Amby my boy, your arguement is severly flawed. Any car with 600+ horsepower is going to be fast. The GT R does not have anywhere near that kind of power and hangs with the ZR1 on the track. Chassis, weight, tires, 2 vs. 4wd etc. Equal car to equal car, only difference being the transmission, the SST will be faster on a race track. You can defend the old school manual all you want. Yes, there are at least 3 more gears in a MODERN Manual, but the principal is exactly the same. Modern materials may make them more durable and can hold more power vs. the 20HP of a Model T but you still push a clutch and move a shift lever. Please tell us all the improvements since then.

Before blasting success your way, you may want to educate yourself here.

http://www.autozine.org/technical_sc...ear_manual.htm

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/10...manual-transm/

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/...take_road_test

At the Streets of Willow
In a word, they didn't. Cutting right to the chase, the results around the Streets of Willow were as follows:

#2: Evo MR — 1:32.42
#3: Evo GSR — 1:32.51
#4: WRX STI — 1:32.68

The standout here is the Evo X MR. Here is a car that gets smoked in every category of our instrumented testing and had some high-rpm hiccups, yet still manages to out-quick the Evo GSR and the WRX STI over the course of our 1.6-mile lap.

A few advantages allow the Evo MR to pip the others around the road course. Its twin-clutch gearbox really proves its worth on this twisting, highly technical layout, delivering consistently fast gearchanges in a gearbox with closer ratios than the Evo GSR's conventional manual transmission.

 

Without pro drivers? I haven't seen any blistering times posted by either of those cars that weren't driven by some of the most qualified drivers in the world (especially if we're talking about nurburing times which wasn't stated but implied). I think it's a completely valid point that there are plenty of clowns out there who love their 5 speeds yet OFTEN fail to drive them up to their potential and can't back up their mouths with their driving, where as the SST makes it impossible for you to cause anything but a flawless shift every time, faster than any human could ever muster.

This thread seems to have become nothing more than a veiled attempt at dumping on the SST before it's even been thoroughly tested. Regardless of personal opinions it's pretty clear in the automotive industry that dual clutch transmissions are going to be the performance standard of the future regardless of how much you want to cling to them. This isn't some glorified automatic we're talking about here, and I think judging from the list of cars currently implementing these transmissions that it's potential is equal to that of any manual.

 

To be fair, Jim Mero of GM (ZR1 Nurburgring lap record) is an engineer, not a pro driver.

 

The GTR is also AWD (a major advantage) and it costs more than the Z06. It's also been speculated that much of the tests were done with a ringer car since they were inconsistent with tests performed weeks later. You keep on arguing that the SST is faster yet your initial point backfired horribly. The fastest cars around the rings are still traditional manuals. They don't make absurd power and they don't have fancy computer traction systems or anything like that. The cars are simply an engine, four wheels and a stick shift. They manage to defeat all these cars using AWD systems that would make a missile defense shield look primitive and transmissions that are bordering on telepathic.
The principle behind the SST is the same as a traditional automatic and a traditional manual but I doubt you would say it's old technology. The fact is that new stick shifts are substantially different than their century old counterparts so to argue that they are obsolete is laughable. You might as well argue that computers are old technology.
Wow so in one case, the MR beat the others by less than a second. Do you understand how insignificant that is? You can lose that in one turn, hell, if you miss your braking zone and don't run an absolutely perfect run (something no one ever does), you can lose seconds let alone a few hundredths of a second. The MR also has different brakes than the GSR and different struts so are you going to explain the "win" as being a result of those two things?

 

The ZR1 was driven by the head engineer of the project and the ACR was driven by someone who was completely new to the Ring (and I believe associated with the design of the car), he broke the record on his 5th lap around.
You hit the nail on the head, the SST allows every wannabe racer to act like they have skills much like complicated AWD systems. It's no secret that cars like the Evo and the STI are cheaters at the track, they're extraordinarily easy to drive fast and they forgive mistakes that other cars would wreck you over.
SST are not the performance standard, they are simply the new face of the automatic. Are they vastly superior to the older torque converter systems? Hell yes but they're not better than a traditional manual, they're just different.

 

Even in the face of the facts, you stick by your story. You should run for a government position. All three items I posted were the same cars on the same tracks with the difference being a gearbox. The dual setup won everytime. How much time do you think you are going to be talking about?.....minutes. I mean come on, the shift times and ability to hold the car at a higher RPM is only going to gain a few precious tenths. The Veyron at top speed covers a football field in one second, so by that measure the a .05 lead is 50 yards. Not even in the final camera shot at the finish line.

Ridiculous power?!!! 600+ HP is ridiculous for a production car made for the street. The Viper and the ZR1. While those 2 cars do hold the top times at Nuhrburgring overall, my point was that equal cars with a manual or SST option, the SST is going to be faster. Not the fastest ever.

Even if the GT R was a ringer, what is the difference, it is apples to oranges. The Veyron has a SST 7 speed and is one if not the fastest car period and will leave the VIPER and Vette in the dust on a straight. Purely on power.

While I am sure that the drivers of 100k plus cars on a race track for test purposes are skilled, I am sure we would get the same results if you drove them, only much slower overall for both. It is all relative.

As often stated, I should end this, when you argue with a fool, you become one. You cannot argue a point when the basic premise of the argument is not understood.

 

X100

 

Fair enough, but the Viper ACR record lap was a professional driver, Tom Colonel.

 

And the numbers you chose to show are insignificant, all three cars ran a 1.32 with only a few hundredths/tenths of a second differentiating them. That's not proof of anything. Hell, according to the Top Gear numbers, the STI is faster than the Evo (which I believe had the SST transmission).
The Veyron is a completely different class of car. it is not indicative of the transmission, it's indicative of what happens when you throw 1000 HP at a piece of metal. Hell, the Hennessey Viper has 1000 HP and it's stick shift.
The ZR1 and the ACR are not making ridiculous power. The GTR is thought to be underrated from the factory and the upcoming V-Spec is speculated to have over 500 HP as well. Ferraris aren't exactly low HP cars nor are Lamborghinis so I fail to see how your argument is relevant.
Your argument has no basis, you are essentially taking values from all over the place and holding them up as a sign that the SST is the best thing since sliced bread despite the fact that you are either incorrect in the facts themselves or in the interpretation of those facts. No one is denying that the SST is a good transmission, some of us simply don't buy into the hype or fanaticism that it's better than the tried and true manual transmission. Newer does not mean better and more technologically dependent does not mean better.

 

CASE CLOSED. You don't get it.

 

Did I miss the gangbang?

...how bout them Buckeyes, eh?

 

What don't I get, how awesome and unbeatable the new transmission is? I love how people do this, they can't actually argue their point to the other side so they simply give up and blame it on someone else. You didn't make a concrete argument so how can you honestly expect everyone to agree with you?

 

Please re-read to yourself. This is very introspective.

 

I love how much he argues and wastes time going back and forth when he obviously has no interest in the car and pretty much trolls now

 

its funni how all u guys think the TC-SST is the end all,
amby is making valid points, and i for one will go test drive a new RA, but will be buying a traditional manual equiped car, because i get so bored not shifting, and before you start saying that its not the same, i know, but its very similar coz i have the invecs(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INVECS) auto with clutchless shifting and i get so bored and dont feel as connected to the car as i would like, i love the feel of my 06 RA i love the responce and drive, but when i drove my friends manual barina i felt more in control