colt ralliart - first test drive of a turbo car

[lithium]

our second car kicked the bucket recently, so i've been in the market for a new car. last weekend my financee and i drove out to a dealer and took a look at a three year old colt ralliart.

its a little box car in the same style as the Barina. the cabin is surprisingly roomy and the rear seat can slide forwards and backwards - forwards to carry shopping, backwards to carry passengers. with the seat all the way back the rear leg room is really quite good and it would be comfortable for long trips. also it has 4 doors which is a plus plus in my books, climate control, and very nice recaros in the front

and then i drove it - and was somewhat disappointed? perhaps its because its the first turbo car i've driven and i had overly high expectations. when driving slowly shifting at 3k, it was a slug. so it's off boost. so i started driving harder, shifting at 4.5k - at that point you could start to feel the power but the turbo only spooled up at 3.5k, and it felt like you'd only just begun to hit to power band and then you had to shift - and next gear you'd drop right out of boost and you'd be a slug again

so i tried driving hard, spinning out to near redline before shifting. on boost it was definitely strong - but then every time you shift, even landing above 3.5k in the next gear, the turbo would drop off and you'd have to wait a second for it to spool before the power came back on

honestly it felt that in every day driving, my Barina would make mincemeat out of this turbo hatch - and i couldn't imagine trying to power out of a corner hard with such an awful power delivery!

to the owners of turbo cars: are they all like this? i'm thinking it was something to do with my driving style, maybe i shift too slowly, and i'm not used to having to keep a car in boost? or is it just that the ralliart colt has bad turbo lag or bad gearing?

it just seemed that if you want any sort of performance, you really have to drive the car hard hard hard - bang the next gear in, keep it above 4k. is this normal? if so i have to say, from my short drive i am definitely more an N/A fan

interested to be educated by comments from SRiT et al owners

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[mania]

It's a trait of the majority of japanese turbos. Fit an oversize turbo - get good high power figures, and the associated high track performance, but hard to work on the street. Euro turbos (xr5's, sri's, vxrs, audis etc) tend to fit smaller turbos, great for on-road speed, but not as good at the high end. I don't imagine you'll see a euro offer a 2L 400hp single turbo engine like mitsubishi do for example..

Mine for example reaches peak boost somewhere around 3000rpm. Starts building 2000rpm or a little lower even. But it's boosting about half as much by 5500rpm.

Perks to both approaches of course, just depends on what you want.

Oh, should mention that's a generalization above - the mps3 for example would be what I'd consider euro .

[HappySlapper82]

The first turbo car I owned was a 180SX with the SR20DET engine and the previous owner had done performance mods in all the right areas was getting 200kw at only 9psi boost last dyno I had done. For the first couple of days driving it took a lot of getting used to the massive turbo lag, especially when i took the boost above 14psi, but that being said it was loads of fun and I got used of it very quickly, and developed a driving style to match it.

[USC]

Trust me - after you have owned a turbo car and get used to it, You will miss the torque and boost if you go back to n/a (unless you get a V6 or V8 of course).

[lithium]

if the euros like Astras/XR5Ts start boosting by 2K that definitely sounds more usable in street driving - this Ralliart colt didn't feel like it started spooling until 3K+! perhaps the Japs put a turbo that's too large on it?

also it sounds like part of the problem is my driving style

re. V6 or V8, that's exactly what we've decided on i'm picking up a Magna Sports on friday...163Kw and 317Nm in a 1480kg shell, and it pulls hard right off idle. it's the goods

[GreyRex]

our second car kicked the bucket recently, so i've been in the market for a new car. last weekend my financee and i drove out to a dealer and took a look at a three year old colt ralliart.

its a little box car in the same style as the Barina. the cabin is surprisingly roomy and the rear seat can slide forwards and backwards - forwards to carry shopping, backwards to carry passengers. with the seat all the way back the rear leg room is really quite good and it would be comfortable for long trips. also it has 4 doors which is a plus plus in my books, climate control, and very nice recaros in the front

and then i drove it - and was somewhat disappointed? perhaps its because its the first turbo car i've driven and i had overly high expectations. when driving slowly shifting at 3k, it was a slug. so it's off boost. so i started driving harder, shifting at 4.5k - at that point you could start to feel the power but the turbo only spooled up at 3.5k, and it felt like you'd only just begun to hit to power band and then you had to shift - and next gear you'd drop right out of boost and you'd be a slug again

so i tried driving hard, spinning out to near redline before shifting. on boost it was definitely strong - but then every time you shift, even landing above 3.5k in the next gear, the turbo would drop off and you'd have to wait a second for it to spool before the power came back on

honestly it felt that in every day driving, my Barina would make mincemeat out of this turbo hatch - and i couldn't imagine trying to power out of a corner hard with such an awful power delivery!

to the owners of turbo cars: are they all like this? i'm thinking it was something to do with my driving style, maybe i shift too slowly, and i'm not used to having to keep a car in boost? or is it just that the ralliart colt has bad turbo lag or bad gearing?

it just seemed that if you want any sort of performance, you really have to drive the car hard hard hard - bang the next gear in, keep it above 4k. is this normal? if so i have to say, from my short drive i am definitely more an N/A fan

interested to be educated by comments from SRiT et al owners

Unfortunately it's not that easy to say... 'this is why'

The reason you may have felt that with the Colt, is because it's only a 1.5L. The bigger the engine before the turbo is taken into consideration, the more likely you are have a torquey engine... hence not as much boost required

Of course this is a very general rule... but a case in point would be the XR5 vs Astra Turbo/VXR. The 320nM of torque in an XR5 peaks at 1600rpm, and is almost flat until around 5000rpm. The Astra Turbo however peaks around 4000rpm, so it's somewhat lacking down low. I can vouch for this, as I own one. Now obviously the VXR makes more power than the XR5, but the turbo has to boost harder. This can mean a somewhat non-linear power delivery... torque steer etc etc

[USC]

if the euros like Astras/XR5Ts start boosting by 2K that definitely sounds more usable in street driving - this Ralliart colt didn't feel like it started spooling until 3K+! perhaps the Japs put a turbo that's too large on it?

also it sounds like part of the problem is my driving style

re. V6 or V8, that's exactly what we've decided on i'm picking up a Magna Sports on friday...163Kw and 317Nm in a 1480kg shell, and it pulls hard right off idle. it's the goods

Is that the AWD version?

[mania]

Wish my dyno chart went to lower revs - but it was definitely well spooled by 2800rpm - 0.8bar, as low as the dyno goes. Peak boost of 1 bar is at 3600rpm.

Those Magna Sports are underrated cars, good pick .

EDIT: As above! AWD?

[mania]

Of course this is a very general rule... but a case in point would be the XR5 vs Astra Turbo/VXR. The 320nM of torque in an XR5 peaks at 1600rpm, and is almost flat until around 5000rpm. The Astra Turbo however peaks around 4000rpm, so it's somewhat lacking down low. I can vouch for this, as I own one. Now obviously the VXR makes more power than the XR5, but the turbo has to boost harder. This can mean a somewhat non-linear power delivery... torque steer etc etc

Mizled, do you have a source ? Official figure is peak torque of 250Nm available from 1950rpm-5600rpm. Which means the stock map must keep the boost flat from 1950rpm onwards. My map messes it a bit, allowing it to come on harder (1 bar) at 3600rpm.

[USC]

Having owned both an Sri-T and an XR5 Turbo, I can confirm that torque delivery in the XR5T happens at very low revs (1500 as mentioned) and car pulls very well without reving too much. In the sri-t, it felt a bit sluggish until about 3500rpm.....that could also be because of 320NM vs 250NM and 320 is reached at 1500rpm compared to 250 at 1950rpm in sri-t. Im guessing the VXR would be slightly better. The xr5t is a sweet engine and it sounds really nice when driven hard!