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First, I just want to say Petevb, your insight is simply brilliant and nothing short of amazing and informative on this topic that's got us riled up now.
What we should be worried about (with graphs) is how heavy sports cars are becoming. Based on the current flagship supercar weights, how soon will 4000 lbs be the 'new-light-weight' benchmark, yuk.
But Wheels fills in some details for us, quoting no less an authority than Walter Röhrl in claiming the new turbo flat-six will produce 349bhp in 2.7-litre form for the Carrera, and 430bhp in 3.0-litre form for the Carrera S.
Wheels quotes the motor sport legend as saying he has driven the new engines. He is clearly not a fan of turbocharging… ‘We need to go to turbocharging to reduce emissions,’ he is quoted as saying. ‘How else can we get C02 levels below 95g? But no matter how good a turbo engine is, it can never have the pure response of a naturally aspirated engine.’ Walter Röhrl doesn’t stop there. ‘At least it’s not a four-cylinder turbo like in the next Boxster. That sounds like a Volkswagen Beetle, I’m not kidding you! I tell the guys, “You’re joking with this sound, right?” But they just say they are working on it. I’m sure they will get it right.’
Walter’s answer? Wheels reports he has bought himself a current Boxster ‘because engines like this won’t be made anymore’.
I was blessed to go out to Sweden last week with Porsche for a little ice driving. Walter Röhrl was there giving rides in his 991 Turbo S down a tight but flowing single track snow rally course. He's an absolute master, everything they claim and more. Perhaps predictably the question of Turbo vs NA came up while we were driving in a way I thought was relevant to this thread.
First the drive itself: Walter was miles ahead of the course and car. The steering wheel was relatively quiet- much of the time it was entirely still as he casually balanced it with one hand, relatively little input and few large corrections required. Most of the steering was done with the throttle.
The car was preset far before the corner, and he was clearly thinking 3 corners ahead. He'd use left foot brake and throttle to initiate a slide 50 meters or more before the corner, put it into a mild drift, control the line with the throttle, then smoothly link that drift to the next one in a way that was almost slow motion and never jerky or violent. The car never actually hooked up.
There was never any understeer- he said that if he didn't provoke the drift before the corner then every 5th corner the car might get understeer. By setting the car into a four wheel drift before the corner he insured oversteer which he could control as opposed to understeer he could not, and from there he simply managed how much.
He said he clearly prefers normally aspirated for this application. The turbo's lack of throttle precision makes the car harder to place, because when he goes for the throttle he's never sure how much drift he'll get. I asked him how much less accurately he could place the car due to this- six inches, or 1 foot?
"I would say...." Walter thought for a moment, pregnant pause as he considered an answer before turning to face me fully, still at speed: "Two Feet". Awesome moment:
Given that we were drifting edge to edge as it was, that two feet would have meant we'd be kissing the snowbanks on every single corner. It already seemed close to perfection to me, no sense of drama or chasing the car and needing to catch it. Velvet smooth.
When we talk about turbo "lag" or throttle delay with the upcoming turbo cars it's at this level. If you're using the throttle to initiate and dial a drift then the lag or lower response from the newest generation of turbos is still an issue. For the way most of us drive 99.9% of the time, however, it's completely transparent and nearly irrelevant other than feel. Many newer turbo owners will tell you with a straight face that their cars "have no lag". And they fully believe this, because it's subtle enough that they won't notice as they use the car.
Even Walter says that his 991 Turbo S is awesome and his first choice on the street, comfortable with easy passing grunt and poise that makes it a weapon in the real world. However at the limit, in some conditions, something is lost. That day it was two feet. Exactly.
One last thought. It's been said before, but I can confirm: Walter Röhrl is unequivocally the man.
The market will speak. If sales drop off they'll have to rethink things...I just can't see being excited for small displacement turbo.
Yeah dunno if I'd agree with that... pretty soon almost every other option in the 911 space (GTR, NSX, R8, AMG GT, F-Type, etc) will be FI as well so its not as if the market has anywhere else to go for an NA fix. Not to mention the fact that this move is being driven by the need to reduce emissions which is a common fact faced by all manufacturers globally.
I'm sure the 991.2 will be an excellent car but will be interesting to see how it is viewed against its immediate predecessor... and even more interested in seeing what sort of hybrid tech trickles down from the 918 to the 992.
I'm sure the 991.2 will be an excellent car but will be interesting to see how it is viewed against its immediate predecessor... and even more interested in seeing what sort of hybrid tech trickles down from the 918 to the 992.
I'm remaining hopeful that our fears won't be completely realized and that it won't be nearly as bad as we're speculating.
Let them do whatever. It's just irritating to me.
Wait until the whining starts with the big sticker price bump with the new Turbos. The Turbo fans will be singing a new tune. Quote me then. Going on record here.
There will be NA options in the GT3 and GT4, model offerings for quite a while in the future from what I've gathered. There will be a niche demand for NA cars.
It's just funny that anyone you see quoted has nothing positive to say about the Turbos other than make excuses on that's what needs to be done, reduce emissions, gov't guidelines, etc.
Apologizing for them rather than pointing out progress (which there is none or they'd be saying it).
Kinda like, oh well that's the way things are going. They'll figure it out, blah, blah..
The market will speak. If sales drop off they'll have to rethink things...I just can't see being excited for small displacement turbo.
The market has spoken. And the government had the loudest and only voice.
Emissions standards are dictating engineering and production strategy at car companies. (See Ferrari.).
It won't really matter what consumers (i.e. you or me) prefer in an engine. If the governments make it impractical to make and build NA engines with large CO2 emissions then any car manufacturer that wants to remain viable - be it Porsche or Toyota - will do some combination of FI, EV, or both in combo.
We may want and prefer an NA power plant, but if there are no realistic choices on the market, at least on a mass produced scale, then that's the kind of demand that people describe as "fantasy".
02-11-2015, 07:11 PM
