Sorry for the length.. it turned out to be much longer than I meant for it to be.
Leo_Straight6
The way I see it...........is that if the Japanese can get 100s of models and about 6 versions of a car that are almost the same........why can't it be the same for the Germans?
Well for the record, I think it is really silly when PD does it for the Japanese cars as well.
Btw....1999 and 2001 M5 have major external differences which include the rear lights, the front lights etc etc.
I wouldn't call new headlights and taillights "major".. but that's just me. Besides, none of it amounts to anything in a game. Performance-wise, they are identical. You can't see the car when you're driving it anyway.
Euro and US spec versions of all the BMW cars that had the M52 engine(E39 528,523, E36 and E46 323,328) are fairly different in the engine design.
Believe it or not the European spec models have an aluminium block engine and the American spec ones have an iron block engine. Aluminium blocks are better because of the lighter wieght but the iron blocks are better for engine durability.
Emissions equipment and block material do not constitute meaningful differences to me. The difference between an iron vs. aluminium block; you're talking about the difference of 30-40 lbs. at the very most. That's the weight difference between a car with powered seats and a moonroof vs. manual seats with NO moonroof. That level of hair-splitting seems a little silly, don't you think?
E46 323i and 325i are vastly different.
325i had the M54 engine and the 323i had the old M52 engine.
M52 had single vanos, M54 has double vanos, M54 2.5 engine shoves out 141kw and the older M52 2.5 litre engine(but still called the 323i) had 125kw.
The torque band and powerband were significantly improved in the M54 as well.
A notciably much larger fan was also fitted to the M54 engines.
Vast would be an exaggeration. Yes, I know the technical "on paper" differences between the cars. But all I'm saying is that they are trivial in the context of a game like GT4. It is hard to notice less than 10 horsepower in real life. Noticing even less than that in a video game is just not going to happen at all.
Besides, the "323" 2.5 was a very under-rated engine, and really made much closer to the "328"'s power levels. I've seen plenty of dyno charts which showed the "170"hp 323 motor made closer to 182-184hp. This was BMW marketing at work, trying to protect the old 328.
This is another case of "different on paper", but not really different in real life. In real life, if you line up a 190hp 328i and a "170"hp 323i and a "185"hp 325i, I gurantee you they will run neck in neck in accleration until well into the triple digits... only after which the 328 will pull away, albeit slowly. I've driven pretty much every new BMW since about 1986, and I'm telling you, the difference in performance between an M54 325 and an M52 323 is so miniscule, you'd never know the difference unless you looked at the badge on the trunk. You would notice a bigger difference between cars based on whether or not one had sport package vs. one that didn't.
And where you're most wrong is with the M Roadsters and M Coupes.
The 1998 M Roadster and M Coupe had the E36 M3's 3.2 litre S52 Straight6.
2001 models had the S54 3.2 from the E46 M3.
The S52 Z3M was rated at 321 DIN. The S54 Z3M 325 DIN. That's 4 peak horsepower. Shoot, I can gain 4 horsepower simply by driving at night when its 15 degrees cooler.
It is the same engine as the M3, but with a different airbox, exhaust headers and software. The S54 in the M Roadster/Coupe is detuned and redlines at 7600 RPM instead of 8000 RPM. This is reason the E46 M3 is rated at 343 DIN HP and the S54 Z3M is rated at 325 DIN hp. In this case, BMW is not simply marketing a difference between the 2 engines, there truly is a difference.
In addition, the S54 engined Roadster/Coupe also have a taller rear end, which slows them (3.15 vs. old 3.23). Gotta protect the E46 M3, you know.
Apparently the S54 engined models are significantly faster.
I think it was either the Evo or Car magazine that once clocked the S54 M Coupe at a 4.3 0-100 time.
Thats fast!
I'm not certain S54 Z3Ms are any faster than S52 Z3Ms. In fact, I rather doubt it. I take 0-100 kph (0-60 mph) times with a grain of salt, especially when comparing two different cars tested on two different days. There are so many variables in terms of track surface, weather conditions and production variation in similar cars, one test isn't going to sway my opinion either way.
Don't get me wrong about all this. I love BMWs and the more they put into GT4, the happier I'll be. I just don't care to have 6 different models to choose from when for all intents and purposes, they drive the same way and run lap times with 1/100ths of a second of one another.
M
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