I'm not sure what lightly modified means. WHat's your definition? These cars were mid to low 16 second cars stock.

 

Dont know what 16 second car your refering to, but its not the spirit R/Ts. Lightly modified is a exhaust, a 1 5/8 inch pipe is a tad restrictive over the read axle.

I can assure you a Spirit R/T with skinner stock tires and no LSD suffers every bit as bad from wheel spin as a SRT4. The gearing in a SRT4 is lower, but final drive is taller. The R/Ts has a 3.0 or 3.3 1st gear with a 3.85 final and the SRT4 has a 3.65 1st with a 3.53 final, so they are fairly close.

Watch the NOPI racing series next year, there is a buddy of mine new to the series hes running a 86 charger with a TIII (R/T) engine. He ran a 8.9 with 26 psi and a small turbo (T68) and NO nitrous. He cuts mid 1.3-1.4 60 fts, he swapped to a GT series turbo and I am getting him a better set of cams, my prediction is a high 7 or low 8, but we will see. *** and his 2.4 make"1300" h.p. but only managed a best of 8.2, thats with 37 psi and a 200 shot of funny juice.. BTW the 8.9 was with a slower 60 ft and lifting the throttle 250 ft before the line from blowing the headgasket. See link....

http://www.tigercx.com/videos/promos..._best_time.wmv

 

The best stock (claimed) times i could find were high 14's. What are good times for a truely stock set-up?

 

14.0-14.5 is about what a driver with moderate driving skills can get. They torque steer aweful with that one tire doing most of the work.

 

Yeah. The 87 Shadow ES Turbo I had wsn't too bad with the torque steer. Kinda wish i still had the car even though i beat the crap out of it.

 

You must have been thinking of the regular Spirit on the 16's, the R/T's are a world apart and far better than your average Spirit. Same goes for the Daytona Iroc R/T, same engine, better looking. I use to want an Iroc R/T until I read about their problematic head which was also discontinued, my Shelby Z was problem enough and I didn't need another headache.



The R/T's tires are the exact same width as the SRT-4's, so they are not skinnier and they are a taller tire which helps with drag strip launches. There are plenty of different variables that go into how well they run. Wait until the SRT-4's have been running at the tracks for 10 years and then we'll see how different they are, there are all ready several that are stock and turning mid 13's. The SRT-4's have been programmed to hold back until a certain mileage before it allows full power, the R/T's didn't have such a thing holding them back which is why the magazine times on the SRT-4's are shown between 13.8-14.2 (the ones they get to test usually are brand new and have very little mileage, maybe a couple hundred miles at most, but that is still under the 1,500 miles required to gain full power). The turbo on the SRT-4's are quite small to reduce slow spooling and lag which limits their maximum power production with the stock turbo, the R/T's have a larger turbo and can get more out of their stock turbo. The 2.2L Turbo III doesn't have as much horsepower as the 2.4L turbo and it has far less torque than it as well.

The best time I have found for a stock R/T was 14.5 @ 97 MPH, all the other times were mid to high 15's (15.72, 15.8, 15.827, 15.11, 15.90's and even a 16.15), the SRT-4 has that beat quite well. The SRT-4's also out handle the R/T's. The R/T has a top speed of 141 MPH, again the SRT-4 wins. No matter how you would like to paint the picture, the SRT-4 has both the Spirit R/T and Iroc R/T beat in every single way.

 

The problematic head was a bad headgasket, readily solved with ARP studs and a Cometic gasket. My car has never left me at the roadside, and at its current 421 h.p. 457 tq, and 100 passes on the stock trans w/ quaife its still just as reliable as ever.

The SRT uses far newer turbo technology so the turbo may be smaller but is a more efficient design.

As far as being at the track for 10 years, nobody raced the R/Ts hardly because one there were less then 2000 produced, so they werent really common, as a number of the parts are very expensive.

Lets talk about tires, I would guess that the compounds today and on the SRT4 are better than the tires used 14 years ago. So the same sized tire would by a reasonable guess be "stickier".

I was only able to dig up one "long term test on a 03" and the performance didnt change for the positive, but theres not enough data for me to draw a conclusion. Ive seen a number of peple at the track undo the battery to wipe the adaptives, which is to allow the computer to run a bit farther on the edge.

Top speed isnt a real surprise, the Spirit is a box, I would love to take a TIII iin a SRT body and run 150.

The SRT4 also produces more boost, R/T max is 11 psi, Ive personally seen 14 psi on Srt4s, put 14 in a R/T and a certain *** whopping is on. Add the Quaife, 250-300 less lbs, run comparable boost and the R/T trounces the SRT4.

Watch what a($30,000) 650-700 h.p. TIII powered car does to the 1300 h.p. SRT4 with a budget of 1.5 million this year in the Nopi series.

 

The SRT-4 and the R/T weigh the same, between 2,800+-3,100+ without the driver. And 3 psi more won't make up a full second or mores difference which it would need to catch up. The first year of the SRT-4 only had around 3,000 made and they were all over the tracks, I'm sure quite a high percentage of the R/T's sold were at the track at some point. I watched a few '03 SRT-4's running 13.7-13.9 stock and they didn't have the quaife differential either, the magazine runs before the break in were running 14.0-14.2.

Unless that 650-700 horsepower TIII is in a gutted Omni there is no way it could ever beat that SRT-4, it probably couldn't even if it was.

I'm sorry that the SRT-4 has taken the title of the quickest/fastest American sedan away from the Spirit R/T, but as time passes and technology gets better that is bound to happen. I'm sure in the 80's that no one thought it possible for any car to be built again that could rival or beat the musclecars of the late 60's early 70's, but it has happened and it has even been done by 4 doored 4 bangers such as both the R/T and the SRT-4.

 

We will just have to disagree on the data, Ive never seen a stock 03-04 do what your saying, then again Ive only seen 6 or 7 at the track . I cant tell you the difference other than my 2 friends in Wichita have 04s both with a few minor mods..

R&T testes in a Nov3, 2004 a 14.3
C&D 14.2
C&D 14.1 Im sure there are some test showing a tad quicker but a quick google of the major magazines didnt show any.

200-300 lbs isnt the same, thats 2/10-3/10 of a second. and 3psi can be 30 additional h.p. with is nearely 3/10 of a second. Now the average there is about 1/2 a second, thats big.

First year of Spirit R/T production was 1208, and back in 1991 the price was "high" for the car and they didnt exactly fly off the showroom floors. In 92 191 were produced. R/Ts didnt really go to the track for a number of reasons, the Sport Compact/Import scene was in its infantcy, lack of uppgrade parts, cost of parts, NO factory support.

The SRT is a tad quicker/faster, its lighter, aerodynamic, better tire compounds, more boost. If a R/T stripped 200-300 lbs and dialed the boost up to 14 psi (same as SRT4)and ran the same tires, the SRT4 would be relegated to 2nd place.

The Mopar/Daryl *** SRT4 makes 1300 h.p...with 37 psi and 200 shot nitrous. fastest e.t......8.2
The SMP 87 Charger with TIII engine makes 587 h.p. with 26 psi and NO nitrous fastest E.T... 8.9 lifting 250 ft before line due to blown headgasket. And trust me he will be much faster, this year. Id embarass the Mopar SRT4 if I told how the SMP car had a stock valve head, mild street/strip cams, no porting, a smaller turbo (68mm vs 77mm), all this with less than 35K, in comparision to the 1.5 million mopar budget.

What can I say Im a diehard TIII R/T guy.... BTW watch for a gutted TIII omni at a track somewhaere oacross America....hehe!

 

As I said before, they are the same weight, it's just a matter of options that will make a weight difference. The stickier tires just equalize the fact that the R/T has a taller and more launch friendly tire. The Spirit R/T wasn't the only car with the TIII, the Iroc R/T also had it and it fairs no better against the SRT-4. The only advantage the SRT-4 has is it's aerodynamics and that's a very small difference which has no effect on the 1/4 mile at the speeds they are running. I had the Mopar Performance PCM in my Shelby Z and it brought the boost up almost double the factory boost and it didn't improve it enough to loose a full second, which with what you are saying it should. I'm not saying that it wouldn't be close if not equal if you modified the R/T and left the SRT-4 stock, but I thought we were talking stock vs. stock. I made a similar argument against the STi and EVO lovers, but I just argued that if the traction on the launch were equalled by only running slicks on an SRT-4 to even the traction some with their AWD, that the SRT-4 will equal or best them in the 1/4. I wasn't going as far as upping the boost or loosing weight or other mods even though they are rated far higher in power (STi @ 300 HP / EVO @ 271 HP). As far as the drag cars, we will just have to wait and see on that.

I'm all for you being a diehard TIII guy, I really loved and miss my TII's, but the fact is that the 2.4L T is far better than both.

Here is some proof for you on the magazine times and dyno data:


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