Saturn Ion Stage 2 Dyno

It’s been hit or miss for the past year as I’ve been trying to line-up a day to take the Red Line in for an updated dyno reading. My first (and last) dyno was in November 2010, just a few months after I had bought it. Save for a drop-in K&N air filter, it was bone stock and it blew 238 horsepower and 209 torque through the factory catalytic converter. Dyno readings can be a little confusing because they measure horsepower at the wheels. But when a manufacturer quotes their horsepower for a certain model, they always use the power developed at the flywheel. This creates better advertising since flywheel horsepower is before drivetrain losses and is usually about 15% higher. For instance, the new 2015 Subaro WRX STi is advertised as having 305 hp but dynoed at 247 hp. Now, the 15% is a standardized formula and no two engines behave exactly the same, but the 15% correction factor is widely recognized as the most accurate way to calculate the difference between power made at the flywheel and the drive wheels.

With that fuzzy math in place, my stock Red Line produced 273 flywheel hp, some 68 more that the factory estimate of 205. Granted, that is quite a bit more but GM’s guilty of famously underrating engines in the past for insurance reasons, and several other stock Red Lines have dynoed similar numbers. In fact, a dyno chart provided by GM even shows the RL’s power curve peaking around 6000 rpm and declining thereafter. On my last dyno, there is no peak, just a continued upward trajectory until the 6500 rpm redline when the rev-limiter cuts fuel to the engine. The Stage 2 upgrade raises the redline to 7000 rpm allowing the engine to continue making power. Larger injectors (42 lb vs. 34 lb) and a lighter, smaller supercharger pulley (Aluminum 2.9 in. vs. Cast Iron 3.35 in.) supply the necessary fuel and air. Finally, a long-tube header replaces the restrictive exhaust manifold and catalytic converter to help evacuate the spent gases as fast as possible.

But what these mechanical ministrations add up to have been quite a mystery until now. GM claims an increase of 36 hp for the Stage 2 package, but a dyno test by Modified Magazine demonstrated only a gain of 24 hp. And as for the long tube header, Modern Performance tested it and came away with a peak reading of 8 hp.

The Friday before the dyno test was Valentine’s Day, and I was in Wal-Mart buying seven quarts of Mobil 1 so I would have fresh oil for the punishing dyno runs. In front of me was a whole herd of henpecked husbands dutifully buying discounted flowers and cheap chocolates. When it was my turn to checkout, I placed the motor oil on the counter and quipped, “This is what I’m buying my wife for Valentine’s!” as loudly as possible. The elderly sales clerk stopped, looked at me, and then responded, “You can buy that for her, but I sure wouldn’t recommend it!”

With the bipolar weather the South has recently been cursed with, Monday dawned bright and balmy. Naturally, I was hoping for some of the chilly weather we had experienced the week before, since cooler air is more supercharger-friendly but that was not the case. I made the ten minute-drive to Johnson Motorsports (JMS), and in the nearly 35 years I’ve been in Hurley, it remains the sole significant place that I can brag about living close to. Everything else requires a minimum thirty minute drive east, south or west. 

Housed in a non-descript metal building with a barbed-wire fence, JMS is one of the premier aftermarket tuning facilities in the world. Yet, given the unassuming outward appearance you would never know it. The only tip-off is a small sign out front and a steady stream of high-performance cars that pack it’s parking lot. On the day I was there, it was mostly Mustangs, some of which had come from as far away as Louisiana and Tennessee. But the previous week, there was an exotic Ford GT that had been massaged to produce 1100 hp, or roughly double what it originally came with. A retina-searing Chrome Yellow with black racing stripes, it looked like it was going 200 mph just sitting still. Amazingly, it still had the stock clutch and was only now in for a stronger replacement. With an MSRP of $150,000 and just 4,000 built between 2004-2006, it remains the only modern Ford immune to depreciation.

Prior to the dyno runs, the mechanics had some problems getting my car properly lined up. Monty Johnson, the owner, admitted that front wheel-drive cars tend to move around on the dyno and as such, he’s much more comfortable with an 800 hp rear wheel-drive car than a 300 hp front wheel-drive car. Before the first pull, I asked him to observe a 6500 rpm limit so we could see where the air/fuel mixture was. Like all Saturns, the Red Line runs rich from the factory as a safety feature. The stock dyno runs illustrated this when the air/fuel ratio dipped into the 10s during the test. Ideally, you want a stoichiometric air-fuel ratio (14.7:1) off idle and cruising, and a leaner (11.8:1) under wide-open throttle. However, by running an unorthodox 2.9 supercharger pulley, I’m taking a risk that the fuel injectors might not be able to keep up with the demand as the engine reaches it’s 7000 rpm redline. And a lack of adequate fuel at such a stratospheric limit could potentially end with a catastrophic failure (i.e. blown engine). 

When my Saturn was finally ready for the first tentative run, it looked like an open-heart patient. With the hood popped, there were no fewer than three thick cables running from the engine bay: The first was the cable intercepting the tachometer signal, the second was to read the air/fuel mixture and the third one was new, a cable they had to splice-in which could display the supercharger’s boost (PSI).

Monty started my car, commenced giving it gas, and the front wheels began slowly turning the huge drums. He methodically shifted through the first three gears before he flattened the accelerator in fourth. The engine began rising to a crescendo, and it was here that I fully understood how much louder it was without the sound-deadening properties of the cast-iron exhaust manifold and the catalytic converter. It was roaring like Hurricane Isaac and in the small enclosed shed, it sounded akin to a giant circular saw slicing through sheet metal. After a seeming eternity, Monty lifted at 6500 rpm and I stole a glance at the monitor which read 269 hp and 242 tq, increases of 31 hp and 33 tq over stock. He also pointed out that the supercharger had made a maximum boost of 18.5 PSI, quite an improvement over the factory 12 PSI.   

After studying the air/fuel ratio and determining it was safe to press on, Monty was convinced there was more left in the final 500 rpm. Unfortunately, he didn’t allow it any time to cool down and these cars are notorious for heat soak. The second run, Monty took it to an ear-drum shattering 7000 rpm but maximum power dropped to 266 indicating that the extreme temperatures were causing the engine to pull timing on the top-side.

He immediately moved a mobile air conditioner in front of the radiator to pump cooling air into it, and directed a huge fan to blow on the engine. He came back in ten minutes for the final run, even though after four years of driving it, I knew it was no where near cool enough.  

Regardless, he pushed the engine until it bounced off the rev-limiter at 7100 rpm, but it paid off as it spun the rollers to 270 hp (or 310 flywheel) from 20.3 PSI of boost. Personally, I was hoping for 275 at the wheels, and I think that was attainable had the weather been more conducive and it was given enough time to cool down. For instance, the conditions during my first dyno in November 2010 were much drier and cooler. 

That notwithstanding, Monty and the mechanics present agreed that it was still a heroic output for a stock 2.0-liter engine originally designed twelve years ago. Current engines such as the 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder in the Focus ST benefit from new technologies such as direct-injection and variable valve-timing that help boost horsepower. But even tested the same week at JMS, a friend’s tuned 2013 Focus ST only made 241 to the wheels. Monty also mused how far four-cylinders had come with mine as it makes the same horsepower as a 2010 Mustang GT V8, but weighs 1000 lbs less. I also told him not to forget that it gets 30 mpg, a feat no supercar can replicate at any price. In fact, following the three wide-open throttle runs from idle to redline, it still turned in 28 mpg at the next fill up. Click the picture below for the full, record-setting dyno run. 

Caffeine & Octane 2013

I recently spent a week in our nation’s capital, and as Marion Berry, the crack-smoking ex-Mayor once observed, “If you take out the killings, Washington actually has a very very low crime rate.” Fortunately, we didn’t encounter any of that but rather it was the traffic congestion that was so horrendous. Perpetual roadwork on I-95 meant that at one time we spent nearly two hours in traffic to go just 30 miles. Understandably, this can be quite an inconvenience when you have to cover 1000 miles each way.  

While exotic cars were few and far between (I spotted an Aston Martin Vanquish Convertible in Georgetown) I managed to hit the Caffeine & Octane event in Atlanta on the way back. I covered this event last year and it does not disappoint.  The emphasis is on exotics and muscle cars, and where else can you see a circa 1960s Mercury Cougar race a Ferrari F430 and Porsche 911 down I-75?

Caffeine & Octane is held the first Sunday of every month and the weather on that early August morning couldn’t have been nicer. The event officially kicks off at 8 a.m. but I stumbled out of the Marriott behind it at 6:15 when it was still dark and found the parking venue was already half-full. Larry the Cable Guy once joked that even a cheerleader couldn’t arouse him out of bed at 5 a.m. and I feel the same way. But despite dragging in from D.C. just five hours earlier, I was determined not to miss it.

Off in the distance, I could hear the quiet morning being shattered by random bursts of high-pitched acceleration as the cars drew closer. Only owners and enthusiasts with gasoline in their veins are dedicated enough to sacrifice a Sunday morning for this. And at Caffeine & Octane, the mantra “If it’s too loud, you’re too old” doesn’t apply to music but to a car’s exhaust system. Georgia has smog testing but clearly there were a lot of clever individuals who had circumvented it as the air was rife with the sweet smell of race gas and horsepower. 

BEVERLY HILLS CONVERTIBLE: I was hoping for a good Ferrari turnout so I could see some newer models such as the 458 Italia and 599 in the flesh. Unfortunately, the sole new 2013 Ferrari California there was more country-club cruiser than racetrack corner-carver. Introduced in 2008, this 2+2 hardtop convertible resurrects the "California" name used on the 1950s Ferrari 250 GT (a model some may remember from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off). It has been speculated that this vehicle was originally destined for Maserati until high manufacturing costs forced Fiat to rebadge it as a Ferrari. Nevertheless, it represents a number of production firsts for a Ferrari such as direct gasoline injection, a folding metal roof, multi-link rear suspension, a seven-speed dual clutch transmission and a 480hp front-engine V8.      

DOG DAY AFTERNOON: “You Lucky Dog!” takes on a literal meaning as this pit bull looks pensively from the passenger seat of a Porsche 911 GT3 RS. Thankfully, Michael Vick was not driving  but the thought of the dog’s claws digging into the soft Alcantara seats makes baby Jesus cry. The GT3 designation comes from the FIA European race series of the same name and signifies a lightweight model stripped of such luxuries as air-conditioning, rear seats, sunroof and sound deadening materials. The RS for “Racing Sport” lightens it further with a carbon fiber hood and rear wing, ceramic composite brakes and a polycarbonate rear window. The bizarre orange-on-black color scheme also attests to either a really strange fascination with Halloween or a history of bad decisions such as letting a canine ride in a $100,000 sports car.   

STRIKING DISTANCE: I can now cross this off my automotive bucket list as I’ve been wanting to see one since they debuted last fall. However, the Gunmetal Pearl paint and the $5000 racing stripes are not a combination I would have chosen. With “Dodge” noticeably dropped from the name, the 2013 SRT Viper slithers on with a 640hp 6.4-liter V10 and numerous upgrades and improvements over the last generation.  Standard amenities now include electronic stability control, traction control, xenon projector headlamps and LED daytime running lights, turn signals and tail lamps. Despite being slightly slower than the Corvette ZR-1 around a racetrack, the Viper remains the most visually arresting domestic available.

BLACK SUNSHINE: Regardless of sporting the oldest design here, this 2004 Porsche Carrera GT was easily my top pick at this year’s Caffeine & Octane. Like the Viper, it also uses a V10 that generates 612hp and traces its roots back to the 1992 Formula One Footwork team. Strangely, the Carrera GT’s development was stalled in 1999 so Porsche could focus on its new mass-market Cayenne SUV. However, interest in the project and revenue from the Cayenne allowed Porsche to build 1,270 units with 604 of those coming to North America. In tribute to its Le Man heritage, the Carrera GT’s ignition is to the left of the steering wheel and has a wooden gear knob similar to the one in the legendary Porsche 917. 

WEAPON OF MASS DISTRACTION: The highest horsepower award goes to this 2006 Ford Shadrach Mustang GT by Pure Power Motorsports. Surprisingly, this bruiser-blue pony make 900hp from the factory 4.6-liter V8 courtesy of twin water-to-air Precision turbochargers, dual water-to-air intercoolers, a Metco billet turbo plenum and a Kinsler 8-Stack injection system. And keeping the highly-stressed engine in one piece are (among other things) forged aluminum pistons and Manley H-beam connecting rods. It may not be pretty, but it sure is powerful!

DUKW DYNASTY: This was the only vehicle I actually rode in (aside from the 2013 Chrysler Town & Country we rented) but it was faster in the water than anything else here. The DUKW (colloquially known as “Duck”) is part of DC Ducks, a company that offers 90-minute land and sea tours of the city. Originally built after the invasion of Pearl Harbor in 1942, it was the bastard offspring of a British deep water sailor, a Lieutenant from MIT, and a yacht designer. Powered by a GMC 270 cubic-inch six-cylinder, it weighs 6.5 tons and has a top speed of 50 mph on the highway and 6 mph in the water. Unfortunately, ours was missing its original .50-caliber machine gun which is something I would have loved for the traffic jams.   

Nvidia GTX 670 Benchmarks

With Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli promising that Crysis 3 will "melt your PC" due to its uncompromising next-generation visuals, I recently upgraded to Nvidia's GTX 670. Truth be told, I was a little astonished when I realized my GTX 570 would be blowing out its second candle in a couple months. It's done so well in recent games like Borderlands 2, Dishonored and Far Cry 3 that I tended to forget its age. But it was the arrival this year of brand new benchmarks such as 3DMark 13 and Unigine Valley that emphasized just how long 20 months can be in the technology industry. Herewith is a look at the generational improvements in moving from the GTX 570 to the GTX 670.

 

YIN & YANG

"Kepler", Nvidia's code name for the 600-series, says as much about the GTX 670 as did the "Fermi" moniker for the Three-Mile Island GTX 480. In 1601, noted scientist Johannes Kepler wrote, "Where there is matter, there is geometry." Unlike Nostradamus, there's no way Kepler had any inclination that four centuries later he would be named after the fastest line of consumer graphics cards the world has ever seen. And while his quote was initially applied to astronomy, it is equally apropos for the 102,480 Million texels per second generated by the GTX 670. He would also not have understood that his namesake video card represents more than just a die shrink from 40nm to 28nm. In fact, this new architecture allowed Nvidia to pack more circuits in less physical area. In the GTX 570, Stream Processors (SM) are the basic building blocks of the graphics pipeline. Inside each Fermi SM block is 32 cores, so with 15 SMs the 570 had a total of 480 Stream Processors. But with the 670, Nvidia redesigned the Stream Processors enabling a whopping 192 cores to fit inside one Kepler SMX. And the extra overhead didn't stop there. Each Kepler SMX also benefits from its own tessellation engine known as Polymorph which contains 16 texture units. These improvements are why the 670 has so many more Stream Processors and Texture Units than the 570.

The only items (on paper) not significantly higher in Kepler are the Raster Operations per second (ROPs) and the Memory Bus Width. Kepler’s ROP count has been reduced from the 40 ROPs of Fermi down to 32 (eight per memory controller). However, this reduction is offset by Kepler’s increased core clock speed. And assuming the basic ROPs are unchanged between the two GPU architectures (which there's nothing to indicate otherwise) 32 Kepler ROPs at 980MHz are still faster than 40 Fermi ROPs at 732MHz. The same goes for the memory interfaces-- Fermi's 320-bit memory interface has been replaced with Kepler's 256-bit. Impressively, Nvidia has managed to push this GDDR5 to excessively high frequencies, with the GTX 670's 2GB’s memory running at 6GHz. This means that despite the reduced memory interface, the 670's resulting memory bandwidth is still higher than the GTX 570.

 

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

 

Additionally, the GTX 670 sports a new feature known as Bindless Textures. While previous Nvidia GPUs were restricted to 128 simultaneous textures, Kepler removes that limitation and allows up to 1 million simultaneous textures. Another great Kepler feature is TXAA which stands for Temporal Anti-Aliasing. This technology will be quite a boon for games as it improves the image quality without sacrificing performance. With TXAA, the sampling pattern is spread out over multiple frames. By doing this, the effect is better image quality than even 8x MSAA, but with a performance hit similar to just 2x MSAA. Lastly, Kepler introduces Adaptive Vsync which is basically an intelligent form of vsync. Without vsync, screen tearing can be very distracting, but enabling it locks the refresh rate and hurts performance. Nvidia's Adaptive Vsync ties the frame rate to the refresh rate like traditional vsync until it detects a drop below the standard refresh rate. Then it temporarily disables it until the framerate reaches the standard refresh rate again. Nvidia claims this creates a much smoother overall experience. These hardware improvements make Kepler a compelling purchase, even without the raw performance boost over a GTX 570.

 

Remarkably, the 670 is nearly an inch longer than the 570 it replaces, and as such necessitates that the dual six-pin power connectors be moved from the end of the card to remedy clearance issues. With an Antec 1000 Server case, I've never had to worry about a video card not fitting, but I can certainly see how it might present a problem for smaller enclosures.

In my July 2011 review of the 570, I complained that PNY's installation disk contained drivers that were five-months old. Sadly, the 301.42 drivers included for the 670 were left over from May 24, 2012, nearly ten months ago! I stress this point because updated drivers can make or break a game. For instance, Nvidia rolled out brand new 314.07 drivers optimized specifically for Crysis 3 that improve performance by up to 65%. I can't imagine anyone who pays $400 for a GTX 670 would load the drivers from the disc, but if they do, they are needlessly sacrificing performance. I was hoping at least that the disc included the "A New Dawn" program designed to showcase the abilities of the 670, but I was not so lucky. Instead, I was forced to download the 772 MB demo. Regrettably, the disc looks to be a carbon copy that has been circulating since 2007 with only new drivers added every year or so. Based on my experience with the 570, and now my 670, PNY builds solid hardware. However, the department that cranks out the installation discs is another matter all together.

 

BENCHMARKS

All tests were run on my system which consists of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit with a Core i7 3770 overclocked to 4.0 GHz, GIGABYTE GA-Z77-D3H mainboard, OCZ Fatal1ty 750W power supply, OCZ Vertex 4 SSD and G.Skill 8GB PC1600 DDR3 memory. For both cards, I used the newest 314.07 WHQL drivers from February 18th. Save for Passion Leads Army, all benchmarks were released in February 2013 making them the most current and comprehensive available.

3DMARK 13: It wouldn't be a complete video card test without throwing in 3DMark 13, the newest installment of the world's most popular graphics benchmark. However, the testing methodology is a little different than in years past with a three-tier system that covers everything from mobile devices to laptops to dedicated gaming machines. On the bottom rung is Ice Storm, a DirectX 9 test intended for the most basic hardware such as integrated graphics. Cloud Gate is more advanced with a DirectX 10 feature set designed for a discrete video card. And Fire Strike utilizes next-generation graphics and physics applicable for world-class PCs. In short, Fire Strike is as "Future-Proof" as currently possible and absolutely crippled my 570 with single-digit frame rates. Fortunately, my 670 fared much better with the pyrotechnic benchmark scoring nearly 51% higher.

 

PASSION LEADS ARMY: Released last summer, this is a DirectX 11 Unreal Engine 3 benchmark from Chinese developer Giant IronHorse. It takes the viewer on a whirlwind tour of an ancient oriental city, complete with heavily-tessellated cobblestone walkways and glass storefronts that seemingly explode at random. If there's a message to this demo, it was clearly lost in translation. But like a Godzilla movie, the plot is secondary and the real star is the DX11 eye candy. In fact, the limited benchmark is so good it looks like it came from a North American Triple-A studio and not some communist country situated on the Pacific Rim. Unfortunately, I'm at a loss to explain the slim performance discrepancy between the cards. Both the average and maximum frames per second (FPS) reflect only a meager 20% improvement. As the other benchmarks illustrate, this divide should be closer to 50%. Visually, PLA looks better on the 670 with more realistic lens flare and smoke, but whether this accounts for the missing performance is still unknown.

 

RESIDENT EVIL 6 BENCHMARK: This benchmark is an anomaly in that while I appreciate the complexity of the MT Framework engine, it's a game that I will never play. Gruesome horror shooters such as Dead Island, Dead Space and the Resident Evil series don't appeal to me. That notwithstanding, the graphics are impressive given that Capcom designed this as a straight DX9 title, an obvious nod to its console roots. However, the stress test comes from rendering over 100 zombies on screen at one time in a scene reminiscent of the World War Z trailer. Despite the older API architecture, RE6 at 1920x1080 with FXAA 3HQ drags even the 670 down. Judging by the proprietary score, the 570 is 56% slower here.

 

UNIGINE VALLEY: Released within a week of chief competitor 3DMARK, this new iteration builds on the popularity of its sibling product, Unigine Heaven, with an all-new benchmark. Unlike Heaven's utopia in the clouds, Valley is literally down to earth as it focuses on grasslands and heavily wooded forests where environmental effects such as rain and wind tax even the most powerful video cards. A few times my 570 briefly climbed above the 30 FPS threshold, but overall it recorded just 25.5 FPS at the Extreme HD Preset (1920x1080 8xAA). With the 670 at the same settings, it averaged 38.1 FPS. As a whole, the performance delta between both cards was 56%.

CONCLUSION

A couple weeks after I bought it, I was casually checking some websites when the entire display suddenly blacked out. My first thought was that we'd lost power, but after a few seconds it popped back up with the message "The Nvidia driver driver stopped responding and has recovered". I didn't think much about it until it happened again about five minutes later. At this point, I was beginning to be concerned that I had a faulty new graphics card. Thinking maybe it was a corrupted display driver, I downloaded the latest Beta drivers released the day before. Initially, this seemed to stop the problem until it returned thirty minutes later. Then, as I was deleting the temporary folder created by the beta Nvidia drivers, I noticed a new folder created right around the time I started having problems. I discovered the folder was tied to a running process called IEHighutil.exe. This process was causing my video card to overheat and when it did, it would stop and restart. Unbelievably, I determined it was stealing my GPU cycles for Bitcoin mining using Poclbm, a python-based OpenCL framework that quickly performs the hashing computations. Fortunately, it was simple to remove, but more troubling was how easily it snuck past my three anti-virus programs. The only place I can believe I might have picked it up was when I downloaded the new Tomb Raider game. Incidentally, the Tomb Raider reboot is fantastic, but regrettably arrived too late to be included in the testing.

Coming from a GTX 570, I was concerned that the 670 might be more of a lateral move than a true upgrade. Originally, I had wanted to wait until the new 700 Series was available from Nvidia, but Crysis 3 changed all that. After shelling out $65 for it, I was determined to enjoy it in all its CGI glory. That meant buying a new video card and the PNY GTX 670 fit the bill. Unfortunately, as the benchmarks illustrate, the 670 is not the leap forward I was looking for. The continuing improvements in graphics and image quality have helped nullify the corresponding hardware advances. As such, the perceived progress between video cards becomes less than what we're accustomed to. As with any high-end toy, it all boils down to having to pay if you want to play. 

 

  

 

 

BURGER DASH

You may remember that this time last year I had a street race with a mysterious Honda. It inexplicably imploded not far into our highway match, thereby leaving me with an ambiguous victory. The intervening twelve months have been pretty uninspiring, thanks in no small part to the State of Mississippi funneling $7 million of our tax-dollars into over 100 new members of the Highway Patrol. With this, each of the six southern counties saw their Gestapo-like presence swell from 16 to 36 full-time officers. And these new recruits have been patrolling the roads with all the zealousness of the Third Reich, convinced they are saving the world one traffic ticket at a time.

The evening began innocently enough with me picking up my mother for our first visit to the new Edd's Drive-in located in Wade. A Pascagoula family institution since 1953, the residents of north Jackson county have been salivating over their new location since the announcement in 2010. My mom has ridden in my car only a handful of times, so as I pulled onto Highway 63 I instructed her to watch the boost gauge on my Aeroforce Interceptor. I explained that under normal conditions, the boost gauge displays the manifold vacuum pressure, but under full-throttle the number quickly jumps from negative to positive as the intake manifold pressure exceeds atmospheric pressure. After a quick blast through second-gear, I pointed out that the supercharger generated 15.1 PSI but I could tell that number didn't mean a thing to her. Instead, she was just excited that her sun visor was equipped with a mirror.

After a year of inconsistent operation, my cruise-control finally stopped working so I've been having to manually keep the accelerator pedal down until the new part arrives. While this isn't too bad, it's much harder to keep my lead foot at a safe and prudent speed. Previously, I had relied on the cruise-control for this, so it's been a bit of a challenge lately. But as I was squirming around trying to comfortably position the gas pedal, I spotted a sinister-looking Camaro pulling up to the highway.

It was as black as a coal chamber and a vintage model at that. I literally did a double-take because it looked like something I'd see at a classic car show, not roaming the woods in Wade. As I passed by, I glanced behind to see it pull out. Unexpectedly, the backend whip-sawed around. Then it snapped back to the other side as the driver struggled to keep it between the ditches. With driving like that, I was willing to bet that he had me in his crosshairs. However, I maintained the speed limit as I watched him draw closer and closer, until the Camaro's visage completely filled my rear-view mirror.

From the profile, I could tell it was a '69 and I saw the red and silver Z/28 emblem on the grille. But muscle-cars like these are always a gamble; I'd seen enough to know that it could be packing anything from a mild 302 all the way up to a monstrous 454 V8. Still, I wasn't going to let him bully me and if I was going down, it wouldn't be without a fight.

We were stopped at a red light, there was a truck in front of me, and my mind was running through a thousand different scenarios, none of which I hoped ended with me going to jail for street racing. As the light turned green, I cautiously pulled away but couldn't do anything yet with the truck ahead of me. Meanwhile, the Camaro was lurking right behind me, like a black panther waiting to pounce. Around 40mph, the truck moved over, inviting an empty lane ahead. As we passed the truck, the right lane opened up as well, save for a car that was maybe an eighth-mile ahead. Suddenly, the Camaro darted into the right lane and I knew it was now or never. Instinctively, I nailed the throttle and realized I was in a gear too high, fourth instead of third. This observation hit me with stunning clarity as the Camaro roared alongside. And like my life flashing before me eyes, I had a brief moment to reflect on what was possibly wrong with the picture: I recognized that the wrong gear and the extra 200 lbs my car was encumbered with, courtesy of my mother and a full tank of gas, might possibly be the nail in my coffin.

The Camaro was pulling ahead and my front bumper was at his door. I stole a quick glance at the tachometer and saw it was passing 4500rpm, still some 2500rpm before my engine develops maximum power. But up ahead, the solitary straggler in the right lane was looming fast. If I could hold off the Camaro for just a couple more seconds, he would have to hit the brakes and concede defeat.

With my foot flat against the accelerator, and the supercharging continuing to build boost, I froze the angry Camaro from pulling away. Perhaps two-seconds passed-- although it seemed like an eternity-- and the Camaro was hard on the brakes, swerving in behind me to avoid rear-ending the hapless motorist.

"HA!" my mother exclaimed in a surprising outburst of solidarity.

Just then, the turn-off for Edd's was in front of me and I began slowing for it. The Camaro blew past, its full-throttle exhaust an effigy of failure. My mom observed, "There goes your friend!" To which I replied, "He's not my friend, but I bet he sure was shocked that this little four-cylinder kicked his V8 ass!" Some research later turned up that the '69 Z28's solid-lifter 302 was conservatively rated at 290hp but a host of options (twin 600-cfm Holleys with a cross-ram manifold, 4.10:1 gears and Chambered exhaust pipes) made it a potent performer. A quarter-mile time of 14.8 seconds at 101 mph is given which sounds about right for what I saw. Regardless, I'd love a side-by-side rematch in third gear with no passenger and no interference from the local gendarmerie.

Aside from the twenty-minute wait to order, and the forty-minutes to receive our "fast food", dinner at Edd's was unremarkable-- the hamburgers were tiny, the fries were stale and the cold drinks were warm. But the night was certainly memorable for my mother who, at eighty-years young, got to experience her first highway drag race!

Little Red Corvette

Although we all know Prince's Little Red Corvette from his "1999" album is not actually about a car, I still couldn't resist using that song title as it's so appropriate for the Corvette I drove recently. The occasion was East Central's Homecoming parade on September 27th and Victoria was eligible to ride in it since she won "Tiny Miss Hurley 2012" at Old-Fashion Day. I had contemplated using the del Sol but it really wasn't suitable since it's a targa top, and not a true convertible. Fortunately, my brother-in-law's father graciously volunteered the use of his red 1999 Corvette convertible.  

The fifth-generation Corvette, or C5 as it is commonly called, was built from 1997-2004 and to my eyes looks much better than the more-angular current model. The deep-red, sweeping front fenders and signature hidden headlights make it look like it should be wearing a prancing horse emblem instead of a bowtie. In comparison, the C6 has exposed headlamps which don't look quite as exotic. 

Despite driving a lot of performance cars in my life, I've had surprisingly little experience with Corvettes. In college, my girlfriend's mother owned a black '74 Stingray, but I hadn't driven another Corvette since then. Truthfully speaking, the Stingray wasn't anything to brag about as it was very hot, loud, and always breaking down. In what could be considered heresy in the Corvette cult, she traded it in on a Lincoln Towncar.  

At an Auto-Show in 1993, I sat in a new LT1 Corvette and was instantly turned-off by the hard, low seating and the worst visibility this side of a Sherman Tank. Since that time, I've held a preconceived notion that all Corvettes were similarly uncomfortable. So, there was some trepidation as I slid into the black leather seat and proceeded to start the car. The first thing I noticed was that, like Porsches, the ignition is actually on the dash instead of the steering column. I twisted the key and the V8 instantly fired up with a familiar rumble. It settled into a steady idle and I was surprised by how quite it was. There was barely a burble from the four exhaust pipes protruding out from under the license plate. Clearly, the factory exhaust hadn't been touched, right down to the stock catalytic converters.

I grabbed the thick leather-wrapped shifter and pulled it back into reverse. The venerable 4L60-E automatic transmission engaged with a heavy, solid clunk and the Corvette began easing backwards.  After a few feet, I shifted into drive and pulled onto the highway. At low-revs and part-throttle, it felt surprisingly civil and (almost) ordinary. Prior to pick-up, the owner had admonished my wife to exercise caution because he said the rear-end could step-out in the blink of an eye. He clarified that he wasn't so much worried about the car getting hurt as he was my seven year-old daughter. However, in my time with it, I discovered that only with the most careless application of the throttle could the car become dangerous.

Although standard on my 2006 Ion Redline, the C5 was the first Corvette to incorporate a drive-by-wire throttle and speed-sensitive steering. Around some low-speed curves, it felt remarkably stable and planted, and it's no wonder with the nearly ten-inch wide 275/40 ZR-18 tires on the back. Originally, all C5s came with Goodyear Eagle Run-Flat tires which were intended more for weight-savings than performance. On this car, they had been replaced by grippy Nitto tires which I'm sure helped the acceleration and handling even more. 

 

The heart of any Corvette is always the engine, and the C5 was the last to have a small-block 350 under the clamshell hood. Despite the low-tech, overhead-valve design, the pushrod V8 still manages to crank out 345 horsepower at 5600rpm and 350 lb-ft torque at 4400rpm. And thanks to extensive use of composite fiberglass, magnesium wheels, and even balsa wood in the floor boards, the weight is kept at a relatively svelte 3,282 lbs. That low-mass gives it a 0-60 sprint of 4.9 seconds as well as a quarter-mile time of around 13.2 seconds at 109 mph. Top speed of the convertible has been observed by Car and Driver as 160mph, though truthfully you probably wouldn't want to go more than 125mph with the top down. Regardless, those are world-class numbers and despite being more than a decade old, still in line with what a 2013 Camaro SS or Mustang 5.0 will run right off the showroom floor. 

               

With the shiny red paint and just 87,000 miles on the odometer, the Corvette had obviously been well-cared for. And from afar it might even be mistaken for a new model. But one thing's for sure, and that is everyone loves a red Corvette convertible. Whether I was at the high school, the coffee shop, or the Lotta Burger parking lot, it never failed to draw a crowd. As I was driving it home after picking it up, my neighbor who never speaks suddenly shouted "Nice car!" and waiting in the parade line-up, an East Central freshman admitted that it was his dream car. Two teenagers even drove 100mph in their V6 Mustang to catch me for a closer look. There's also the Corvette cachet whereby passing Corvette owners give a friendly wave and smile. Similarly, traffic-blocking maneuvers that would normally elicit an angry honk and a raised middle finger from other motorists are replaced with unprecedented patience and courtesy.  

The afternoon was particularly hot for late September and the parade route entailed roughly three miles through downtown Hurley at nothing more than 5 mph with frequent stops. I cautiously eyed the temperature gauge the entire time but it thankfully never got above 230 degrees (with a redline at 260). However, the cooling fans operated almost constantly and the carpeted transmission tunnel that runs between the two seats radiated enough BTUs to bake a Thanksgiving turkey. Granted, it's kind of crazy to run the air-conditioning in a convertible, but with the ambient temperature in the high 80s and the transmission tunnel doubling as a space heater, I sure thought about it.   

On the highway, with room to run, the Corvette is a red rocket. Plant the throttle at 60mph and the 4L60-E automatic responds with a sledgehammer blow that sends the car hurtling forward. However, the brilliant red paint also makes it as conspicuous around Hurley as a U.F.O. so prudence is advised. The Corvette is actually more fun in town where its tugboat-torque makes for neck-snapping acceleration. The steamroller rear tires dig in and the car shoots ahead like a NFL field-goal kick. 

The Vette really is an everyday exotic. It's sacrilege to admit, but after a few minutes of driving it, you completely forget about the flashy exterior. The seats are comfortable, the driving position is good, and there is ample leg-room. Personally, I've never been a fan of chrome wheels, but they complement the Corvette's flamboyant character. And on this car they look much better than the popular powder-coated or anodized wheels. Visually speaking, perhaps the only thing I'd change is the quadruple tail pipes. I like them, but I'm not fond of the bare stainless steel finish. They definitely could use some chrome tips. The Corvette was also largely trouble-free, except for an episode in my garage when the pop-up headlights wanted to do just that. They seemingly had a mind of their own and it didn't matter if I turned the headlights on or off. Finally, I coaxed them down but I wondered it if was a recurring problem?  

The evening sun was setting and it was time for me to return the Corvette. Despite spending just the afternoon with it, my wife, daughter and I had all grown attached to it. "Daddy, can we keep it?" my daughter asked innocently, as if inquiring about a lost puppy she'd just found.  I laughed and tried to explain to her that as a family, we needed a vehicle with more than two seats and a tiny trunk. But I understood what she was feeling, because I felt the same fondness for it. The Corvette might be the quintessential American sports car, but it's also a great car in general. And if it just happened to have four seats, it would be perfect.           

 

Poison Ivy: Benchmarking Intel's new Core i7 CPU

After a phenomenal four-year stretch, I'm finally as far as I can go on Intel's P45 architecture. I've really savored being able to squeeze this much use out of the same platform and the result is quite a lot of improvements for my new processor, an Ivy Bridge Core i7-3770.

Truthfully speaking, I knew it was time to upgrade when I recently tested a 3.3GHz Core i3-2120 processor in our new entry-level Dell Optiplex 790 workstation. Despite the budget-nature of the PC, the eighteen month-old Sandy Bridge CPU proved to be a tough competitor for my overclocked 3.3GHz Q9650. I figured the i3's newer architecture and same clockspeed would make the single-threaded tests close. But with it being a dual-core, I figured my quad-core would walk it in the multi-threaded tests. However, much to my surprise the two additional threads courtesy of Intel's Hyper-Threading (HT) technology enabled the Core i3 to keep pace. As embarrrasing as it was, the Core i3 with just two physical cores was clearly as fast-- or faster-- than my four-core Q9650. It was a humbling defeat for my once-mighty processor at the hands of Intel's $125 upstart.

MATERIAL SCIENCE

Still, it wasn't altogether unexpected given the architectural enhancements that the i3 is blessed with. In fact, taking into account the specs for both CPUs, it doesn't take Stephen Hawking to see that my new Ivy Bridge CPU is smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient. However, the Q9650 does excel in the equity department as even in today's market it fetches almost as much as my new i7 processor.

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF

Intel's Ivy Bridge represents five generations (Bloomfield>Lynnfield>Sandy Bridge>Sandy Bridge-E>Ivy Bridge) of engineering improvements over my Yorkfield-based Q9650. It also showcases the world’s first use of tri-gate, or 3D transistors. These 3D transistors literally rise up off of the die to dramatically reduce power consumption while increasing performance. But the most significant of these (for me) is the addition of native USB 3.0 support in the Z77 Panther Point chipset on the motherboard. "Panther Point" is Intel's name for the 7-series line and an onboard USB 3.0 controller means better compatability and higher performance than an aftermarket offering. Additionally, Panther Point enjoys an upgrade to PCI-E 3.0 which doubles the bandwidth from 500MB/s to 1GB/s. Earlier versions such as Lynnfield and Sandy Bridge were limited by PCI-E bandwidth when sharing memory lanes. Finally, the integrated HD graphics is what Intel's most proud of. Chipzilla has been trying to get this right for over a decade, and the HD 4000 Graphics are almost good enough to make people forget about the horrible i740 integrated graphics. However, buying Panther Point for the onboard video is like buying the Bayeux Tapestry to use as a beach blanket. Granted, the integrated graphics are DirectX 11-compliant (and can actually run 3DMark 11) but only a casual gamer would ever use them. Games like Max Payne 3 will always demand high-end discrete graphics.

 

TECHNOLOGY TSUNAMI

My new Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H motherboard boasts a spec sheet wet with technology at a price that didn't break the bank. Remarkably, it was cheaper than the Gigabyte board it replaced, a GA-EP45-UD3R from 2008. And all three Gigabyte boards I've owned have been rock-solid despite my overclocking antics which is the main reason I bought another one. However, following Gigabyte's history of brightly-hued boards, the wacky blue and white color scheme is definitely an acquired taste. The GA-Z77-D3H is also my first motherboard capable of multiple-GPU gaming, supporting both SLI and Crossfire. Given the inherent problems with juggling dual graphics cards, I think I'll continue with a single-slot solution but it's a nice option if I ever do change my mind.

I'm also admittedly a little behind the times in adopting DDR3 memory. So much so in fact, that a Gateway P-7811FX gaming laptop that I owned in 2008 was equipped with 4GB of DDR3 RAM while my desktop was still lumbering along in 2012 with 4GB DDR2. But with memory prices falling faster than New York propery values after Hurricane Sandy, it's easy to pick up 8GB DDR3 for what I paid for 4GB DDR2 four years ago. And even now, benchmarks prove that 8GB is still overkill so the only real dilemma is picking either 1333, 1600, 1866 or 2133MHz modules. As it turns out, 1333 is on the lowside with a slight performance penalty while 1600 yields the best performance for the dollar. The minor speed increases associated with 1866 and 2133 don't warrant the inflated prices of such boutique memory.

And while I had originally intended to limit my upgrade to just a new processor, motherboard and memory, the project began to speed out of control like a technology tsunami, collecting various other parts along the way. Suddenly, there was a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD sound card swept up in the frenzy. That was followed by an OCZ Fatal1ty 750w power supply with modular cables and a Samsung 24X DVD burner. Finally, the financial erosion of my bank account ceased with an OCZ Vertex 4 SSD. The logic behind this last purchase was simple: The new processor and memory would only be as fast as the hard drive and I was still saddled with a 7200rpm mechanical model. With an SSD, I had to compromise between speed and capacity so I picked the Vertex. This fourth-generation solid-state drive is one of the fastest available and features sustained sequential reads up to 560 MB/s and writes up to 430 MB/s. The fact it was also chosen for Maximum PC's $15,000 2012 Dream Machine didn't hurt either.

CINEBENCH RELEASE 11.5

My last test of this video rendering software (Version 10) two years ago showcased that clockspeed and core-count are equally important for this punishing benchmark. In fact, this program was voted the most likely to send CPU temperatures through the roof once it got started. Rendering the image is deceptively simple, yet as bizarrely effective as waterboarding. Since my GTX 570 video card was the sole component left over from my Q9650 system, I expected little difference in the GPU-dependent OpenGL benchmark. That notwithstanding, it jumped from 42.57 FPS to 57.48 FPS indicating a 35% improvement. And the actual processor test was exactly twice as fast with the Core 2 managing 3.87 PTS to the Core i7's 7.54 PTS. Here, Intel's Hyper-Threading technology really struts its stuff as both processors have four physical cores, but the 3770's eight threads effectively give it the power of an octo-core CPU.

CONVERT X to DVD 4

Counting the aforementioned eight threads at my disposal, this was the benchmark I was most salivating over. Convert X to DVD is perhaps the most popular and complete suite for burning multiple video formats onto DVD, but waiting for the actual conversion is the most tedious part of the process. With my outgoing Q9650, it took 11 minutes to convert a standard 700MB AVI file to a DVD image before burning. But my new system did the deed in a scorching 3.5 minutes which makes it almost 75% faster! The time savings alone justifies the cost of the hardware upgrade to me.

CRYSTAL DISK MARK 3

A republican was in office the last time I purchased a new hard drive, so this is the sole benchmark I've not used before. The unit was a Seagate Barracuda 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s drive that was plenty fast out of the box. But technology is not stagnant, and mechanical hard drives will soon join the scrap heap littered with other obsolete storage technologies such as 1.44MB floppies and Iomega zip drives. Since 2008, solid-state drives have been increasing in speed and size while prices have been declining. Current fourth-gen SSDs are averaging around $1/GB, although you can get a bargain on earlier models if you don't mind sacrificing some performance and stability. And beyond the synthetic benchmark, the results were reflected in real-world file transfers. For instance, when unzipping a game like Dishonored that is eighty 100MB files, it took my old system 8 minutes. However, with the SSD it took under 2 minutes for the same task. More so than any other upgrade, the Vertex swap was the most dramatic. Can you spot the SSD below? (HINT: Faster is better)

WINDOWS EXPERIENCE INDEX

Admittedly, there are more sophisticated applications for determining overall performance than Microsoft's WEI. But it remains an interesting one nonetheless and can be something of a cruel mistress, heavily penalizing the user for perceived indiscretions. In 2008, despite having a blazing-fast dual-core than ran at 3.6GHz, I was docked several percentage points simply because it wasn't a quad-core. On my Q9650, the overall WEI score is a paltry 5.9 (on a scale of 0-7.9) simply because I was still using a 7200rpm hard drive and the composite number reflects the lowest-scoring component in the system. With the 3770, my subscore was an excellent 7.8 with that going to both my memory and CPU. Once again, it seems I just fell short of maxing out the CPU and Memory categories, possibly because I don't have a hexa-core processor nor an excessive amount of RAM.

OVERCLOCKING

With Intel's new Turbo Boost function, traditional overclocking is taking a back seat. After all, upon startup and regular single-threaded tasks the dynamic overclocking automatically adjusts the speed to 3.9GHz. However, I noticed that in multi-core tests the clock-speed was only dropping to 3.7GHz instead of 3.4GHz, which tells me the Gigabyte BIOS was probably overclocking the processor 10%. Gigabyte does include its Easy Tune software which is supposed to automatically adjust the settings for various overclocks, but it kept crashing Windows. Finally, I disabled Turbo Boost and manually bumped the clock ratio from 34x100 to 40x100 which gave me a steady 4GHz. My system has been torture-tested over the past month with several multi-hour Borderlands 2 sessions and I'm proud to report there hasn't been a single hiccup.

CONCLUSION

In my Q9650 review from 2010, I complained about Intel's flimsy plastic fan and heatsink that has no business shipping with a $300+ processor. Surprise, two years later it's still the same cheap design but at least this time it went on much easier. And even running at 4GHz, the temps rarely get above a frosty 40 degrees celsius so I guess I shouldn't grumble too much. And while I expected the star to be the shiny new Ivy Bridge processor, the real surprise was the Vertex 4 SSD which completely blew me (and my existing benchmarks) away. Finally, I could have gotten a similarly-clocked i5 processor and saved $100, but I opted for the top-tier i7 due to the availability of Hyper-Threading. And as the benchmarks illustrate, it was money well spent!

Royal Purple vs. Mobil 1 Oil Analysis

In the field of commercial motor oils, there's a longstanding rivalry between synthetic brands Mobil 1 and Royal Purple. To the brand loyalists, the competition is every bit as fierce as Ford vs. Chevy, Coke against Pepsi or (locally) Alabama opposed to Auburn. Additionally, advocates of each brand feel compelled to dole out unsolicited advice when they see you buying the offending brand. Recently, when I bought six quarts of Royal Purple at my local Advance Auto, I was practically interrogated by the sales clerk who ended the conversation by succinctly stating, "You should have bought Mobil 1" even though he could present no compelling evidence it was better.     

Although my Ion Red Line came from the factory with Mobil 1 5w-30 in the crankcase, I was persuaded to try the purple stuff by friends, co-workers and in-laws who purportedly gained fuel economy and horsepower just by switching to Royal Purple. Unfortunately, these results were not substantiated by dyno reports and no two engines respond exactly the same. 

The biggest difference I've noticed between RP and M1 is the price. A 5-quart jug of Mobil 1 can usually be found at Wal-Mart for around $25 and it typically goes on sale elsewhere. A current promotion at Advance Auto has 5 quarts and a Mobil 1 oil filter for just $29.99, a savings of more than $20 off their retail prices. Royal Purple, on the other hand, is about as rare as Kobe Beef and just as expensive. It never goes on sale and retailers who do carry it, don't budge off the price which is close to $10 per quart. In essence, I wanted to determine if Royal Purple was worth twice the cost of Mobil 1.

So I figured the best way to settle the dispute was to obtain samples of both Mobil 1 and Royal Purple from my engine after 5,000 miles of use. While it wouldn't conclusively demonstrate a gain or loss of horsepower (a dyno would be needed for that), it would illustrate which provided more protection from engine wear. I had already debunked Royal Purple's alleged increase in fuel economy as after 5,000 miles I hadn't come close to exceeding my all-time high set in July 2011 with Mobil 1. 

One of the criteria Blackstone sets for its used oil samples is that they prefer it come immediately from an engine that has been properly warmed up. Typically, this can be achieved through thirty-minutes of highway driving which helps burn off any moisture and other particulates which might skew the findings. This sounds easy and convenient on paper, but in reality means exposing tender bodyparts to various hot exhaust pieces that can exceed 800 degrees. Furthermore, with the RL on jackstands in my yard and only a couple inches of clearance, it really makes things interesting. Suffice it to say, after two separate oil samples from my car and one from my wife's Ford Freestyle, I'm glad I won't be needing to gather any more in the near future.

I shipped the sample on Monday and by Friday afternoon had the results in my email inbox. While Mobil1 doesn't acknowledge any specific properties in its synthetic oil, Royal Purple likes to point out its patented Synerlec additive which utilizes high concentrations of zinc and phosphorus as anti-wear additives. When guys stand around and toss out the old adage, "They don't build them like they used to", it could very easily relate to today's fancy motor oils.  Tightening emissions requirements are primarily responsible for squeezing zinc almost completely out of new motor oils. The American Petroleum Institute (API) has continuously cut the amount of zinc down to just .08 percent, from .15 a few years ago, and even higher than that in the early '90s.  Royal Purple's Synerlec attempts to correct this by adding more zinc and phosphorous than currently allowed by API-certified oils. They also point out that this should not be used by newer cars still under factory warranty due to potential problems.

The higher levels of zinc and phosphorus are present in the findings below, but surprisingly didn't seem to really help. The flashpoint is also lower in the Royal Purple sample which is not desirable, although in all fairness it is slightly above the minimum value. But the big news is the Total Base Number (TBN) which determines the remaining acid-neutralizing effectiveness of the oil after 5,000 miles. Royal Purple scored a commendable 6.1 but the Mobil 1 sample was nearly 15% higher with a 6.9 TBN.

Disappointingly, the conclusion based on these results is that Mobil 1 is the obvious winner. It clearly provides better protection at half the cost. I had honestly hoped for a better showing with Royal Purple but it wasn't in the cards. It looks like my next oil change will be with Mobil 1.

Caffeine & Octane

I was in Georgia this past weekend and managed to take in Atlanta's largest car show, Caffeine & Octane. Loosely based on the popular "Cars and Coffee" events springing up across the nation, it's an informal event open to all makes and models. While there were plenty of Ferraris and Lamborghinis there, I decided to focus on the really eclectic automobiles. You'll notice that most of these exotics are extremely expensive, exceedingly rare, and from far-flung areas of the globe not typically associated with performance cars.

2013 Shelby GT500: Hiding among the pedestrian Hondas and Toyotas parked away from the event, few onlookers noticed the sinister Shelby. Like a black mamba in the grass, it could be easily overlooked but the 662-horsepower bite from its supercharged 5.8-liter V8 is lethal. Clearly the least expensive here at $54,995, it was so new that it still sported paper tags from Prater Ford in nearby Calhoun, Georgia. And while the new GT500 closely resembles the 2012 model it replaces, the clear tip-off is the absence of a front grill. The cooling requirements of the 202-mph top speed necessitate the removal of the front grill so the Shelby can ingest massive amounts of fresh air.  

Rossion Q1: If the Rossion strangely resembles the Noble M400, it's because the Rossion is a more luxuriously-appointed Noble that utilizes the same twin-turbocharged 450hp Ford Duratec 3.0-liter V6. This is one of two "kit-cars" I spotted at Caffeine & Octane, the other being a Factory Five GTM. However, for the price of $114,900 I would personally prefer a vehicle with a better powertrain and pedigree that didn't come from Port Elizabeth, South Africa.   

Fisker Karma: The Finland-built Fisker Karma is the electric car du jour for celebs like George Clooney and Leonardo di Caprio who want to appear "environmentally conscious" even though they take private jets that burn as much fuel in one hour as driving a car burns in a year. But despite its mega-watt status and $116,000 price tag, it features a surprisingly humble GM Ecotec turbocharged four-cylinder more commonly found in the 2008-2010 Chevrolet Cobalt SS. And even with the Karma's two 200hp electric motors, the portly 5,300-lb curb weight conspires to keep performance closer to that of a Pontiac instead of a Porsche.  

Ariel Atom 500: Embracing Colin Chapman's theology that weight is the enemy of performance, the U.K.-assembled Ariel Atom tips the scales at a flyweight 1,350 lbs, thanks to generous use of carbon fiber bodypanels, chromoly wishbones, Dymag magnesium wheels and Alcon four-piston brake calipers. Motivated by two Suzuki Hayabusa engines that make one 500hp V8, Ariel claims the Atom 500 will accelerate from 0-60mph faster than a Bugatti Veyron. And at an estimated price of $160,000, only 25 will be built this year.

Nissan GT-R: Campaigned by Forged Performance in the 2012 One Lap of America race, this GTR is the recipient of the $28,499 FP800 kit which nearly doubles the stock power from 485hp to 800hp. Among the upgrades responsible for the horsepower hike are larger turbochargers, Injector Dynamics 1000cc injectors, Deatschwerks 300lph fuel pumps and a CBRD 90mm Y-Pipe. Disappointingly, problems sidelined the GT-R during the 3,500-mile race.

2013 Jaguar XKR-S Convertible: The $138,000 XKR-S is not only the fastest Jaguar convertible ever built, all 25 examples of the car allocated for North America sold out in minutes of its debut last fall at the Los Angeles Auto Show. Enthusiasts will also notice that with 550hp from its supercharged V8, the XKR-S is even more powerful than the legendary XJ220.  

Detomaso Pantera: The Pantera, or "Panther" in Italian, was Ford ill-fated attempt at selling an Argentinean import in their Lincoln-Mercury showrooms from 1971 to 1975. Despite moving 5,500 examples during that time, the Pantera was poorly-built, highly prone to rust, and generally undependable. However, that didn't seem to affect their popularity, particularly among celebrities. In fact, Elvis Presley was said to have been so frustrated by his Pantera's lack of reliability that he shot it with his gun. And Nicholas "Razzle" Dingley, the drummer for Hanoi Rocks was killed in 1984 when riding in the Pantera of Motley Crue frontman, Vince Neil. The Pantera started life with a run-of-the-mill Ford 351 producing 330hp but owners quickly moved to larger, more powerful engines such as the carbureated big-block in the example below.

All in all, it was quite a remarkable show, although some new models like the 2013 580hp Camaro ZL1 were conspicuously absent. Initially, we were having trouble finding it until I spotted a $125,000 Corvette ZR1 ahead of us. I hedged our bets that he was heading to the same event, so we dropped in behind him. Sure enough, he led us right to it. And even more exciting than the static display of all the cars, was when they began leaving the meet. Many of them deemed it necessary to "accelerate enthusiastically" upon departure, leaving not only an ear-splitting shriek in their wake but also the sweet perfume of unfiltered exhaust wafting through the morning air. Merging onto the Georgia 400 expressway, a red Porsche 911 flew past being chased by a yellow Ferrari F430. Up ahead, they encountered a light blue, late '60s Mercury Cougar also from the event. Suddenly, it was the Atlanta Olympics with the domestic Cougar squaring off against the Italian Ferrari and the German Porsche. Three lanes-wide, the drag race began and when it ceased, the Mercury had taken the gold medal.
 

Red Alert: Saturn Ion Red Line Two-Year Report

Beginning mileage May 2010: 29,500


Ending mileage May 2012: 46,000

Eight seasons have passed (if you can count the abbreviated winters we have in south Mississippi) and I'm upon the two-year anniversary of my Saturn Ion Red Line. In wrapping up the past twenty-four months, I'll try to omit things I've already covered in earlier emails. Herewith are a couple things I've learned about the Red Line:

*The chiropteran rear wing is more than just a styling exercise. At 70 mph, it generates 23 pounds of downforce. At 120 mph, that rises to 68.7 pounds, and at 155 mph the number is 115 pounds.

*Running the supercharger off the accessory belt means there is virtually no lag as with a turbocharger. However, the drag caused by spinning the blower to 16 PSI is responsible for cannibalizing 50hp.

*Electric power steering saves 0.5 mpg over a conventional belt-driven power steering pump and the system has proved so successful that it is also being used on the 2013 Chevy Malibu Eco.

My wife jokingly refers to it as my "Mid-Life Crisis" car, but in this day and age of Pruises and neutered eco-weenies that only Al Gore can love, there's something alluring and dangerous about a supercharged sports coupe that guzzles the most expensive gasoline and motor oil while ripping down the highway at 165 mph. It flies in the face of convention and is as sinfully hedonistic as Spring Break in Daytona Beach, which coincidentally, is when I picked it up in 2010.

From a purely analytical standpoint, sports cars do not make sense. Typically, the resale is far poorer on a Camaro than a Camry. I know because I speak from experience and when I sold my two year-old Mustang GT, I was floored by the staggering depreciation. Despite bring purchased new, and sold with only 17,000 miles on the odometer, its value was about half the original sticker price.

And so it was with my latest automotive purchase that I had to wrestle with the same quandary. From an economical perspective, it was hard to argue with the efficiency of my 1997 Saturn SC2. Sure, it was old but it was paid-off, returned 35 mpg despite daily trips to the redline, and the insurance and tag were dirt cheap. So the more I ran the numbers on the Red Line, the more worried I became. For starters, it seems any vehicle with a performance suffix automatically equates to more expense. The standard 2.2-liter Ion 3 Quad Coupe has an EPA rating of 23 City and 32 Highway, but the Red Line package slashes that like Obama cutting healthcare benefits to 20 City and 27 Highway (I averaged 26 mpg on my last fill-up). Compared to the fuel economy of my 1997 SC2, that works out to a 110-mile shorter driving distance. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the Red Line doesn't acquiesce to standard 87 octane-- it requires premium unleaded that is 91 or higher. This Evian of octane currently runs forty cents more per gallon so your wallet gets a double-whammy at the pump; not only is fuel economy worse, but the fuel costs more to boot. For me, that works out to an extra eight dollars every week. That might not seem like much until you realize that at the end of the year an extra $416 literally went up in smoke.

But, of course, the cash-littered road doesn't end there. Not only does the supercharged engine demand premium fuel, it also uses synthetic motor oil. That means the $12 jug of generic dino oil on sale at Wal-Mart just won't do the job. Nope, plan on seven quarts (even though the owner's manual incorrectly states six) of full-synthetic 5w-30 Royal Purple at around $10 apiece and toss in $12 for a genuine AC-Delco filter. That's quadruple what it costs to change the oil in my older Saturn and that's doing the dirty work in my driveway. A trip to the dealer for an oil change is easily a $100 affair. For four oil changes a year, that's an extra $200 above and beyond what it costs for the same treatment in my SC2.

When the triple-digit summer temps rolled in, I picked up a bottle of Red Line Water Wetter (which, despite the same name, is not affiliated with my car). Given the $15 price tag for the small 12 ounce bottle, I felt that I may as well be pouring Dom Perignon into the radiator. However, I doubt it would have improved the heat transfer any. In typical GM fashion, the RL's cooling system is on the ragged edge of efficiency and that condition is exacerbated by the South's brutal heat. Even equipped with a Laminova air-to-water intercooler, I tried to stay out of the boost as much as possible since the IAT2 sensor temps get hotter than a Secret Service agent in a Columbian brothel.

It's no lie that the Red Line had to be built on a shoe-string budget before the GM bean counters would approve it. After all, typical focus groups are infinitely more interested in cupholders than superchargers. With that being the case, the Red Line's development budget understandably experienced some cost-trimming. For instance, duplicating the 5.5-sec. zero-to-sixty result found in Car and Driver is discouraged because the RL's clutch has difficulty with even stock power levels, the motor mounts flex like saltwater taffy, and the front axles can snap like toothpicks. Additionally, the designers included some real head-scratching decisions such as sandwiching the intercooler between the a/c condenser and the radiator.

MODIFICATIONS

I remarked about the poor quality of the black vinyl shifter boot and it had continued to deteoriate as my ownership wore on. After the shifter knob cap popped off, I took it as a sign and ordered a $100 boot replacement through Redline Goods (which also has no endorsement with my car). I likewise picked up the e-brake boot and had them both tailored in black Italian leather with medium gray stitching to match the Recaro seats. I was worried they might stick out like a sore thumb, but the end result was fantastic. Unfortunately, the real sore thumb came from prying all the rusty staples out of the stock boot. At the end of the day, I probably should have gotten a tetanus shot after being jabbed so many times.

Another thing I changed is the addition of a $100 trapezoidal Saturn Motorsports aluminum front grille. I have always admired the black intercooler grille on the Dodge SRT-4 and I only added it on my Saturn for protection from bugs and rocks damaging the a/c condenser. However, it does offer the added benefit of really complementing the RL's aggressive front fascia. Interestingly, the stock mounting posts are present in the bumper indicating that at one time, it was under consideration to come so equipped from the factory. I had originally envisioned painting it matte black, but the anodized aluminum finish really harmonizes with the silver paint so I didn't touch it. It also seems well secured, as a recent blast to 130 mph failed to unseat it.

Externally, the fixed passenger-side antenna was a real distraction and also interfered with using a car cover. I removed it and relocated it inside the front fender. This concealed it nicely yet didn't prevent me from listening to my favorite radio stations.

Lastly, it was time to replace the AC Delco wipers I had installed when I bought the RL. The best rated wipers on the market are the Rain-X Latitude blades and it was the first time in my life I've paid $50 for rubber windshield wipers. In fact, the AC Delco set did a fantastic job for $25 so I can't see the Rain-X ones being twice as good, but time will certainly tell.

VROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT

With a dyno-proven 265 hp stock, the RL is hardly a tractor motor, but there's still progress to be gained over the factory setup. GM was very conservative when designing the LSJ powertrain and it shows. The braintrusts that led the company to bankruptcy also equipped the Red Line with undersized 34-lb injectors. Due to their inadequate size, they can't possibly meet the flow requirements for the boosted motor, so the engineers (and I use that term lightly) tried to circumvent this problem by having the engine run stupid rich (10.5 AFR) to compensate for the lack of fuel. But despite this, by 5100 rpm the injectors are maxed out at 100% duty cycle. By 5700 rpm, the AFR is leaning out because the injectors are at their limit, so the PCM begins to pull the boost. At the 6500 rpm redline, the AFR has leaned out to 12.4, the injectors are operating at a staggering 147% IDC, and only 70% of the maximum boost is available.

Not coincidentally, GM offers three Stage kits that address these developmental shortcuts, and help make the car as it should have originally come from the factory. For $775, I ordered Stage 2 which comes with a new engine calibration, 42-lb fuel injectors and a 77.9mm supercharger pulley. I also opted to order the GM Stage 3 pulley ($150) which is just 76mm and good for an extra pound of boost over the Stage 2 pulley. However, I wasn't interested in the more aggressive Stage 3 tune as it is for track use only and, in an effort to discourage street use, disables the air-conditioner. But by purchasing just the pulley, I'm in essence getting the best of both worlds-- Stage 3 performance with Stage 2 comfort.

The hardest part of the whole install was removing the stock supercharger pulley. We tried a three-jaw puller to no avail and ended up using a machine press to remove it. For pushing the hub on, we employed a kit that comes with a metal bushing and different size threaded rods, commonly used for power steering pumps. With the supercharger off, I inspected the rotors, and aside from some natural carbon build-up, they were in perfect shape. I was only able to get about 2 ounces of the supercharger oil out, but what I did get out was pretty dirty, so I was glad I changed it. My mechanic marveled at the blue Stage 2 security bolts that secure the pulley to the hub. He admitted that despite working on GM vehicles for twenty years, this was the first time he had ever seen such an unusual hex pattern.

The new injectors are the most expensive piece in the kit but because they're designed by GM, they use the factory harness and don't require a separate one like aftermarket injectors. Driving it to the dealer to get the new tune, the PCM threw a p0172 code which meant the car was running rich due to the larger injectors but other than that, there were no problems. After $150 for the PCM reflash, the car was better than new.

BOOSTER CLUB

Fortunately, it's easy to forget the ancillary expenses when the supercharger's impeller blades are spinning at 13,500 rpm and the tachometer is slicing towards the red zone faster than you can grab the next gear. With the Stage 2 upgrades, maximum boost jumped from 12 PSI to 16 PSI, a healthy increase that estimates total horsepower right at 300 (A dyno visit is scheduled for this fall). While the peak power and extra torque is nice to brag about, the real increase in acceleration comes from the fact that the power gains are present throughout the rev range. Acceleration is all about average torque production, and this is where positive displacement superchargers really shine: 80% of the maximum torque is available from as low as 2500 rpm all the way to the 7000 rpm redline. However, 300 horsepower in a front wheel-drive car means first and second gear is nearly unusable, even with new 215/45-17 Z-rated rubber. Power delivery comes on with a smooth and steady rush, like water through a firehose. Regrettably, the Ion is so fast that you can only legally touch the redline in the first two gears, as second winds out at 65mph. Third finishes up at a license-losing 100mph, and the top of fourth gets you 130mph and cigarettes on visitor's day. At 165mph, fifth gear is either a clean getaway or an early funeral.

SEEING RED

Unfortunately, the last two years haven't been all shifts and giggles. The intercooler pump, which circulates the coolant to keep the supercharger temps down, unexpectedly went out, although I suspect it was more the number of years as opposed to the miles that did it in. The factory Bosch pumps are notorious for the internal brushes getting gummed-up which causes them to fail. Interestingly, the RL uses the same intercooler pump as the Ford Lightning and the Mustang Cobra so it was much easier to pick one of them up for $100 instead of paying Saturn $335 for one. Unfortunately, someone at GM decided it would be smart to glue the clamps to the hose with the same industrial adhesive that is used on the Space Shuttle, so it was a real challenge removing it.

While swapping the factory downpipe in anticipation of installing the aftermarket catless one, I discovered that the rear 02 sensor was firmly entrenched and did not wish to be removed. Finally, after employing the use of a vice, it was discovered that the supercharged exhaust was so hot that it had melted the threads of the 02 sensor and was the reason it was seized in the exhaust pipe. Obviously, this necessitated a new $150 oxygen sensor before the RL would run again and it was quite a feat locating one two days before Christmas.

If that wasn't enough, the front driver-side Dunlop decided to blow-out last fall. Fortunately, I was leaving work when I discovered it due to the feeling of driving on a square tire. I pulled into a local tire shop and noticed that the inner sidewall had completely collapsed. Apparently, this is a common problem with the factory Dunlops so I rotated the rear tire to the front to keep the load off the tiny spare. And naturally, the tire shop did not have a suitable replacement so I was forced to commute home on the donut. A few days later, I sourced a temporary Goodyear replacement while I waited on the new ones to arrive. For $1000, I had four ultra-high performance B.F. Goodrich G-Force tires installed and aligned. They made an amazing difference in both the handling and ride-quality.

CONCLUSION

To the uneducated public, a high-performance Saturn is an oxymoron like "Congressional Ethics" or "Happily Married". In fact, when strangers approach me about my car, invariably the most asked question is about the rear suicide doors. They think it's the coolest thing. Granted, it's a neat feature and perfect for transporting my six year-old daughter, but what catches them off guard is when I mention that it has a supercharger and 300hp. The reaction is similar to a sudden onset of dementia as they struggle to comprehend the notion of a three-hundred horsepower Saturn. Occam's Razor states that Saturns are small, 100hp grocery-getters and that is largely how the car-buying demographic remembers them. Few recall or even knew about the other Saturn offerings such as the Astra subcompact, Aura sedan, Outlook SUV or Sky convertible.

Unfortunately, my Red Line is not inexpensive nor economical, things a Saturn is typically known for. However, it is a blast to drive and the siren-like whine of the supercharger never fails to put a grin on my face. I'll probably never see 100,000 miles in it, but I have enjoyed the smiles per gallon over the past two years. Last summer, I went as far west as Baton Rouge and exited the Louisiana Welcome Center faster than ever before in my life. And earlier this year, made two trips to Pensacola Beach in it. On the highway, it's as comfortable and quiet as a Honda Civic, easily up for a last-minute cross-country trek. And the 300hp is a non sequitur, like dating supermodel Petra Ecclestone and then discovering she's a billionaire heiress.

I don't know what the next two years will bring for the RL, but I'm certainly going along for the ride!