowdown

Existing inflationary pressures (from oil, energy, commodities) will fizzle out once you have a US recession and a global economic slowdown.

Risky assets (equities, credit spreads, housing, commodities, emerging market assets, the US dollar) will get hurt. Cash is king in 2008.

The US will experience a severe recession (at least four quarters starting in Q1 of 2008) that will be deeper and more protracted than the mild recessions of 1990-91 and 2001

This recession will sharply increase financial losses (that will add up to more than $1 trillion) and lead to an even more severe liquidity and credit crunch
A systemic financial crisis cannot be ruled out

The liquidity and credit crunch will in turn make the economic downturn more severe and protracted So the US will experience vicious circle of economic downturn and financial turmoil/losses/stress.

Other observations from the document: home prices would fall 20-30% before bottoming, housing starts would drop another 25%, consumers were tapped out and their spending would fall sharply, holiday sales in '08 would be worse than in '07, banks would start hoarding and be unwilling to lend (TED, remember?), bear market, big drop in financial firms'valuations, drop in the price of gold, drop in the British pound and Canadian dollar...

He writes a weekly column for Forbes (they call him "Dr Doom, which I suspect was before he was proven to be right so many times), and has a website, http://www.rgemonitor.com/

The key is foreclosures. Until and unless the rate stabilizes, the roller coaster will keep going down the hill (gulp).

 

Lets get back on topic. You only won because the M3 was a sedan. The carbon fiber roof on the coupe shaves 1200lbs from the curbweight and drops the 0-60 to 3.5secs.

Congrats on the new acquisition, Improv. Very capable machine.

 

LOL!

 

Thanks! Amazing machine...I am definitely diggin' it!

 

I think that is subtle humor? More like 18lbs at the most, correct?