GT v.s. BMW

[Topless in Cali]

Ok, now I'm not in the habit of street racing and this was just more out curiostiy than anything else. On saturday in a business park stretch of road with a bunch of lights this 18-20 kid pulls up next to me and starts asking questions about my car. He liked the BOV and turbo wind up. We chatted it up for about 3 more red lights. Nice kid and everything was friendly. He was driving a 1999 BMW 328is 2 door w/2.8L I-6 Dinan chip, exhaust, and intake. My is an 05 GT convert w/intake ucp exhaust MBC at the time set at 13psi(pretty stock, I was still in the testing phase) Seeing that the cars were pretty evenly matched power wise, we decided to give 'em a run. Not really having any experience off the line I smoked out and he jumped out to a full one car lead. At the 2-3rd shift my nose was up on his tail. The road went up hill and curved to the right. He was in the right lane so he had a big advantage. I was able to hold on to his rear bumper all the way to the top of hill, about 85-90mph when we had to brake for the light. We were both pretty impressed with the performance and had a pretty toothy grin as we gave a thumbs up and went our seperate ways. I did some checking. His car weighs about 3,150 lbs. with German engineered areodynamics. My GT comes in at 3,450 lbs. Plus mods and brick like areodynamics. You do the math!

[TaylorMade]

I dont get how convertibles are heavier than sedans when you make the convertible a coupe and shorten it and stuff. I also seems like the cloth top would take weight off. Where does all the weight come from?

[Mean Green]

Comes from all of the extra bracing they install to make the car more rigid for lack of a metal roof to hold the car together. All convertibles are heavier than a hard top. My friends '04 Cobra is 200 lbs heavier than the '04 Cobra coupe.

[MichaelDay]

I agree. It is not uncommon for a convertible version to add 5-8% of the weight to a vehicle. Torsional stability of the body is really compromised when you lose the metal between the A and C pillars. Even with the added material to strengthen the frame, convertibles typically exhibit more cowl shake and tend to develop rattles faster. Not withstanding the foregoing, I LOVE convertibles having owned several.

[Topless in Cali]

The convert does have an extra 150lbs or so over the hard top. Not much but it does add up. That feeling of cruising with the wind in your hair makes it all worth it. Plus you can always add PSI to compensate for the weight![8)]

If I had the motor mounts and the Phantom Grip LSD, I think I would have taken the bimmer...