2005 Chevy Cobalt SS ...

[LateNightCable]

Chevy has been putting the legendary SS badge on some dubious things as of late. The Cobalt SS could very well be Japanese if not for the bow-tie on the nose and tail, it doesn't say much for American style.

There is probably not a lot of lost power between the crank and wheels in a front wheel drive SRT-4, not as much as a rear driver, but if those independent test figures are accurate, the Dodge is underated like a mofo.

You know how it is, just like in the 60's, they fudged the power numbers like mad to help keep the insurance costs down. And thats a very important consideration when we're talking budget performance cars.

[bleh]

thats a good point about insurance costs.

all cars lose a decent amount of power when you are talking bout wheel to crank. the only real difference between rwd and fwd cars is the drive shaft. the difference lost going to the wheels on a fwd car is much greater than the difference between fwd and rwd wheel power difference.

to make a gross generaliztion: i always hypothesized that each part of the drive train took up a tad of power. axles, driveshaft, flywheel/clutch/tranny, brakes, wheels/tires. minimizing one element helps, but not that much. i remember reading somewhere a few years ago that the average expected power lost through the drive train were: fwd 13-14% rwd 15-18% awd 18-20%

i also remember that the reason that rwd had the largest span was because of the muscle cars and big old nasty heaviness. that is why some awd systems lose as much as some rwd systems.

this really varies from car to car though, so in anticipation of an argument and probably flames, again i state that it is a generalization and is very far from true in some circumstances.

[LateNightCable]

I'm not a guru on front drive, so I figured it was a tad more direct than rear drive. That's an interesting note about the percentage of power lost. It brings to mind the EPA claim that only about %15 of the energy from your fuel is used to move the car, or run accessories like air conditioning. Everything else is lost to idleing, breaking, rolling resistance, driveline losses, drag, etc. They have it down to a science.

[thepolarfoxqx]

you can find a specimen of every car that gets a better dyno number than it's rated too, there is some variation from specific car to car. They rate a fairly safe and specific number that they know their average car will produce, and typically, they rate a little under average for safety. No car company is going to under rate their car. What would be the point of that? Would they seriously go "lets make our car less competitive and sell less!" doubtful.

[bleh]

i never heard of stock srt4 making less than 210whp. at all.

[LateNightCable]

But the thing is, they do underrate the numbers for some of the very reasons mentioned above. Mostly to represent every car in production.

Between the SRT-4 and the Cobalt, the Chevy is the practical softy of the two, so why is the Cobalt SS a two door coupe I'm wondering? And 205 hp. and 200 lb.ft. just seems so tepid for a 2.0 SC engine, it's incredible, and gas mileage isn't that great. Anyone can strap on a blower, it would be nice if GM showed some brains behind their engine mods. Perhaps they did with the suspension.

The SRT-4 is rough and ready, but it's headed for greatness. So far it's been getting better every year, and as long as it keeps selling, Dodge will invest in it's improvement. With this car, I see the " American ricer " stigma being left in the dust. It's no longer a joke. I wonder what a rear-drive conversion SRT would be like.

[bleh]

now if i was a tuner what would i do to this.... turbo, of course, although it would suck making a new intake manifold, but hell thats not that hard to do when you have a friend who makes composites. set the internal waste gate of the cheap turbo to 12psi. now why 12 psi? cus thats what the blower is doing. only the turbo will be much more efficient i know someone will say something about that.

and the most important thing that they forgot to do to a fwd car: put on an LSD

[skyline_r34v]

They need to make the SRT-4 with an AWD system. But since the only AWD anyone see's in a Dodge is in the trucks they should create some mean ass RWD system. Only then will the SRT-4 be an extremely competitive little shit.

[bleh]

i dont think the rwd will really help. the car is not balanced(weight distribution that is). it would be a drag only car with rwd.

the only real answer to something like that would be to create an entirely different car.

[wEstSide]

What are you talking about? The SRT-4 is great at the drag strip. When it comes to the track its so-so.

The SRT-4 has an LSD now.
The numbers are really underrated. It is in fact 230 fwhp and 240 fwhp on average.