folks, I have a new-found respect for some american sports cars. I saw this bit on TV about the 2000 Viper GTS-R prototype, and found out some things that I thought about it to simply be untrue. i thought the tranny was seriously close ratio'd, making high speeds impossible and only leaving room for high torque. I also thought it was kinda ugly, and thought it was yet another pathetically heavy and slow- turning am. car. all of these happen to be untrue. hats of to those at detroit for finally making a car that gets my respect!

How could you have thought the viper wasn't capable of high speed due to it's transmission?

The rear end ratio is 3.0 something. The top 2 gears in the transmission are overdrive ratios with the top one being something around .74:1. It's been that way for quite awhile. With a rear end ratio of 3.0 and a .74 top gear, the car's going to be faster than shit if the engine has the torque to back it up, and it does.


Close ratio just relates to how far the gears are apart numerically. Close ratio transmissions allow for less engine bogging while changing gears. The actual ratio of the top gear, engine redline, rear end ratio, and tire size determine mathmatical top speed. Actual top speed depends on engine torque and aerodynamic losses.

My numbers might be a little off, I didn't feel like looking them up again. But I believe that I'm fairly close.

American cars have been decent for awhile.

I forget if you liked jap or european cars, but here's a comparison of import and american cars based on approximate price. The American low tech, piece of crap cars did pretty decent.

http://members.tripod.com/~juan_espero/drag.html


But imports handle better. Not necessarily.
http://members.tripod.com/~juan_espero/handling.html

I know this site focuses on hondas and the info is fairly old. It's the only one I had saved that has a list like this. I'm not trying to start an import vs doemstic thread, but the numbers are fairly close.

Do you think I could custom-order a new Viper with the 528 Hemi in it? I realize it's not gonna help the performance, but they sound so incredibly sweet. A bad-ass car deserves the unmistakable rumble of a big-block Hemi under the hood...

Maybe the standard engine could be shoehorned into a Neon. You think?

The information on that Honda Vs Domestic page is very biased. The specific cars that they have compared were obviously picked to favour the domestic cars.

Of course it's biased. It's an anti honda site. The comparisons were fairly equal according to prices and popularity.

I generally prefer european cars.
I heard originally that the concept (not the production SRT-10 car, the GTS-R CONCEPT)
had such close ratios and such a low redline that when you get flat out in 6th gear it just bounces off the redline and sticks to about 160 MPH or so. however, I now know the truth.