The Mopar Conundrum/ High Miles vs Low Miles

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InFiNiTe_MeDuLa
Greets Gtplanet faithful. I will try not to run on. I am sure this has opinion has been posted somewhere on this sight before, but just a lil refresher, conspicuously addressed around one of my favorite Daytona cars.

The Cuda is a rare bird sometimes in the Used car dealer, and when one is found it probably has 30,000 or so kmh. Now kmh is different from MPH, but im not sure of specific measurement theory. I do know a High Kmh car is probably a high MPH car.


When you find a Cuda with high miles its not as great a performer as a low miles Cuda, but I continue to hear criticism of the car when it appears on track and a player who had a bad experience with it will call it slow. However the Cuda is far from weak as it will pop a good 219 on Daytonas backstretch with no draft.

To ensure you have a great Cuda try for a low miles Cuda available on the Classic muscle ticket ( jeff gordon challenge all bronze) its random pick but you may get lucky. 1971 Birthday ticket has them also. Dont drive the cuda in Automatic format as it does not Redline in fourth and has to be forced shifted to fifth.

I hope this helps anyone having problems with that car. If you do have high miles cuda use it for practice, and Haggle with friends or friends of friends to see about acquiring a shiny new one. Its not an experience to be missed, if you enjoy Classic Muscle races at Daytona or Route X. :)
 
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they key to a fast cuda in gt5 is to shift well before redline (i think peak hp is something like 4600rpm) in each gear and stretch the gears. this car has a very wide torque band (altho it's down low/mid rpms) so long gears do not hurt it like they would a honduh.
 
MPH (miles per hour) and KMH (kilometers per hour) are both measures of distance over time.
Miles and kilometers are simply measures of distance.
Generally speaking relative to GT5, the lower the miles, the faster the car because of less engine and chassis wear.
 
crowhop
MPH (miles per hour) and KMH (kilometers per hour) are both measures of distance over time.
Miles and kilometers are simply measures of distance.
Generally speaking relative to GT5, the lower the miles, the faster the car because of less engine and chassis wear.
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But can't you simply rebuild the motor and refresh the chassis to get the same condition as a 0 miles car. Never understood why people worried so much about this when there is a feature to take care of a high mileage car
 
Thetruth28
But can't you simply rebuild the motor and refresh the chassis to get the same condition as a 0 miles car. Never understood why people worried so much about this when there is a feature to take care of a high mileage car
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You are absolutely correct to a point. But there is some small, but permanent power loss that cannot be regained.
 
crowhop
You are absolutely correct to a point. But there is some small, but permanent power loss that cannot be regained.
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This is true. The difference will amount to 1-2pp. I host a Lemons series where cars must engine-refresh to under a specific PP to qualify. Some drivers report having a car at 350pp while others will refresh the exact same car to 351 or 352pp. We did not see a correlation to vehicle mileage though. It was somewhat random. Another note is that cars with very high mileage tend to lose power more quickly. You have to change the oil more often to keep it in good running order.

As for the Cuda specifically. All muscle cars and many mid or low rpm turbo cars require different shift points. Once you start tuning you have to pay close attention to the power curves. I have some cars that are very competitive only if I shift 1,000 rpm before redline. Top speed gearing might be 170mph even though the car won't even hit 155mph on the Nurburgring straight.
 
there's a thread on here about permament power loss. it is a percentage every 15,000 kms. don't recall the number off the top of my head.
 
interesting stuff. I did notice short shifting muscle cars definitely gave them more of a forward surge then trying to redline the car like most modern vehicles.
 
chuyler1
Some drivers report having a car at 350pp while others will refresh the exact same car to 351 or 352pp.
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I have three classic style mini coopers all within 20k kms, but the pp difference is ENORMOUS. I cant quote numbers at this point in time, but i remember it being MUCH more than 1-2.
 
Thetruth28
interesting stuff. I did notice short shifting muscle cars definitely gave them more of a forward surge then trying to redline the car like most modern vehicles.
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That's because these long stroke engines are mostly build for torque and it reaches the maximum amount of torque available long before the redline, that isn't just the case for classic muscle cars, but also for modern cars with long stroke engines or diesel powered cars for example.
A short stroke engine is more focussed on horsepower delivery in the higher rev range and less on torque, there's a huge difference between, say, most big American V8's and a V8 found in a Ferrari.
 
I left specific tuning ideas out to keep thread as short as possible. Keep in mind thread also gives ideas on how to get 1 of the 27 color chips for the Cudas. (some say 26 but i know of someone has 27) and it's performance on Daytona and Route X
 
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sheepborg
I have three classic style mini coopers all within 20k kms, but the pp difference is ENORMOUS. I cant quote numbers at this point in time, but i remember it being MUCH more than 1-2.
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Have you rebuilt the engine on all of them? If so, I notice lighter cars tend to build pp faster with even light mods. The pp difference might be greater for such a small car but it may only be a few go difference. Just think about the pp rating of the karts. But anyway, refresh the engines, not just an oil change and they will be closer.
 
Thetruth28
interesting stuff. I did notice short shifting muscle cars definitely gave them more of a forward surge then trying to redline the car like most modern vehicles.
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It's all about keeping horsepower up. Those cars make peak horsepower well before redline.

If you have a round curve around the peak horsepower, you'd want to set your custom transmission up so the horsepower peak is right in the middle of your shift points (i.e. peak HP is at 5000 RPM, so you set your shift point at 5500 RPM so it ends up at 4500 RPM in the next gear; this will maximize torque at the wheels and maximize accleration).
 
chuyler1
Have you rebuilt the engine on all of them? If so, I notice lighter cars tend to build pp faster with even light mods. The pp difference might be greater for such a small car but it may only be a few go difference. Just think about the pp rating of the karts. But anyway, refresh the engines, not just an oil change and they will be closer.
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They are all UNTOUCHED. that is the weird part
With mileage so close and whatnot i would expect much closer #s
 

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