09-21-2010, 10:43 PM
I thought you guys might be interested in this. I'm copying/pasting a few posts from another forum. Here ya go!
07-03-2010, 02:00 PM
My Dad's R8 (V8 model) came in today. I got to drive it around on the country roads near my parent's house, and it seems to be quite the precise machine. I didn't really push it that much and never revved it past 4 grand. I'll wait till after a thousand miles before I give you all the full review + video.
I was reading through the manual and came across a section describing how to launch the car. For best acceleration, the user's manual suggests that you rev the motor to 6500 RPMs and drop the clutch. That is the coolest fucking thing I've ever read in a car manual.
In the mean time, check out these pics...
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://picasaweb.google.com/hawleycj/R8#">http://picasaweb.google.com/hawleycj/R8#</a><!-- m -->
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09-21-2010, 06:30 PM
Wow!!! Words can hardly describe how fun this car is to drive, or how popular this car is with people, but I will try my best to do it some justice. Lots of my coworkers have been begging me to bring it in, but I've been waiting until it's sufficiently broken in (1500 miles) so I could actually give some spirited rides. Well, today was the day. I picked up the car last night with a full tank of gas and 1750 miles on the odometer. I warmed her up and proceeded to rag it out pretty hard on the roads near my parent's house, learning how the car handled and reacted to certain situations. I wanted to be able to safely push the limits with my coworkers, so I needed to get a good feel for things first. I drove around for almost an hour, then headed back to my house.
The car feels extremely poised in corners and is grippy enough to peel some skin off your face through the twisties. Cloverleafs can easily be taken at over 60 mph. The steering is quite sensitive and communicative and not too heavy nor too light. When pushed linearly past the limit of traction in a corner, the car will predictably understeer with a good deal of warning (read: squeal) from the front tires. If you yank the wheel hard on corner entry, or you abruptly add more lock mid-corner, the car WILL do what you tell it and it WILL oversteer on you very quickly. At low speeds, the car will power oversteer like a champ with traction control turned off. I only got the rear-end loose once, and it was a relatively benign, slow-speed incident. I was making a right turn onto a road from a stop light and was actually caught slightly off-gaurd by it. I quickly added some opposite lock, however, and caught it nicely. The passenger wasn't educated enough to appreciate it, though, so I explained to him what just happened.
The power is nothing insane, but it's extremely usable. If you keep the revs high, there's always gobs of power on demand. You just have to remember to shift before you hit the rev limiter. The exhaust note is very mean, throaty, and growly. It sounds like a V10 or a V12 when pushed, and it's just something you have to hear to believe. Almost every single one of my coworkers commented on the sound of the exhaust.
The gated shifter takes some getting used to; it's definitely the most unique shifter I've ever used. Just pushing the shifter left and right (from neutral), there's an extreme amount of resistance: probably three to four times what I'm used to. You can't really push the shifter diagonally from gear to gear, either, so you have to get used to treating each shift like two ninety degree turns.
The pedals in the car are very functional. They are setup quite nicely for heel-toe blips, and rev-matching was a cinch. I'm not sure what type of clutch is used in the R8, but the engagement was smooth as butter. Note that I'm not talking about the clutch pedal itself, but the actual mechanical engagement of the clutch disc with the flywheel. I received multiple compliments on my heel-toe shifting and rev matching but, to be honest, a lot of that had to do with the car. It just makes everything so easy! As for the feel of the actual clutch pedal itself, it is surprisingly light and the engagement point seems to be just higher than the halfway point. It is a breeze to drive at low speeds and is quite difficult to stall.
On its standard setting, the skid control system intervenes FAR too early. For this reason, almost all of my spirited driving was done with skid control turned completely off. I tested out the launching procedure described in the manual (drop the clutch at 6500 RPMs with traction control turned off) and it worked quite well, lighting up all four tires with ease, but just the right amount. There are two suspension settings: regular and sport, with sport obviously being the stiffer and more racey of the two settings. There's a noticeable difference between the two modes, which is nice.
The brakes are very good, although not quite as good (IMO) as those on the Porsche 997S. The ABS system was abysmal, and something that I would want to disable if I were to ever track the car. When ABS kicked in, it really was no better than if I had locked up all four tires. The steering response was virtually nonexistent. If I had not had the wherewithal to let up on the brakes in order to get the tires spinning again, I would have wrecked into a big oak tree. So, FUCK YOU AUDI ABS. P.S. I only activated ABS once in my entire day of driving, and it was a result of heavy braking over a very fucked up road surface. I was doing loooots of threshold braking the entire day, as well, so it's quite obvious to me that the ABS system waits a long time to kick in and only intervenes when you're really in trouble. Once it does, however, you'd better be paying attention, because it will fuck you up.
I arrived at work this morning at 8:30 and parked at the tip top of the parking garage where no one else parks. I could see the car from my cubicle on the 6th floor, and I was checking on it periodically. At 8:50, I see a director walking out towards it. He's someone I've met before, so I was interested to see what he was going to do. He ended up taking pics for a few minutes, then he started heading back in, so I decided to wait till he got back to his office and offer him a ride. I checked in his office a few times, but couldn't find him. Finally I heard his voice a little ways down the hall and poked my head into another office, only to find him talking to another director about the car and showing him the pics he had taken. I walked in and asked what they were talking about. He responded "somebody's got an Audi R8 out in our parking garage!" I just smiled and said "would you like a ride?" He about shit himself. "Uh, what? Are you serious? Who's car is that? ARE YOU SERIOUS? Wait wait, let me get this straight..." etc etc, ad nauseum. He told me how it was his dream car, and when he saw it out the window he immediately RAN down the stairs and into the garage to take pics. He could not believe that he found the "owner" so easily, and was absolutely amazed that he'd be taking a ride so soon (or at all).
Anyways, I took him out Sunrise Valley and took a right on Frying Pan (he missed some important meeting for this ride, ahahhaha). They have a nice new on-ramp to 28 where I could do some sweet skidpad testing to show off the phenomenal grip of the car. Needless to say, he was absolutely loving it. No one could believe how grippy this car was. Pretty much every single person was absolutely sure we were going straight into the concrete barrier, but then the fear turned to a HUUUGE smile as the car just ate up the corner with ease and asked for more. Everyone I drove with trusted me completely, and I let every single person know that they could tell me to slow down at any time if they were scared. Everyone was brave, though, and only one person (a good-looking single blonde who sits right next to me) was legitimately scared and actually asked me to slow down. I obliged, and stopped almost instantly. That made her laugh her fucking ass off for the next two minutes straight. lol
I ended up giving 13 people rides in the car today: 11 people from my work, a good friend of mine, and one of my neighbors who was drooling all over it. Each of the rides was about ten mins long, except for one special hour long stint, so that was about three solid hours of hard driving for me today. I think I put more smiles on more faces today than I have in my entire life. I didn't get one bit of work done the entire day, as I was constantly being hounded by people wanting to check out the car. I'm not trying to brag, really, but I'm just amazed at the reaction this car generates. It's nothing like a Porsche; it's like some fucking UFO and people go nuts over it.
I gave an extra-special ride to one of my coworkers who was most enamored by the car. He's always wanted an R8 and there's no other car in the world that he'd rather have, so I treated him to something more than all of the other guys. We used our "lunch hour" (lol) to head all the way back out to my parent's house, on roads like Colchester, Fairfax Station, Popes Head, and Newman, and I drove that fucker like I stole it. He could hardly believe what was happening and I think he was in an alternate reality because he didn't say too much other than "HOOOLLY SHIT I WANT THIS CAR SO MUCH MORE NOW!!!!" I was communicating the majority of the time to let him know that everything was a-okay and under control. It was on this ride where I encountered the horrid ABS system (described above). He didn't realize how serious the situation was until I informed him afterwards.
Anyways, I won't bore you all with the reactions of all twelve people, but it was an amazingly fun day and I'm really glad that I could share the car with so many people who would otherwise probably not even be able to sit in an R8. In the words of the guy who was treated to the special ride: "damn, you did a really good job man. I feel like I just got off a roller coaster." Hahahaha, that's what I like to hear! I should have fucking charged!!!!!
I have to fill up the gas tank. My dad gave it to me full and it's at about 1/8th of a tank now. The odometer is almost up to 1900 miles now. She needed the workout, and I know she loved it.
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lol, from one of my coworker's facebook page...
"Went for a ride in an R8 today with a driver that is not afraid of the laws of physics."
---------------------------------------------------
So, there you go... thought u all would enjoy that a bit. :-)
P.S. I just got back from the Nurburgring, where I did six laps in a Lotus Exige. I will share that story with you all in the near future, as well.
07-03-2010, 02:00 PM
My Dad's R8 (V8 model) came in today. I got to drive it around on the country roads near my parent's house, and it seems to be quite the precise machine. I didn't really push it that much and never revved it past 4 grand. I'll wait till after a thousand miles before I give you all the full review + video.
I was reading through the manual and came across a section describing how to launch the car. For best acceleration, the user's manual suggests that you rev the motor to 6500 RPMs and drop the clutch. That is the coolest fucking thing I've ever read in a car manual.
In the mean time, check out these pics...
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://picasaweb.google.com/hawleycj/R8#">http://picasaweb.google.com/hawleycj/R8#</a><!-- m -->
---------------------------------------------------
09-21-2010, 06:30 PM
Wow!!! Words can hardly describe how fun this car is to drive, or how popular this car is with people, but I will try my best to do it some justice. Lots of my coworkers have been begging me to bring it in, but I've been waiting until it's sufficiently broken in (1500 miles) so I could actually give some spirited rides. Well, today was the day. I picked up the car last night with a full tank of gas and 1750 miles on the odometer. I warmed her up and proceeded to rag it out pretty hard on the roads near my parent's house, learning how the car handled and reacted to certain situations. I wanted to be able to safely push the limits with my coworkers, so I needed to get a good feel for things first. I drove around for almost an hour, then headed back to my house.
The car feels extremely poised in corners and is grippy enough to peel some skin off your face through the twisties. Cloverleafs can easily be taken at over 60 mph. The steering is quite sensitive and communicative and not too heavy nor too light. When pushed linearly past the limit of traction in a corner, the car will predictably understeer with a good deal of warning (read: squeal) from the front tires. If you yank the wheel hard on corner entry, or you abruptly add more lock mid-corner, the car WILL do what you tell it and it WILL oversteer on you very quickly. At low speeds, the car will power oversteer like a champ with traction control turned off. I only got the rear-end loose once, and it was a relatively benign, slow-speed incident. I was making a right turn onto a road from a stop light and was actually caught slightly off-gaurd by it. I quickly added some opposite lock, however, and caught it nicely. The passenger wasn't educated enough to appreciate it, though, so I explained to him what just happened.
The power is nothing insane, but it's extremely usable. If you keep the revs high, there's always gobs of power on demand. You just have to remember to shift before you hit the rev limiter. The exhaust note is very mean, throaty, and growly. It sounds like a V10 or a V12 when pushed, and it's just something you have to hear to believe. Almost every single one of my coworkers commented on the sound of the exhaust.
The gated shifter takes some getting used to; it's definitely the most unique shifter I've ever used. Just pushing the shifter left and right (from neutral), there's an extreme amount of resistance: probably three to four times what I'm used to. You can't really push the shifter diagonally from gear to gear, either, so you have to get used to treating each shift like two ninety degree turns.
The pedals in the car are very functional. They are setup quite nicely for heel-toe blips, and rev-matching was a cinch. I'm not sure what type of clutch is used in the R8, but the engagement was smooth as butter. Note that I'm not talking about the clutch pedal itself, but the actual mechanical engagement of the clutch disc with the flywheel. I received multiple compliments on my heel-toe shifting and rev matching but, to be honest, a lot of that had to do with the car. It just makes everything so easy! As for the feel of the actual clutch pedal itself, it is surprisingly light and the engagement point seems to be just higher than the halfway point. It is a breeze to drive at low speeds and is quite difficult to stall.
On its standard setting, the skid control system intervenes FAR too early. For this reason, almost all of my spirited driving was done with skid control turned completely off. I tested out the launching procedure described in the manual (drop the clutch at 6500 RPMs with traction control turned off) and it worked quite well, lighting up all four tires with ease, but just the right amount. There are two suspension settings: regular and sport, with sport obviously being the stiffer and more racey of the two settings. There's a noticeable difference between the two modes, which is nice.
The brakes are very good, although not quite as good (IMO) as those on the Porsche 997S. The ABS system was abysmal, and something that I would want to disable if I were to ever track the car. When ABS kicked in, it really was no better than if I had locked up all four tires. The steering response was virtually nonexistent. If I had not had the wherewithal to let up on the brakes in order to get the tires spinning again, I would have wrecked into a big oak tree. So, FUCK YOU AUDI ABS. P.S. I only activated ABS once in my entire day of driving, and it was a result of heavy braking over a very fucked up road surface. I was doing loooots of threshold braking the entire day, as well, so it's quite obvious to me that the ABS system waits a long time to kick in and only intervenes when you're really in trouble. Once it does, however, you'd better be paying attention, because it will fuck you up.
I arrived at work this morning at 8:30 and parked at the tip top of the parking garage where no one else parks. I could see the car from my cubicle on the 6th floor, and I was checking on it periodically. At 8:50, I see a director walking out towards it. He's someone I've met before, so I was interested to see what he was going to do. He ended up taking pics for a few minutes, then he started heading back in, so I decided to wait till he got back to his office and offer him a ride. I checked in his office a few times, but couldn't find him. Finally I heard his voice a little ways down the hall and poked my head into another office, only to find him talking to another director about the car and showing him the pics he had taken. I walked in and asked what they were talking about. He responded "somebody's got an Audi R8 out in our parking garage!" I just smiled and said "would you like a ride?" He about shit himself. "Uh, what? Are you serious? Who's car is that? ARE YOU SERIOUS? Wait wait, let me get this straight..." etc etc, ad nauseum. He told me how it was his dream car, and when he saw it out the window he immediately RAN down the stairs and into the garage to take pics. He could not believe that he found the "owner" so easily, and was absolutely amazed that he'd be taking a ride so soon (or at all).
Anyways, I took him out Sunrise Valley and took a right on Frying Pan (he missed some important meeting for this ride, ahahhaha). They have a nice new on-ramp to 28 where I could do some sweet skidpad testing to show off the phenomenal grip of the car. Needless to say, he was absolutely loving it. No one could believe how grippy this car was. Pretty much every single person was absolutely sure we were going straight into the concrete barrier, but then the fear turned to a HUUUGE smile as the car just ate up the corner with ease and asked for more. Everyone I drove with trusted me completely, and I let every single person know that they could tell me to slow down at any time if they were scared. Everyone was brave, though, and only one person (a good-looking single blonde who sits right next to me) was legitimately scared and actually asked me to slow down. I obliged, and stopped almost instantly. That made her laugh her fucking ass off for the next two minutes straight. lol
I ended up giving 13 people rides in the car today: 11 people from my work, a good friend of mine, and one of my neighbors who was drooling all over it. Each of the rides was about ten mins long, except for one special hour long stint, so that was about three solid hours of hard driving for me today. I think I put more smiles on more faces today than I have in my entire life. I didn't get one bit of work done the entire day, as I was constantly being hounded by people wanting to check out the car. I'm not trying to brag, really, but I'm just amazed at the reaction this car generates. It's nothing like a Porsche; it's like some fucking UFO and people go nuts over it.
I gave an extra-special ride to one of my coworkers who was most enamored by the car. He's always wanted an R8 and there's no other car in the world that he'd rather have, so I treated him to something more than all of the other guys. We used our "lunch hour" (lol) to head all the way back out to my parent's house, on roads like Colchester, Fairfax Station, Popes Head, and Newman, and I drove that fucker like I stole it. He could hardly believe what was happening and I think he was in an alternate reality because he didn't say too much other than "HOOOLLY SHIT I WANT THIS CAR SO MUCH MORE NOW!!!!" I was communicating the majority of the time to let him know that everything was a-okay and under control. It was on this ride where I encountered the horrid ABS system (described above). He didn't realize how serious the situation was until I informed him afterwards.
Anyways, I won't bore you all with the reactions of all twelve people, but it was an amazingly fun day and I'm really glad that I could share the car with so many people who would otherwise probably not even be able to sit in an R8. In the words of the guy who was treated to the special ride: "damn, you did a really good job man. I feel like I just got off a roller coaster." Hahahaha, that's what I like to hear! I should have fucking charged!!!!!
I have to fill up the gas tank. My dad gave it to me full and it's at about 1/8th of a tank now. The odometer is almost up to 1900 miles now. She needed the workout, and I know she loved it.
---------------------------------------------------
lol, from one of my coworker's facebook page...
"Went for a ride in an R8 today with a driver that is not afraid of the laws of physics."
---------------------------------------------------
So, there you go... thought u all would enjoy that a bit. :-)
P.S. I just got back from the Nurburgring, where I did six laps in a Lotus Exige. I will share that story with you all in the near future, as well.
