BackToBasics

Thanks for the great pictures Paul. Now I'm working on cutting them out and photoshopping them onto a pic of a Northern Blue A8L so I can see my ordered combo. Sounds like a great event you attended!

Any chatter among attendees about other options that will show up on the car later this model year or next?

PaulW

It's ugly in person too

PaulW

Some of the people were asking the event coordinators about the A8L when I was standing there. After a few responses from me they kept saying "ask Paul, he knows".

Nobody knew anything of the A8L there, at least in my group of 30. I was defintely the "heavy".

pw

mclarenm8d

... and this method has never let me down. It will take me a while to do the calcs though, too many gears :-).

In short, I would predict that the new A8L will get the jump out of the hole but then the tall gearing of your '97 will even up the race. I was able to pull ~45 mph in first with the 11 tranny coding on my '98.

mclarenm8d

"In some ways, I think the five speed is well suited for our cars, do you really need a six speed with all the torque of the motor?"

As someone who owns a GM product with a manual transmission that is basically a close ratio three speed with two overdrives and a granny gear, I would say "no".

ryoung

from <A HREF="http://www.germancarfans.com/news.cfm?NewsID=2020903.001&Page=8">page 8</a> of this GermanCarFans article, speed in gears in 1st thru 3rd is very similar to the S8.

The big difference comes with 4th, which is lower than even the S8, and MUCH lower than the old A8. As a result, the '04 should be very strong accelerating from speeds in the 100-130 mph range. I'm sure that this will be appreciated on the autobahn's in Germany and the tracks in the U.S.

6th gear is taller than 5th in the old A8, so expect the new car to get great highway fuel economy.

The Bottom Line: It looks to me like whoever chose the gearing for the 6-speed TIP did a near perfect job.

mclarenm8d

I had forgotten about the ~6800 redline of the new '04 A8, which helps out tremendously. The speeds in the lower gears are very similar to the S8 setup, and the huge jump from 3rd to 4th of the '97-03 has been fixed in the '04.

Paul, did the '04 A8 you drove "quick shift" into second like a non-tranny coded '97-03?

Normalizing for weight differences and assuming 175 lb driver, here is what I came up with. Randy, your speed in gears calculator is more accurate, this is an approximation on speeds -

Acceleration ('9x -&gt; '97-99):

0 - 35 mph
'04 has significant advantage, the '9x will never fully regain. At 35, '04 shifting into second, '9x still in first.

35 - 60 mph
'9x gains back some ground, but '04 regains advantage when '9x shifts into second.

60 mph +
'04 has a continual, 10% average advantage on torque output relative to speed.

An S8 will have a distinct advantage at practically any speed (superior torque output at high RPM).