OK i have to issue a correction and apology to 911 appreciator @OldFriendSaysHello
i made a mistake and under-estimated the 911 …
i never actually ran the numbers for piston area until yesterday which made me realize 911 engine is effectively bigger than most modern V8 engines …
in terms of piston area the 3.8 liter 911 engine is most closely matched by BMW 4.4 liter V8 … and is actually larger than the 4.0 liter V8 in the Panamera ! i honestly didn’t realize this until crunching the numbers …
so the 911 engine is basically larger ( when it comes to dimensions that matter for performance ) than one in Panamera Turbo and same size as what is in cars like X6M …
in my mind intuitively the 911 was like a better version of BMW M4 because both are 2+2 seaters with a 6 cylinder turbo … but that was WAY off base !
because with its higher aluminum content the 911, even with AWD, is actually slightly lighter than the smallest BMW M car ( the M2 ) … but its engine size is in M5 category … and so are the tires.
i also drove cars with both ZF 8 HP transmission and VW AG PDK and there is no comparison - with ZF 8 HP ( or any other regular automatic ) you lose SIGNIFICANT amount of time on every shift whereas with PDK it’s mostly instant. the PDK is a major competitive advantage.
i also have to note that cars like M2 are impossibly small inside because the transmission sits between the front two passengers, robbing what little space there is, whereas in a 911 the transmission robs space of REAR passengers ( who don’t matter )
so the 911 isn’t slightly better than M4 but rather an entire class above it altogether …
i mean you would expect that from the price and obviously i knew the 911 is faster than M4 but INTUITIVELY for some reason my brain associated 911 with cars like M4 and not Lambos even though i knew in terms of performance it was more in Lambo territory than M4 territory but i used to write it off as just a matter of higher state of tune … but i was wrong
the reasons that 911 is lambo fighter and not M4 fighter despite both of them being 6 cylidner 2+2 seaters are:
1 - aluminum chassis
2 - pdk transmission
3 - tire surface area
4 - piston area
i always thought the 911 is below Lambo but in its larger displacement turbo models it is really more on the side than below - it’s really just a question of whether you like the sound and feel of a Naturally Aspirated V10 or a Turbo Flat 6
i still maintain that 911 is an aging design that is not optimal but whereas i used to think it is fast because it is simply TUNED to be fast i now see that actually the tune isn’t really that aggressive and it comes down to factors discussed above …