GM slayer from BMW

[SGladwell]

Originally Posted by LSeca

Following up, here is a pic I took this morning. Besides the backwards oil cap (haha), you can clearly see the engine is heavily tilted to the left. Looks like they did this to make room for the air box and throttle bodies as well. It's hard to tell for someone not familiar with this engine, but those throttle bodies are center mass...you can see the valve cover is definatley far left. There is absolutely no room to lean the engine any more.

Not with this chassis design. But the rake of the engine is still not as extreme as, for example, an old Lotus Esprit's.

 

[LSeca]

Originally Posted by SGladwell

Not with this chassis design. But the rake of the engine is still not as extreme as, for example, an old Lotus Esprit's.

Just following up when you said they could give it a more extreme angle....it isn't going to happen. Another thing, the M3 has individual throttle boddies for each cylinder, and with a V8 these can be placed between the cylinder heads rather than on the side of an allready tight area. The V8 makes alot of sense for the new car and I am gald they went this route.

 

[LabelKing]

The Lancia Fulvia had a 45 degree angled engine.

 

[imageWIS]

My favorite engine configuration is this:

Ferrari version:

Jon.

 

[Roikins]

Originally Posted by LSeca

imageWIS,

Thanks for the info, I don't know alot about this ****** with exception on what I have read in magazines. I need to go try it out for myself. I have a friend with an A3 equipped with a DSG gearbox but he will not let me drive it. I understand the Veyron has this transmission, but I am looking forward to seeing a mass production, high performance car equipped with it. I am sure the future gearboxes of many autos will be leaning towards this technology.

I do like my SMG at the track... shifts faster and more consistently than I ever could. It's also welcome on the hills of San Francisco. I've driven the DSG in the A3, back when they first came out, and they are silky smooth and fast. The only problem I had was when I was accelerating hard, then jamming on the brakes to make a turn, and then asking for a downshift. Because of the acceleration, the car pre-loaded the next higher gear, so when I asked for a downshift, it took longer as it had to unload the higher gear, and load the lower gear. Not a big problem unless, again, you were using it at the track, where you're always on the gas until the last minute, before braking hard for a turn. I'm not sure if they've improved on this since I drove the car almost two years ago.

 

[imageWIS]

Originally Posted by Roikins

I do like my SMG at the track... shifts faster and more consistently than I ever could. It's also welcome on the hills of San Francisco. I've driven the DSG in the A3, back when they first came out, and they are silky smooth and fast. The only problem I had was when I was accelerating hard, then jamming on the brakes to make a turn, and then asking for a downshift. Because of the acceleration, the car pre-loaded the next higher gear, so when I asked for a downshift, it took longer as it had to unload the higher gear, and load the lower gear. Not a big problem unless, again, you were using it at the track, where you're always on the gas until the last minute, before braking hard for a turn. I'm not sure if they've improved on this since I drove the car almost two years ago.

In "˜sports' mode the ****** will downshift a lot faster in order to get more power out of the car.

Jon.

 

[LSeca]

Originally Posted by imageWIS

In "˜sports' mode the ****** will downshift a lot faster in order to get more power out of the car.

Jon.

I just have to try one of these out, but I must say I do like the idea of me controlling the downshift rather than the car. This isn't as important for a street car, but a track situation this can be vital.

As for the engine pics, the Porsche flat six is a beautiful engine indeed, espescially the older air cooled ones.

 

[imageWIS]

Originally Posted by LSeca

I just have to try one of these out, but I must say I do like the idea of me controlling the downshift rather than the car. This isn't as important for a street car, but a track situation this can be vital.


You can manually shift the car is Sports mode via the paddles on the steering wheel.

Jon.

 

[Roikins]

Originally Posted by imageWIS

In "˜sports' mode the ****** will downshift a lot faster in order to get more power out of the car.

Jon.


So it does that by not pre-loading the next gear? That's the only place I prefer my SMG, or even something like the Ferrari F1 single clutch gearbox, because it gives the next higher or lower gear when I ask for it, and doesn't try to play pyschic by guessing and pre-loading the gear it thinks I want. If a sports mode on DSG made it behave more like a single clutch system, I could see where it wouldn't allow for such confusion at times you were lapping a track and going from a point of acceleration to immediate deceleration.

 

[imageWIS]

Originally Posted by Roikins

So it does that by not pre-loading the next gear? That's the only place I prefer my SMG, or even something like the Ferrari F1 single clutch gearbox, because it gives the next higher or lower gear when I ask for it, and doesn't try to play pyschic by guessing and pre-loading the gear it thinks I want. If a sports mode on DSG made it behave more like a single clutch system, I could see where it wouldn't allow for such confusion at times you were lapping a track and going from a point of acceleration to immediate deceleration.

The DSG doesn't "˜pre-load' any gears; both the next upper and lower gears are spinning while you are driving. I.e. if you are on 3rd gear, 2nd and 4th are also spinning, but not connected to anything at that moment in time, thus if you want to shift either up or down, you can do so seamlessly.

In Sports mode, when using the paddles, it only shifts when you tap the paddles...I think it only activates first gear when it sense a certain speed before the engine stalls (it IS an automatic gearbox after all).

Jon.

 

[briancl]

I've always thought that DSG/SMG were designed specifically for people who don't want control. If you want control, get a manual. Problem solved.

I'd be very afraid of the car not making the correct decision on a downshift on the track since there are just far too many variables to take into account that the car simply won't "know". I'd much rather just have my feet/hands intuitively sort it out.

 

[briancl]

Originally Posted by imageWIS

My favorite engine configuration is this:

Ferrari version:

Jon.

Nothing like the perfect balance of a Flat 6

Or in the Ferrari's case, 2 Flat 6's butted up against each other.

I only have a flat 4 which is missing one of the moments to reach that perfect balance, but I do still enjoy the torquey-ness and rumbly-ness of the configuration.

 

[LSeca]

Originally Posted by briancl

I've always thought that DSG/SMG were designed specifically for people who don't want control. If you want control, get a manual. Problem solved.

SMG gives you greater control than a 6 speed manual ever can. The shifts are very, very quick and precise . When down-shifting, the car matches revs perfectly (no more heel-and-toe). I don't have experience with DSG, but someone acclimated to using an smg is way faster than if that person was using a tradiational manual, no matter what skill the person has. In the M3s case, there is even a launch control with the smg giving anyone the ability to hit 0-60 in under 5 sec....it really is amazing.

The downfall is that it takes away from the interaction between man and machine for the traditionalists. Also, it is not smooth like an automatic as there is a clutch and shifting going on even though their is no clutch pedal.

 

[briancl]

Originally Posted by LSeca

SMG gives you greater control than a 6 speed manual ever can.

While I won't disagree with the rest of your post, I don't see how this statement can be true. You are losing a degree of freedom, so to speak, by only being able to change gears up and down and not having the ability to freely rev mid shift while the transmission is briefly in neutral.

Yes, it's faster to have the car shift for you, but by definition and design, you have less control (you aren't actuating the clutch).

And as a more general response to your other comments, the SMG is lacking compared to the DSG design in nearly every way imaginable, which is why BMW is switching to DSG. It should be interesting to see if the Zeroshift technology ever takes off. From what I gather, they are stuck in some patent limbo, but the technology should trump all over semi-auto clutchless transmissions.

 

[LSeca]

Originally Posted by briancl

While I won't disagree with the rest of your post, I don't see how this statement can be true. You are losing a degree of freedom, so to speak, by only being able to change gears up and down and not having the ability to freely rev mid shift while the transmission is briefly in neutral.

You are losing freedom and interaction with the machine but you are not losing control, you are gaining it. The shifts come and go with a flick of a paddle with such precision, a human being could not duplicate it (you are still in command of the shift and the clutch with smg). My idea of control is just that, having the machine doing excactly what you want it to...the driver's skills of shifting are no-longer a part of the equation. As far as freely revving the car, I don't know how this is important (it is not to me). The vehicle is in neuatral for a split second. An smg will rev the car on the down shift for you, matching the revs to the shift and again, it is done perfectly. Alot of people don't even know how to heel-toe down-shift properly or how much more control you gain from it, smg does it all at your command.

Glad BMW is going with DSG in the future, been doing some investigating about it online. It does seem like a great gear box.