that rev at the end of the video huh?

 

I'm more impressed with real world production car performance than how much extra a brand costs consumers due to throwing gobs of money at their racing program. Sure, it's cool, and I love to watch racing, and even do an occasional OTD myself, but the bottom line for me is how well the car I'm paying for holds together and performs day to day, for my purposes. Let's face it, most race cars have little in common with their production brethren-they are purpose built and not street friendly in the least. If the maker is able to improve their production cars with trickle down development, great, but that's no substitute for R&D on the actual production version of the vehicle. In my book, durability and performance have to be built into the production car, not just the race built version. I pay more for a performance car because it's a source of enjoyment and appreciation for me, not because I want to feel like a winner by association with the brand's racing program. If I can't trust it to stay out of the shop, it becomes one of the very headaches I want to forget about when I'm behind the wheel of an outstanding car. I have an old friend who has over 450K mostly urban miles on the original Toyota V8 & tranny in his 2001 Tundra. That's what I consider "proven", and after 35 years of driving Toyota products, my IS F was an easy choice over it's German competition. I value the peace of mind I have from the feeling that I can get into my car and drive it on a $6K mile road trip, or to an all day flogging on a high speed road course, relatively certain it will get me home without any mechanical interruptions...and then there's warranty performance.

 

There is a lot of questionable views on this thread especially how Porsche is being paraded as being the reason to shame Lexus' racing efforts.

Lexus has had some real big success in endurance racing. LFA has consistently won the SP8 class (even against the Ferrari 458 Italia Challenge, V12 Zagato, Nissan GTR, Corvette C6-R etc. in the SP8 class) every year.

Even while staying in the near-stock class (no weight reduction allowed, restrictors putting limit of 490 HP), the LFA has beaten 95% of the Porsche GT3 cup entered in the GT class while placing a high of #16 overall (GT3 being in the heavily modified class with extreme weight reduction, more suspension mods, similar increased 480 HP).

Again, Lexus entered only 2 LFAs in the SP8 class while Porsche enters over 30 GT3 Cup and Hybrid R in the heavily modified class and Lexus still beat majority of them placing ahead of all but 2 GT3. Since LFA is placed in a very restricted class, being a supercar is completely irrelevant.

Here is a video of LFA wasting a Nissan GTR and the Godly Porsche GT3 Cup (remember, Gazoo LFA is only making 490 HP and weighs 3300 lbs in the SP8 class with very limited suspension modifications so no it is not the PWR)

 

Nice updates, thanks everyone.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_Hour...rgring#Winners

 

Porsche was a laugh in formula 1. Did that hurt their image? Difference here is Porsche GT3's are not Luxury cars. The most luxurious car they have is the Panamera which looks like a Tesla. Porsche is even making another SUV to make money. Moving more and more away from their performance brand image to something closer to Lexus. Then they make a Supercar with a hybrid powertrain that weighs near two tons. The hybrid tech isnt even their own, its borrowed from other makers and suppliers. Why do fanboys come from other sites to dump on the new Lexus if their product is superior? I think theres some jealousy. No reason to boast and brag about a Porsche having race proven engines. Theyre not nearly the same as the RC F.

 

Yup ! At first it was just, ok an engine swap interesting

didn't except that ending

 

time to get back on topic regarding RC F engine

 

So where's the increased power ( over the IS F ) coming from? Different cams? head changes? ECM changes?

 

The entire engine has been reworked. Forged titanium pistons, lighter internals, higher flow headers making the engine produce more torque at higher rpms (and hence automatically overall more horsepower) etc.

The engine is tuned to produce surging torque towards a higher redline (7400 rpm) so the torque curve overall is much broader than the IS-F version.

 

D4S is also new according to head engineer.