ISF001

Road & Track's PCOTY road test guy contacted me today.

As I thought, they did not drive the the RC-F with the torsen. They drove the yet to be delivered RC-F carbon with the TVD to produce the 3.9 0-60 time.

This is pertinent to our discussion on the 3.9 run done by R&T and published on the web. The words below are verbatim:

"We use a GPS based data acquisition system called VBOX to record all of our data and then correct for weather conditions. It was generally cool and cloudy weather. Since the RC F runs an eight-speed automatic, best runs come from a straight forward launch procedure: hold the brake for a moment to build revs, release and go. Very easy and repeatable. It was a standstill start, and yes, that’s how we do it.

We only use estimates when we our unable to test ourselves, but official test results come from us. (PCOTY--All You Need to Know)

And no, we run one long acceleration run that includes the time to reach 60mph all the way through the 1/4 mile.

Our RC F came with the Carbon package, which includes the Torque Vectoring Differential.

Great car!"

"The RC-F was one of the most pleasant surprises of that PCOTY group for me. Endlessly comfortable—could daily-drive it forever—but wields Thor's hammer on demand."

rjmalm

good input, thanks. Cant wait to get mine.

chilipalm

I wish these reviewers would time one without carbon and TVD. Any volunteers from current owners?

NewSpace

Good intel! Thanks for sharing and going the extra mile. TVD + carbon is going to be a screamer.

Has anyone confirmed that TVD without carbon is a limited production run?

ISF001

It looks like the carbon TVDs start to land in the US in March based on what I heard today. I would expect Lexus to start to restrict the TVD to carbons starting next month.

It is not confirmed that the restriction starts in January--just my guess.

NickZ

Good stuff, and thanks for sharing. I do not see a reason why the non-TVD cars cannot produce the same times, the non-TVD cars will be a bit lighter, and the Torsen LSD should be more than capable of providing the straight line traction necessary to get out of the hole pretty quickly.

I think the gearing (just thinking out loud here guys) must be a big reason the car is able to produce this type of acceleration, as we see the car tailing off a bit come the quarter mile time as it seems to run mid to high 12's. Still a pretty impressive time if you ask me, and any car that can run in the 12's is plenty fast enough for me.

ToyLexFAM

When I ordered mine last Friday, I was told the TVD was no longer available as a stand-alone option.

DrRick

interesting that its a corrected time. I didnt think that car mags did that, anymore.

ISF001

I just wanted to share the facts with everyone.

I've had exchanges all day with the PCOTY team--they are quite tanked up about the RC-F.

For those of us who are making this purchase, it is fair to say that we chose wisely.

DrRick

Is there a reason that you are always so defensive about this car? Why are you so worried about proving how great of a purchase you made to folks on message board?

I appreciate that you took the time to ask the questions and brought the answers back here. I just thought that magazines no longer corrected times because they wanted to show what the car did in the real world not under dead perfect conditions.

My 'corrected' quarter mile time in my ISF was like a 12.4 ....time slip still said 12.9, tho.

toyotatom

If R & T says its a 3.9 0-60 with their equipment than that's what it is. There is still something not right with the run though. I just spent 30 minutes or so looking at past 0-60 and 1/4 miles runs and every car that had a 0-60 time of 3.9 came in at 12.1- 12.3 for the 1/4 mile. The 12.7 the RCF got just seems slow with a 3.9 0-60. I know its nitpicking but it doesn't seem right, the RCF should pull hard all the way through the run.
I wonder what kind of a tune Lexus gave this car before releasing the car to them for testing. Maybe tuned it for low end speed and it hurt the top end? I guess we have to wait for more test results to see if the RCF can match the M3/M4 0-60 times
Disclaimer, I'm not a BMW guy, never owned one, never rode in one, and my friends are poor.

DrRick

Is this true? I've only read what ISF001 has said about the 0-60 times. And after reading the response from Road and Track saying that they make one pass that includes the 0-60 and quarter mile times...was that 3.9 accompanied by a 12.7 in the quarter? I honestly never put all of that together... This wasn't somewhat fishy to ISF001?

Lemme guess...the car was detuned for anything past 61 mph? Hahahaha

natnut

Seems like you're the one with an agenda to push : your claim that ISF001 is biased and overly defensive and that the RC-F isn't a big step-up from the IS-F.

You may be just as guilty if not more so than ISF001 of having an axe to grind. At least he took the trouble to personally contact R&T and shed illumination on the RC-F's test numbers.

TimboIS

****** MODERATOR EDIT ******
NO PERSONAL INSULTS PLEASE, even if you disagree .

DrRick

coulda sworn i thanked him for his effort. what axe would i have to grind? im a lexus fan. have been for well over 2 decades. that doesnt make me a blind fanboi...

look at my posts and tell me where what i have said is outta bounds. does he not defend EVERY perceived slight against the car?

in the end...its whatever. im happy he's happy about his purchase. but does that mean i cant ask questions when he speaks in hyperbole? coulda sworn this was a message board with people who have differing opinions...