Greg (banana) told me tonight that an automatic car is faster.

He states if you take a two cars. Different transmissions. same mods the 5 speed with have more tourqe. but the horsepower will be the same.

He also says gearing will give you more tourqe.

MY THEROY- automatics lose HP because of the drive train takes more % of the power.Auto=20% 5 Speed=15%

And gearing only deals with speed. like long gears for top end short gears for faster take off.


Who is right? Your explain it to me please

 

Straight lines, Auto's rule . Autocross and rally, there's nothing like a 6speed manumatic tranny with paddle shifter


My car for instance loses 26% of it's horsepower through the ATX vs 15% through the MTX. If your going to straight line street racing and you aren't pushing alot of horses a manual would benefit more. If you have 500+ horsepower trying to shift that shit is hard and an automatic will almost always win with the right torque convertor etc.


My opinion

 

That is almost true. But i Kinda disagree a little. All the top fuel dragsters that have really high horsepower all have manuals. Even other ones.

 

Just my .02 but

my car is a 6-speed and runs 12's

my buddy has same car identical setup and runs 11's with an automatic

....this seems to be the trend at least for supras

 

Don't top fuel dragsters just shift once though? And that setup doesn't require lifting off the accelerator.

Any nitro racers out there to explain?

 

In a full race application, a properly setup and tuned clutchless 5 speed manual will ALWAYS be faster than an auto car. If you look at Pro 5.0, Pro Import RWD or any other class that allows clutchless 5 speeds, they dominate when properly setup. If the clutch tuner can setup the clutch properly and allow just the right amount of slippage off the line and the suspension works well, an auto car will not win....all other things being equal. Case in point....Brad Brand's 10.5" outlaw car set the world record running a 7.14 @ 206 mph running a Liberty 5 speed. This is a couple tenths faster than his previous best running an auto(power glide or 3 speed Bruno I think). No one ever thought a 5 speed car would be able to run the kind of times on such a smal tire. It just goes to show what good suspension and good clutch tuning can do.

Now a street application, an auto 99% of the time will out run a 5/6 speed car. There are few instances where a well geared 5/6 speed car with good suspension tuning and a good driver can hang with an auto car....all things being equal of course. For the typical street car there is only so much you can do with the suspension though. An auto will put the power to the ground much much smoother and will be more consistant off the line.

Oh also, top fuel doesn't run transmission at all. They run a multi disc clutch setup.

Just my $0.02.

 

I would not take what banana says as gospel.