Cogito_Ergo_Zoom

Who here has had their car at redline in sixth and lived to tale the tale?

rnl

Only in my dreams

Sent from my iPhone using Rennlist

Nicoli35

redline in 4th, topless, is enough to scare me pretty good and put a smile on for the night. I haven't taken her on a real trip with empty straightaways into the far distance yet. Wife got a little carsick even with the top down after some curvy fun on highway 9 last night though, lol.

chuck911

Nobody does this with their own car. According to factory break-in it can only be done after 134,287 miles. That's why I do it on the test drive. (By the way it is not true when they say top speed in 6th. You can go a lot faster at redline in 7th. But you do need a pretty long downhill....)

Cogito_Ergo_Zoom

I heard a similar story from a friend this weekend who did the same on a testdrive. In the early morning hours of a Sunday on the way to an autocross in a neighboring city. (Not sure how he got use of a tester for an autocross, but anyway, I digress.) On an empty boondoggle of a private toll road that connects these two cities there exists the flat expanse of a four lane section of highway with excellent visibility in all directions quite literally in the middle of nowhere.

Mind you, said toll road already has the fastest legal speed limit in the nation at 85 mph in an attempt to lure additional traffic it will seemingly never get. Anyway, said friend's trusty co-pilot and co-driver for that day's event, and whom with he's been racing karts, motorcycles and whatever else they could get their hands on since their early high school days--let's refer to him as "Mutt"--posed a simple question at the start of the day's journey: "Is this vehicle capable of more than doubling our nation's fastest posted legal speed limit? I don't believe that it can... These cars have, and always will be, overrated."

The subtle challenge had been laid. Or was it a trap? A completely foolish, probably insane, proposition nonetheless. Why, at that speed you'd be covering the ground at roughly 279 ft/sec. To put it another way, that's almost one football field every tick of the watch! Insane, my friend said! Absolutely OUT of the question!

My friend reported he thought about it as they drove along... The car did have brand new tires, conveniently set to the higher "Autobahn" pressures for speeds over 160 MPH. (Damn tire installer was an unwitting enabler of this nonsense!) There wasn't another car in sight and you could see for miles in the beautiful early morning glow. Co-pilot's borrowed V1 was mounted and keeping quiet vigil. Direction of travel was north to south, wind levels were low, and there was no crosswind to speak of. Confused feral hogs whose former scrubland living room was now a wide, flawless ribbon of concrete had reportedly been a problem, but my friend, having been raised in Texas after all, knew that these were primarily nocturnal creatures and shouldn't be a factor...

A quick calculation and he figured it would probably only take about a minute of uninterrupted foot-to-the-floor acceleration to get there.

No, just too risky.

Co-pilot, however, was not to be denied his thrill ride. Insisted that the point should be proven, no, HAD to be proven. Co-pilot accepted the risk that they very well could end up dead or at the very least in jail if things somehow went wrong in that minute.

A silence descended over the cabin, with only the baritone of the flat six humming steadily along behind them.

Suddenly the friend said he found his eyes fixed on the horizon and his foot flat to the floor. The transmission, caught seemingly momentarily confused loping along lazily in economy mode, quickly downshifted into sixth. Then seeing that its driver had no intention of relenting and really did mean business, shifted into fifth and called to the engine room for full power. The car seemed to come alive and take a purposeful set like it fully knew what they were about to do and was now eagerly encouraging it itself.

120 MPH came by in a flash. 150 appeared shortly thereafter.

160.

170.

It almost seemed effortless. Mere seconds had gone by.

180. The car had added 100 MPH without even breaking a sweat! At this point they were approaching terminal velocity. Any encounter with the long arm of the law and tough decisions would have to be made involving very real consequences.

With the exception of some slight dartiness in the steering and a slightly more disconcerting air leak as the sunroof began to slightly pull away from the body with the tremendous pressures these speeds entailed, it was steady as she goes. They could have still been doing 85 MPH for all it felt like. My friend called out the climb to the co-pilot from there:

185. 188.

190! 191!!!!

At that point my friend said there were probably 500-600 more revs left to redline in sixth, but an impending curve and uphill trajectory made him regain his sanity and he wisely lifted. The car instantly began to decelerate without so much as touching the brakes, belying the ease with which it had gotten there. Within moments they were doing 150 MPH, then 120 again, which now comparatively felt like a crawl. My friend decided to stop pushing his luck for that day and brought the car back down below the posted limit.

And with that it was over almost as quickly as it had began.

When my friend told me this story, I could only shake my head in disbelief. It was the anti-social, irresponsible behavior of a reprobate. My friend could only nod his head in agreement. Shameful.

Noah Fect

I knew there was a reason why I was waiting four months for my car, rather than just taking the one off the lot that had 95% of the same options.

rijowysock

car is very stable at speeds, would love to drive the rear wheel steering models..

top i had mine was 160 and change.. very stable and very calm at speed. GTR at same speed doesn't have the same "confident" feel.. but then again a GTR at the same speed "Wants" to go faster versus the 991 was slowly poking along..

letting off, the 991 decelerates very easily and evenly.. no loose *** syndrome...

fester

Nice story..,I did this with my bimmer (e92 335) the day it had its break in period over...I took it to the under construction / incomplete toll road and went up to 155mph in a jiffy! It was amazing how stable it felt at that speed...I've done 135mph in my c4s so far...it felt extremely stable at that speed!

Cogito_Ergo_Zoom

I believe this is the toll road my friend was referring to.

mtbscott

My first time on said toll road was a few weeks ago during the MotoGP event at COTA. Texas toll road 130 has a speed limit of 80 even through the city, goes up to 85 once you really get into the country. Kind of surreal driving along where most folks are doing at least that, 90mph doesn't stand out. I didn't test it that weekend though, too many popo lying in wait for the errant sportbiker to come along.

chuck911

Most people, even a lot on RL, seem to consider spoilers as primarily cosmetic. Think how many comments there are along the lines of can I add that front lip it sure looks cool, or remove it because scrapes. And, to tell the truth, at legal speeds these things are mostly cosmetic. But at speeds that would have an airplane flying, speeds at which the air causes you to "brake" 50 mph the moment you let off full throttle, well then all those little tweaks really matter. A lot. Think of the Porsche GT1 that flipped into the the air due to an unrecognized aerodynamic flaw. Could really ruin your day. Fortunately Porsche has been and continues to be the leader in aerodynamics. The 991 has seen so much development, as stories like this one attests, its almost hard to tell you're doing 190. I got the biggest kick out of the "overrated" comment. Underrated is more like it.

Cogito_Ergo_Zoom

Yes, it is kind of funny that the "slow" traffic is only doing 90.

They were much further out than that on the way to San Antonio. I was out at COTA too that weekend and it definitely was not the time to try something like this. Like you said way too many LEOs around but more importantly way too much traffic. Gotta get up early, early in the morning.

Agree. The car is extremely aerodynamically stable at high speed, not to mention obviously very efficient to be able to reach those speeds with "only" 400hp. If you've been under the car they've gone to great pains to keep the undertray as flat and smooth as possible. It is absolutely incredible how balanced this car is in terms of mechanical grip and aerodynamics.

The co-pilot by the way is absolutely obsessed with the 991 and does not believe it is overrated in any sense. That was just his way of egging my friend on.

rnl

Strangely enough I was cruising at 85 on CT-15 (Merritt Parkway) in connecticut last week Notwithstanding that I was often passed by Toyotas, the ride was comfortable, smooth and the car felt under control turning about 2500 rpm

Sent from my iPhone using Rennlist

cmb13

I wonder if wearing a helmet attracts more attention from the police?

Cogito_Ergo_Zoom

A friend once got hassled by TSA when he brought his helmet through security heading to an event, so his solution was to put in on and claim it was a safety device for a medical condition.