Re: Tales of an S4

[audidudi@delphi.com (Jeffrey J. Goggin)]

>The thing to remember is its not how many horses you have its how much
>WEIGHT those horses are lugging around. In your case the 850 Turbo wagon
>has 15.3 lbs/hp to pull while your S4 is around 14.98 lbs/hp. You can see
>that both cars are evenly matched. Besides, maybe the Volvo driver had a
>few mods under the hood.

Actually, the most accurate way to compare car-to-car is by dividing weight
(including driver) by "drivewheel torque," which is defined here as max
rated torque x 4th gear ratio [adjusted to 1:1] x effective final drive
ratio [adjusted for different tire diameters] ... comparing hp/weight ratios
can be *VERY* misleading!

I drove the '92 S4 for sale here in Phoenix earlier this week and came away
from the experience very happy as I'm no longer lusting after one ...
compared to my slightly modified 1989 200q, it seemed bigger, heavier and
-- believe it or not -- a bit slower to boot!  Yes, the motor would rev to
7k but there wasn't much reason to rev it past 6-6200 as the power was
dropping off by then, and while it went around corners well enough, to my
way of thinking, it was too softly sprung (more so than my 200q) and
wallowed a bit ... all in all, I think I would prefer to drop another
$10-12k into my car than buy a used S4 for $24k.  BTW, this car has the rear
a/r bar and boost gauge but no strut brace, the smaller front a/r bar and
wood trim instead of carbon-fiber ... I thought these "goodies" were an
all-or-nothing package on the early v. late '92s?

Oh, before I forget: I fell in love with the dead pedal -- has anyone ever
retrofit one of these to a 200Q or 5ktq? -- and the tilt-wheel steering
column was a nice touch as well.  Also, the fact that it came out of the
dash straight and centered rather than at a slight angle and offset as on my
200q was appreciated ... I think it would make quite a difference at the end
of a 1,000-mile day!  I suspect this could be retrofit to a 200q, assuming
you're willing to pay the no-doubt astronomical price for a used column
(complete) and an instrument cluster with the dimple for clearance ...
still, something to consider for the future.  Powerball's pot is up to $30
million this drawing ... might just have to break down and buy myself a ticket! 


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