n00b question....

[TransAm]

Originally Posted by RC45 It took Porsche almost 165 years before they shelved their 4 speed. hehe - and that's no exaggeration hehe

You lie you lie you lie !!!

Occasionally at work we'll hopelessly exaggerate numbers up or down in conversation for, ahem, comedy value :

i.e.

'hey, I just signed off on the spares contract with the DoD'
'well done mate, what did you agree at?'
'1 dollar 26 cents'

Hmm. Maybe you have to be there...
ops:

[RC45]

Originally Posted by SFDMALEX Originally Posted by 5vz-fe If it has a wide enough torque band on the 5.7 V12 why need the extra gear. What he said. And the Diablo is not, how to put it, a..an agile sports car. Its more of a highway beast. So putting in the extra 6th means the whole box will have much shorter ratios and that will kill the spirit of the car.

This logic is flawed...

It was the argument of the day - but was simply in defense of then current popular technology.

Because by the same token the Macca, Murci and 575 should have had 4 speed boxes..

[Vansquish]

Originally Posted by TransAm2001 Originally Posted by RC45 Originally Posted by nchs09 lol @ repeating. wasnt the diablo built in 91 though? That's the point - go back and see how few 6 speed cars were around then and now. Only thing I can think of is the Audi A6 2.5 TDi which was a 6-speed. Maybe not released til about 1992/93 though. I dont think 964s had 6 speeds - 993s do, but again that is a 1993 car.

The late '80's and early '90's, when the Diablo was being drawn up and then produced (Starting in '91 I believe) were an era where as RC45 has already said, the norm for sports cars was a 5-speed transmission. It was nigh on to impossible to find a 6-speeder at that point (Vette excluded).

The main reason to have more gears is to alleviate the problems caused by having a narrow torque band. The Diablo certainly didn't suffer from that, and neither did the Porsche Turbos (hence the 4-speed boxes they had). In an Audi A6 2.5 TDi, the torque band is reasonably confined, so the more gears you have the better you'll be able to keep the engine on the boil. The same goes for Honda's VTEC engines, the RX8's Renesis, and of course the most poignant example, Semis and large diesel commercial trucks.

[5vz-fe]

Originally Posted by RC45 Originally Posted by SFDMALEX Originally Posted by 5vz-fe If it has a wide enough torque band on the 5.7 V12 why need the extra gear. What he said. And the Diablo is not, how to put it, a..an agile sports car. Its more of a highway beast. So putting in the extra 6th means the whole box will have much shorter ratios and that will kill the spirit of the car. This logic is flawed... It was the argument of the day - but was simply in defense of then current popular technology. Because by the same token the Macca, Murci and 575 should have had 4 speed boxes..

Having an extra gear have its advantage and it's disadvantage. Even tho gear spacing are non-linear, having 6 gear will still ultimately shorten the speed band within a gear. If rev drops between gears in a 5 speed can hold within 85~90% of peak torque, there isn't really much to lose against a 6 speed that do a ted better. Shifting takes time after all (especially for non-race prep car)

[RC45]

These facts haven't seemed to deter engineers from installing 6 gears in everything that moves, over the last decade

[5vz-fe]

lol, that is prolly due to the the witch craft of the marketing ppl