hey guys.....i got a 305tpi 5spd....whast faster the 305tpi witht he 5spd tranny or the 350 auto>?......alot of peeps have told me the smaller 305tpi with the 5spd and a good drive is actually a quicker car.....the guys down at paradise alley told me the same thing.....but thats with a good drive not a rookie....lol....iv always thought of a sports car bbein a stick.....without a stick its jsut nott he same......i think the 305tpi with the 5spd feels quicker and better throttle responce.....iv driven my buddy 89 350 auto and it seemed like a dog......especially on acceleration....by the time the thign got up and goign i could of been in second gesr and long gone by then.......i dunno what do u guys think?......thats jsut what i think.......any ways and iroc's an iroc.....keep luvin em

 

Ahh the immortal debate that will have no end. Here's my PERSONAL OPINION on it all. I think my 5 speed SHO is much more fun to drive than either of my other cars. However If I had a 10 second drag car i'd be running an automatic.

 

Fun factor from least to most:

worst: stock auto
middle of the road: built auto or 5 speed
best: manual valve body in a built auto!

 

They both have their advantages and disadvantages. The 350 TPI Auto is faster.

 

There is no real answer,

Its like asking whats better, high revving 4 cylinders or low revving 8 cylinders?

Heres another, whats better a turbo, blower, stroker or nitrous??

 

The thing to remember is to make sure the 5sp/305 that is supposed to be faster cause it's a stick , is to make sure it's not the G92 option.

Oh, and a 6spd Vette is the best to drive. Got to the other day.

 

sorry, but the 5 speed all the way.....on the street, when not in suburbia they are too much fun....from a stop.....up shift up shift up shift........brake down shift, around turn, put on some power, up shift.....up coming turn....brake/downshift.....and that is not including the clutch....it is orgasmic compared to ANY auto.

 

L98 is faster than a 305tpi 5 spd. while driving stick is fun, i for one would not sacrifice 45 ci for a t-5....

 

FUN FACTOR=5 spd(manual)
RACING=AUTO

 

NICE, I have the best of both worlds. But the good ole T-5 is fading quick. Time for a Muncie M-21


L98=fun
L98 + T-5 = mega fun

 

as far as i know....autos SUCK for autocrossing and road racing....

 

that's not always true, depends on how the auto is built

for me its auto all the way, a stick isn't good for my engine...then of course i have the total dip****s that say a 5-speed would be better for my car

 

haha ya..clutch goes in..boost goes bye bye! 3.8 turbo 5 speed just doesn't sound right to me.

 

Stock for stock, a stick is better, you control more factors, but when modding there is no end except to look at the big boys, and auto wins!

 

exactly

 

ok sorry about no including forced indection....but i usally see road race cars with sticks in them. Can someone who really races road racing tell what the scoop is on this.

 

I agree most road race cars I see have manual powertrains.

 

Autos are excellent for drag racing, b/c you can control the stall speed and get a pretty similiar, predictable launch every time, and your shifts are quick.

However, automatics use viscous linkage, isntead of a mechanical connectionb etween the engine and the wheels. Thsu there is a power loss. A late 90s civic w/ a manual will dyno at 40 horsepower more than the same stock civic w/ the automatic. This is agin because of the powertrain loss, not to mention the fact that w/ an auto transmission the engine is spinning a torque converter that weights as much as the entire manual transmission would weigh, whereas in a manual it only spins a flywheel which ways about 24 pounds.

If you produce enough power, the powertrain loss becomes worth it b/c as I said before its moer controllable. Although if you look at the best of the best in drag, they use 1 speed autos b/c the time it would take to shift, would be too much when you run a 3.8 second quarter.

However street racing requires turning. With an auto all you can do to stop the car is step on the brake. You can force downshift it, but b/c of the torque converter the crank has too much inertia and does not spin down quickly enough to properly engine brake. However, w/ a manual when taking a hard turn you can heel-and-toe downshift, so that you are stepping on the brake and downshifting the engine at the same time. This way you get MUCH better braking AND when you have control of the car, you can power through the turn because you are in a lower gear.
Thats why race cars are ALL manual (some F1 cars have computer controlled clutch-based shifting, but the actual setup is similiar to that of a manual transmission). There are certainly no torque converters in formula 1!

Just my 2 cents.

 

HenryC, not a stock auto, If I go any higher than 1500 rpm my rear tires break loose. My dads stick, and every other stick in the world, can go to 5000 and hold it there in neutral!

 

^^^^??????? ummm yeah....a duh, when the clutch is depressed you disconnect the trans from the engine and in N....well a duh...

 

bah, i'll stick with my auto, i'd rather go faster..that's more fun than shift manually, well wait, i kinda already do, semi-manual valve body's are cool

 

my opinion is:

350 auto- fast
305 manual- fun(but can be made fast)

 

amen to that brother

 

that is what a blow off valve will help you with
it will let go of that excess boost so it doesn't back up and slow down the turbo when you let off the gas

a lot of import cars out there only come with a stick for the turbo's but they are built to keep the turbo spinning during the shifts

 

#1 not all auto's suck for auto-xing, ask my buddy with his TTA that took 2nd overall this past season

and TRUST ME, put a stick behind a turbo 3.8 and you're left with a 15 second POS. You mention imports..their engines also spin to 7K. Buick 3.8's don't go that higher, unless a stage 2, maybe. The LC2 is a torque MONSTER, doesn't spin past 5200, just like a slightly ported TPI

With that kind of power range its worthless putting a stick behind it, i know someone that's tried and GM themselves tried.

 

I like Auto's and manually shifting Auto's.

 

Yep GM was going to put a 6 speed behind the TTA if I remember correctly but did not because of the huge loss of performance. For a 3.8 turbo torque monster i'll stick with an auto and I don't know any TTA,grand national,turbo-t,or t-type owner who would disagree.

 

yeah most of will agree except this one GN "kid" i was talking to.

He wants to drop in a T-56 so it'll be "mad fast" Disgrace to my age group

 

GN owners like that should give me their cars. Cause I truly would appreciate it for what it's worth. Just like this kid I know who has an 86 GN with over 100k on the clock and it's in decent shape and he thinks it's the fastest thing ever. And it's absolutely bone stock and he said he'll never mod it but will still beat anything on the street that's another prime example of someone who should give me their GN

 

All it would take would be one ride in a car with a built auto (good converter/good shiftkit) for a lot of you to change your opinion on autos. Remember a converter does a lot more than help with drag racing. It also help a TON from a roll (autocross)

But back to the original topic,
If you wanna have fun driving---manual
If you wanna win races-----------auto

-Doug

 

couldn't agree more

 

my best friends GN runs low 11's - it no fun to race him anymore

 

In the land of IROC's up intil 90 or 91 the 305 5speed always got the same cam as 350. in 90 or 91 you had to specify G92 to get the bigger cam. That is what made the 305 stick faster than the 305 auto. The bigger cam motor was food for about 20hp. There is no replacement for dispacement and the 350 auto will win every time. In the land of mustangs. IMO ford makes a crappy auto that is too slushy and the 302 stick will win every time. That is my opinoin and I do not know if the manual stangs got bigger cam or more gear or what. In the land of mod's I would have to say I would take an auto. A friend of mine years ago had a 69 fire bird that ran a 13.9 with an auto. he wanted to go faster so he swaped in a manual. he ran 13.9. Check my sig you will see I have both and the 87 is my daily driver cause I like power and the 89 is my girlfriends daily driver because these are the only two cars I own. darn what a shame having two

 

I have an '89 firebird w/ a 305 TBI w/ no special cam. It dynoed at 138hp, w/ the automatic. Awhile back the Auto died on me and I swapped a T5 into it and did another dyno. The car now makes 155 maximum hp... There is a lot less drivetrain loss with a mechanical connection!

As to turbos being faster with manuals, that amuses me. Most older turbos (like the ones in the GN), produce no boost whatsoever at low revs, however they are monsters at higher revs. An automatic has no brain and uses speed, and throttle to control when it shifts, a person hwoever is smart and has plenty of decisionmaking power. Therefore a person w/ a manual could easily keep a GN boosting for longer than a foolish auto.

One of the quicker, affordable sportscars ever made was the 3000GT VR4/ Dodge Stealth RT/T. A car with turbos which only came with a manual b/c when Mitsubishi made it, they realized that the loss in performance from an auto would kill the cars image so they didn't even offer it!

 

a GN produces no low end power yet screams at high RPM's? what do you consider high RPMS?

and as far you're comments about a manual behind a GN motor go for it, since you to know about the engines, try it..see how much power you gain

So tell me, what would u do to make a GN with a stick faster than the auto?

you do realize the second the clutch goes in, and the throttle is gone BYE BYE BOOST...

so out of all the 9-10-11-12 second GN's, wait 99.99999% of the GN's out there how many are auto, how many are sticks? yeah thought so, comparing a buick 3.8 to a import turbo motor is totally different, but i guess you already knew that...

 

and i guess you haven't heard of a manual valve body either, shifts the auto trans when you move the shifter?

 

Most autocross cars are manual, because the drivers are very good. They know thier cars and can keep them in their peak hp range very well. Auto's however, aren't always good at this. In a striaght line at wot, my auto will shift into 2 at 5500, then third at 5000 or so, then od at 4500 or so. When I shift it manually, I shift into each gear at 6000, and it accelerates much faster. When it shifts at 5000, it drops down to 3000 or so, and takes a sec before it starts pullin hard again. Aslo, most manuals have closer gear ratios than auto's. Which is better for high hp race engines.

 

]

The GN 3.8 is a OHV motor which does not make much power past 5200-5500 RPM's much like a TPI motor. But it does make some serious low end torque and if boosting off the line that is some REAL serious torque. The TT motors in the 3000Gt's and the stealth's are OHC motors which REV rather high compared to a OHV 3.8 for this reason the 5 speed would make more sense behind this motor. But would this motor be quicker with an automatic? In my opinion it most certainly would. My friend who is quite knowledgeable about turbo's even himself says he would rather have an automatic behind his turbo motor than the 5 speed he has now. He has an 87 740 turbo volvo which is running high 13's on 20#'s of boost with a 5 speed. He said the only reason he hasn't changed to automatic is the overall fun factor of the car. But he and I both agree almost any turbo motor would perform much better behind a well built automatic. As it was said before:

If you want to have fun driving-manual
If you want to win races-automatic

 

Henry C, you are obviously ignorant of turbo regals. You know nothing about them and therefore should not even comment on them. What is a low rev anyway? and what turbo spins at low revs???? None? Turbo run off of exhaust, how can you possibly build up enough exhaust gasses to spin a turbo at a, how do you say, "Low rev."? I'm at full boost at 3000-3500rpms. That's a low rev to me, considering some imports spin to 10 grand. Please keep the turbo talk to people who have them and know about them. You just make yourself sound stupid.

:lala: :lala: :lala:

 

If autos are the secret to winning races, why does Nascar, world rally, Formula 1, world baha, and almost every other major circuit run manual cars? (and please don't tell me that Formula 1 doesn't use manual cars, b/c while they don't clutch themselves, its a computer controlled clutch, not an automatic style viscous coupling)...

Autos only win drag and thats b/c of predictability, ability to deal w/ engine volatility, the speed with which it can shift, the ability to run nice tall gear ratios, and the lack of neccessity of downshifting.

 

and do Nascar's run turbo's you f'in moron?

you brought up turbo motors, and you're clueless, you don't run a manual on a turbo 3.8 PERIOD CASE CLOSED END OF DISCUSSION

these motors are torque monsters, not high revver's

so sit back, don't post, cause you're making yourself look stupid

 

lol wait, they use autos cause of speed it can shift, lol doesn't that keep boost? um...forget it, i'm not gonna waste my time

 

I'd just like to say that if you are lifting during your shifts in a manual car then you need to borrow someone's ***** so you can actually RACE a car instead of just driving it. Manuals weigh less have less rotating mass and don't burn up on road courses(excluding fully built tans with huge cooler). As far as a manual being less consistent you once again need to learn to RACE and not just drive.

$0.02

 

<---is still waiting for this secret method to making a GN or a buick turbo 3.8 for that matter faster with a manual than an auto, oh i know, cause you can't

 

Stick Mustangs got the same stinkin' cam, around .440 lift, at the valve, I think, correct me fellas, if I'm wrong. Gears were acutally worse in the stick cars, 3.08s for the sticks, and 3.27s for the autos, those are the best factory gears for those cars. Actually, the AOD can be a decent tranny, just has really disgusting gear ratios in it, and it's not all that durable, if your going to do nothing but thrash on it...better to toss in a powerglide, or a C6


Actuallllllllllyyyyy, you don't heel toe to engine brake....engine braking is not something you do in road racing....well, not something you do if you know what your doing....the point of heel toeing is make sure your engine is in the correct rpm range for the corner exit, you'll notice a quick blip of the throttle right before a downshift, that's to smooth out the downshift, if you go into a full on engine brake situation, more than likely, your going to break the rear tires loose, and loose your line, and possible wreck the crap out of your expensive race car....thank you....and have a nice day.


Oh yeah, if you want to go fast on the track (dragstrip) with a stick, ,check out getting a t-5/t-56/toploader/m-21/m22/t-10 or whatever Pro-Shifted. Is a process where the syncros are cut off your forward drive gears, and a new tooth ring is welded on...don't try it at home, it's a unique process, doing it yourself will only hurt your tranny. Anyways, I believe the number of teeth is increased, your syncros are gone, and your stick will shift JUST AS FAST as an auto, if not faster. However, you've got a whole new ballgame in street manners, no syncros=you better learn how to double clutch in a hurry....