Well he was on his Yamaha R1 trying to get the price on the M3.

Were you able to catch up with considering the sharp curves on the road Fay?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls7xc...rom=PL&index=9

 

This is a pretty common feeling - the "big cars" can be intimidating, and they should be until you are ready for them. Cars like the S2000 and Boxster (and the Miata too) are great fun and easy to get used to - you can run them at what feels like 9/10th's and still be safe. At our track days the 911 Cup Car (non turbo) is generally the car that moderately good drivers enjoy the most at first because it's quick but not crazy and it's really hooked up and predictable. The 360 Challenge cars are more intimidating since they have a higher limit of capabilities and a much sharper bite when you cross the line, but they are ultimately more fun and rewarding. The Gallardo Superleggera is an example of a very fun high-hp car that is fairly easy to drive really fast relatively easily. If a car communicates to you well and is predictable within YOUR lmits, it's a much more "fun" car to drive.

 

To answer the OP - yes, it is possible to have too much power for the public roads. I built a 1984 Yamaha FJ1100 (no slouch in its day) to go much faster than stock between 1985 and 1991. It's big, it's heavy, and it's a massive handful even on the racetrack. When I first got the bike it was fun to ride on my favorite roads. Faster than anything else I'd owned and it did require focus to go quickly, but it wasn't terrifying or even intimidating (I didn't own a car and hadn't for four years prior so my street riding skills were very sharp.)

What I found AFTER I built the bike (engine, transmission, and chassis) was it wasn't fun anymore. On my favorite roads where I had a second or two to gather my thoughts, breathe, and prepare for the next corner on exit, I found I had no time at all to recover and I was already well into the next turn. It wheelied at the slightest provocation up to 120 mph without fanning the clutch. An inadvertent tug on the throttle would loft the front wheel where previously it would just accelerate hard with the front wheel in light contact. Because I had no time to gather my thoughts, I was razor focused on staying ahead of the bike, and I didn't always feel like it. Even small lapses in concentration were rewarded with some unexpected adventure in the the realms of "here's what happens with a 3 lbs/hp power to weight ratio when you aren't paying close attention." Those admonishments got really tiring.

Most of all - I got to ride the bike at Sears Point (yeah, that's what it was called way back then) after I'd raced an '84 500 Interceptor with the AFM a couple of seasons. On the Interceptor, I could pin the throttle exiting 7 and hold it WFO all the way to 11. I only had to focus on course, heading, and traction because it just couldn't accelerate hard enough to require any sort of braking. Not so the Yamaha. Exit 7, accelerate hard, roll off the throttle to enter 8, heel over and accelerate hard on exit (but not full throttle or you'll be in the Armco), off the throttle again into 8A, skate across the track after braking lightly to weight the front end, enter 9, pull it WFO to 140 mph, then brake as little as possible for 10 and set up to stand the bike on the front wheel while braking to enter turn 11 (a first gear turn.) Completely different experience. Not "fun" - mentally and physically exhausting. The exact same experience I had while riding my favorite foothill roads near Sacramento.

The one place it was pretty fun - at Sac Raceway doing 1/4 mile runs. The front wheel didn't touch until I shifted into fourth gear. It was basically a 160 hp unicycle for 11 seconds flat with 220 lbs of me and gear aboard. But it was really fun.

So, yeah, it's definitely possible to have too much power and have it spoil all the fun. How many things do you want to focus on? More power, more elements you need to control, more things that can go wrong in the blink of an eye. Nothing was easier than pinning the throttle on the little Interceptor and holding it open all the way to turn 11, and nothing was harder than being on/off the throttle and on/off the brakes over the same stretch of asphalt on the Yamaha. Sure the laps were quicker, but man, what a lot of work.

 

I think that is one of those videos that get posted over and over on the M3/BMW boards. Still fun to watch no less!

 

I appreciate all the comments.

I feel like some people misunderstood what I was getting at. I don't think the F has more motor than the chassis can handle. The car, in my unprofessional opinion, handles very well considering it is a 3800 lbs sedan.

I can probably take the same stretch of road faster in the F than I could in the S2000 even though my corner speeds are a little slower. The difference is that in the S2000 I was able to come out of corners at full throttle and not lift till the next braking point while on the F I can't do that unless I want to reach speeds that are just too dangerous on this stretch of public road.

I'm looking into driving schools right now. My birthday is later this month and I told my wife that is what I want. If all goes well I might even join the local private road course so I can regularly stretch the legs on my F a bit more.

 

I think this answers your own question. The IS-F is, in part, about compromise. If they took that engine and put it in a pure sports car, it would drive differently. But, when it's in a 4 door sedan, and it's part sedan and part sports car, it's not going to be the ideal sedan nor the ideal sports car--but it may be really good or even great at both.

Audi put a Lambo engine in the A8--but it's not going to handle like the Lambo.

 

This is exactly what my point was. Less power can be more fun because you're not on sensory overload and you have fewer things requiring attention to detail so you have a few brain cycles to say, "hey, this is really fun!" That all goes away when the power gets big no matter how heavy or light the car is.

 

I am eager to drive my pop's IS 250, but even with more power and more gears I am not expecting it to be more fun than my Legacy GT.

 

power is nothing without control....ask a guy who drives a viper on the track. He will spin that thing if he loses focus for .1 seconds.

 

yes.

sold my tricked out GS400 - definitely a great car, but needs changed. bought a 'boring' SUV but a year later added a (then) new Miata (MX-5) which is by far the most fun vehicle i've ever owned. not as fast as the GS was, and with all the GS mods i had, the miata may not even corner as well (!) but there's something magical about being a LIGHT top down car with a short throw stick, seemingly direct steering, and balance RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of the car.

with a heavy car, no matter how capable, it always feels like you're going to incredible effort to overcome gravity and physics. with a light car it just feels effortless and natural.

about speed, the 'problem' with really quick cars is you just can't use more than a fraction of the capability without getting tickets, and probably just becoming a menace on the road (as everything else is going to much slower). sure blasting away from lights is fun, and exiting a corner with power on is fun, but i enjoy them more in the Miata because it's a bit more involving with being in the right gear, picking a line, etc., and again i'm unlikely to be doing 'mad speeds' and inevitably get tickets or have an accident.

my neighbor just got a new turbo 997 911. unbelievable car, it'll do way over 100mph in THIRD gear. so you end up driving the car at 2/5ths all the time. just feels silly after a while, and frankly a waste. granted, if i had my neighbor's budget, maybe i wouldn't care, but i don't.

there's an old saying that it's more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow.

 

Taking a short pause till finals are over.

Good vid there the M3 does take those sharp curves very nicely. Just this evening I was telling my mum how nicely that car holds corners.