gengar

Yes, just hitting the pedal from 1st gear. No launch control.

jpvarghese

iTrader: (1)

The car must have sounded crazy from inside Gengar! Thanks for the post.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

fantastic video gengar, that's some awesome hot laps there! great driving from the pro!!!!!

guess i just continue to think it doesn't add much value overall except the cool factor to the student. i would rather spend those time doing the track driving like that in your hot lap video

05RollaXRS

Wow! Amazing video.

Is it just me or it actually is the case that the transmission is lightning quick??? It almost seems like the sequential straight-cut gears in endurance racing cars. Is it the black production LFA or the yellow prototype??

rominl

iTrader: (4)

the tranny shift time is there already, it's quick but there are quicker (and funny enough, i read the other day that the isf shifts in 100ms? that's a good 100ms faster than the lfa). imho it's not something you can really "feel" in the video

TripleL

that 1080p vid is AWESOME!!! The view and the sound is just crazy good. Thanks for sharing!

05RollaXRS

80 ms for IS-F, on paper. I don't put much stock in what the numbers say on paper since there are too many variables at play.

Even the old SMGIII transmission back in 2003 in E60 M5 had 80 ms shift times, but again that was the factory claim.

Gengar owns an IS-F so he can probably give a very good comparison between the two transmissions??

TF109B

NICE- that thing was moving.

gengar

As I mentioned before, it's going to be primarily infrastructure issues. Toyota and probably most automakers there live by just-in-time, so supply chain disruption could halt production; for the LFA specifically, that depends on how Lexus handles inventory supply. I think many of Toyota's plants, despite not being damaged, were shut down for some time.

Infrastructure issues will certainly delay testing and delivery of completed LFA units. Unlike Ferrari and certain other exotic manufacturers, Lexus extensively tests the LFA on the road and on the track prior to delivery. This is one of the reasons delivery of the LFA has taken so long after production time (for example, my unit should have been completed around mid-January but only hit port last week). In addition to needing to transport the LFA to and from any testing grounds, there is then the issue of getting it to port and onto ships bound for whatever destination. There could be lots of delays on those transportation times.


This may be one reason they shortened the straight line exercise to just the drag strip runoff, especially since most of the exercise time is spent resetting the LFAs.

Still, I think it's a helpful exercise. For many of the drivers, the braking power is far beyond anything they've ever experienced, and the acceleration might be as well. For me, the straight line acceleration was helpful to get used to just how deep the rpms go. 9k is just insane, and I think an additional perception factor is the absolutely smooth torque delivery which makes the rpms seem even deeper than they are. Contrast to a less even torque curve in a similarly high revving engine like in the GT3 RS, or a pretty uneven one like the 430 (can't comment on the 458 engine having not driven a 458). When the torque delivery is not smooth, the driver starts recognizing the irregular patterns as rpms increase and this affects perception of how far the rpms go.


It is certainly very quick, but no one is going to mistake it for anything but a traditional single-clutch automated transmission. Note the hot lap is in the old Pearl Gray proto, amazing to see this 16000mi+ car with only oil changes on it doing what it does.

It was pretty cool that I got to lap all of the LFAs, because there are definitely differences between the cars. They've certainly done some tweaking especially to the shift control at lower speeds/rpms, I think the black LFA's exhaust note is even better tuned, and even some of the instrument panel interface stuff has been slightly revised. The suspension on the black car also seemed smoother at lower speeds.

S2000toIS350

Thanks for the excellent video Gengar
I am sitting in a winery parking lot in Napa waiting for the rain to die down
Last tome I looked the forecast for my day in the driver's seat tomorrow looks ok
I can never figure why the passenger' s head boos around so much more than the driver's
Did you pick a delivery date for the blue demon?

05RollaXRS

Thanks for the clarification, gengar.

It is quite obvious handling, braking and chassis balance it is simply on a different planet compared to your IS-F.

How do you compare the straight line acceleration and gearbox in terms of response of the production black LFA compared to say, your Lexus IS-F??

rominl

iTrader: (4)

hahaha the 200ms is also only lexus factory claim i don't think i have read any 3rd party source proving the number.

i would definitely love to hear what gengar thinks on the shift time. but here's what i can say about my feeling on both. the isf might shift fast, but if anything the response time is very slow, especially up shift (just look up the article, it's posted on CL before already). from the time you flip the paddle, it's a while before the up shift is done, and it's also "smoother". downshift down is very nice, noticeably quicker.

on the lfa, both upshift and downshift are done very very fast from the time you flip the paddle, and the shifting (especially up shift) is more violent.

now since you brought up the e60 m5, i have driven it a lot and even hard on the track. it might shifter faster than lfa, but response time wise, lfa is far ahead

why do they have to reset the lfa before each drag?

i absolutely agree on the braking, it's something owners have to really learn, the brakes are very different. and you are right on the rpm too, 9k is very deep, my car has 8400rpm and it just keeps on going. and again also agree with you on the power delivery. that's exactly what i praised a lot in my article.


the suspension on the production car is even smoother? wow, i thought the suspension on the gray / orange car was very smooth already

07grIS350

You are right about the shifting response in the LFA, just tap the lever and it's done.
I love the sound of the engine auto blip for down shifts. It must have hit 9000RPM everytime. It sounded crazy from both inside and out out the car.
I also agree that the production car drove a lot nicer than the gray one (we did not get to use the yellow one).

gengar

Hope the weather works out and that you have a good day at the track. I read lexusenthusiast.com's krew is going tomorrow too (see http://lexusenthusiast.com/2011/03/1...gram-tomorrow/ ), maybe he'll say hello.

As far as passenger head movement - first and foremost is that if the passenger is not a trained or experienced driver, he's not going to keep his head (or his body, for that matter) as stable as a pro. I'll be honest, almost any time I do a track day or driving program my neck muscles get really sore (I managed to avoid this at Infineon somehow... maybe I'm getting better!). Of course, another reason is that the driver knows when he's going to turn/brake/accelerate/shift/etc and that lets him prepare himself better for it than the passenger.

I'm aiming at delivery date middle of the week starting 3/21. From what I understand, my LFA probably hasn't been de-vanned yet and still needs to go through customs after that, so this is all tenuous.

I agree with rominl's analysis - the LFA shifting is pretty violent but it is extremely responsive. I distinctly remember when I really started enjoying the transmission on the LFA, which was during my 2nd session at Infineon. I think during my first session I was so engaged with learning the course and hitting my marks that I didn't get a lot of time to enjoy the LFA as much, which is a shame because my first session was the only one in the black production LFA.

But I recall at one point in the yellow car just starting to marvel at how responsive the gearbox was and how fun it made the driving experience. It certainly feels far more responsive and far faster than, say, the "F1" automated manuals in the 430 and especially the 360 (both of which I have track experience with), which was why I was surprised Mark Gillies thought they were similar during the C+D review. (Of course, he may have been testing an older prototype.)

That isn't to say the 8-speed torque-lock automatic in the IS F isn't super fast, because it is, and I think it's a magnificent transmission for what it's supposed to do. But it definitely isn't as responsive as the one on the LFA. It certainly shifts smoother, but I think most of that is due to the shifting characteristics from it being an automatic.

As rominl also alluded to, factory claims can't really be used in determining the speed of shifts - this is not necessarily because the claims might be inaccurate or intentionally misleading marketing fluff, but because there are so many ways of measuring it. After all, Nissan claims 200ms for the dual clutch in the GTR, same as the 200ms Lexus claim here for the LFA.

Sorry, what I meant was that a lot of time is spent repositioning the LFA back to the drag start position, so it'd be even longer to get back to the starting line for a 1/2mi+ drag.

05RollaXRS

Thanks, gengar.

I had mentioned earlier about the variables. That is exactly what I meant. Some manufacturers take the average of shift times in automatic and the fastest manual shift modes etc.

That is exactly what I wanted to know how you would compare the LFA transmission to a very fast automatic transmission from the IS-F. I am glad Lexus implementation gives the perfect balance between shift feel and ultimate response.