why is my impreza so under-powered?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ceolix
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Ceolix

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Ceolix
hello, i am.actually racing.with my impreza vs other cars.
while the other cars go from 0-270 so fast, my impreza barely hits 200 and all cars here are 500pp. so how is my impreza so slow and they cars are so fast?

please.help
 
they must have like 360 hp
my impreza has 281 hp at 500pp
i have aerodynamics but doesnt increase my hp
 
Do you race against NSXs, M3 CSLs, Ferrari GTOs or other good 500pp cars? Are you racing on tracks with long straights like La Sarthe or Bathurst?
 
Well, all of those cars I mentioned are the best in the class. Some are quite fast on corners and some on straights. (NSX is super fast on corners, while the Ferrari GTO is one of the fastest on straights). Some cars may be lighter than your car, which really may helps. Is your car producing understeer or oversteer? (I never raced my Impreza on 500pp races, mine is fully tuned.)
 
I will try some 500pp cars tomorrow. (Today, I'm busy due to my championship, I have a 2 hours race tonight.)
 
I'm going to guess that the speeds in the first post are in km/h and you're bouncing off the rev limiter in top..?
 
Ceolix
they must have like 360 hp
my impreza has 281 hp at 500pp
i have aerodynamics but doesnt increase my hp
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I have a 500PP Imprezza for running the 'Ring. It has 322 HP and 333 ft-lbs of torque. And that's with a flat floor which jumps the PP value up quite a bit.

Just for fun I went out and bought a new Imprezza (WRX STI Spec C Type RA '05) and without the PP-increasing flat floor at 500PP the Imprezza is sitting at 374 hp and 386 ft-lbs of torque. It'll run to 178 mph (286 km/h) on the back straight at LaSarthe with the stock transmission.

If I make the car lighter and apply every possible weight reduction, then I'm down to 331 hp and 358 ft-lbs of torque, but it'll still pull 172 mph (276 km/h) down the back straight at LaSarthe on the stock transmission. This car is slower in overall top speed because top speed is a product of power and aerodynamics and weight doesn't matter (on level ground anyway).

The only way I can drop the numbers down to what you're seeing is to install a flat floor (which adds a HUGE amount of drag and slows the car down a lot on wide-open circuits, but can help a lot on circuits like the Nordschleife where you can use the extra downforce to help cornering speeds a lot in the technical sections where you're not going much over 120 anyway), and then lighten the car as much as possible. This is what it takes to get to the numbers you're talking about. With the power reduction required by lightening the car and adding the flat floor (along with the increase in drag added by the flat floor) this configuration tops out at 138 mph (222 km/h) at LaSarthe and starts struggling around 125 mph (201 km/h).

Lap times for the cars were 4:14.4 for the heavy, high-power car, 4:13.7 for the light car with no flat floor (it fell behind on the Mulsanne but was fast enough in the final section's corners to come out ahead), and 4:35.1 for the light car with the flat floor (the extra drag from the floor and the PP increase from the floor's downforce just killed the car on the Mulsanne and there was no way to make that up). All three versions of the same car were at 500 PP, but the times varied drastically.

Basically, you have set up your car to be the slowest it can possibly be on fast tracks with long straights. Getting rid of the flat floor and adding power should make you a bit over 20 seconds faster per lap at LaSarthe (2005, no chicanes) even though you'll still be at 500 PP. A flat floor only improves times on tracks that are mostly lower-speed technical sections (like the Nordschleife) where the time lost on the long straights is more than made up for by the time gained in the corners.
 
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Flat floor works best on slower track like Tsukuba, it lowers lap time, as most cars won't reach over 220kmh there.
 
:P Autumn Ring Mini and a few others where speed never reach 250kmh, but still not a guarantee for a win though, it needs a good driver who can extract more cornering speed from the added grip.
 
rosckolove
I don't think flat floors ever benefits you in any PP race.
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If there's enough power I've seen benefits to my times on the Nordschleife; my little Imprezza will run 7:15's, which isn't bad for sports tires and the lower power it has (and for my limited driving ability). Mostly though the flat floor helped on the 'Ring with a massively over-powered Supra 3.0 Turbo A since it had the juice to pull 170+ even with the floor.

It's a tricky balancing act to find where a flat floor is helpful; if the corners are really extra slow then you're not moving fast enough for the floor to be making useful downforce but if the corners are too fast then the floor is slowing you down (unless you have an ungodly amount of power already).
 
rosckolove
Ok but was that a PP restricted race?
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Ahh, now I see what you meant. My Nordschleife Imprezza is set up at 500 PP but not for any spec racing, just for my own fun. And the Supra is definitely not PP restricted.

I'll have to do some messing about today to play with that Imprezza setup for the 'Ring and find out if I'm fooling myself. :)

My instinct is to agree with you that in most cases when running for a specific PP level you're better off avoiding the flat floor unless you're at higher levels like 650+ or you have a slow track.
 
Maybe you should get a slightly modded Imprezza Touring car. It's speed is not too good but it's handling is pretty good, its a hassle if the course has a really long straight but a bit good of you are at Nürburing.
 
its all about how you drive it really im not calling you slow or anything but I also drive Imprezas and I have them pretty fast even with the flat floor aero package go and lighten your car that way you will notice a big difference its not all about HP and PP but the way your car handles as well
 
SteveEnforcer
its all about how you drive it really im not calling you slow or anything but I also drive Imprezas and I have them pretty fast even with the flat floor aero package go and lighten your car that way you will notice a big difference its not all about HP and PP but the way your car handles as well
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It all depends on the course. Look at the lap times I posted earlier, all at the same PP level.

The light car with the flat floor was by far the slowest. It was slightly faster through every moderately tight corner, but because LaSarthe has so many flat-out sweepers and straights there's just no way to make up the time lost by not having the top speed. It's not as though I suddenly became a worse driver just from having the flat floor.

You have to adjust downforce for the circuit. At Streets of Willow the car with the flat floor would likely be the fastest because the straight isn't long enough and there are enough corners that the increased corner speed would help more than the reduced top speed hurts. At Spa, however, the drag is likely to do more harm than good.
 

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