Acura CL 3.2 "S" auto versus Altima 3.5 auto...
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2002 Altima SE Auto: 3227 lb, 240 HP, 246 lb-ft
2002 Acura TL-S 5AT: 3510 lb, 260 HP, 232 lb-ft
The Acura has a horsepower and gearing advantage, but is almost 300 lb heavier than the Alty SE auto.
Alty: 3227 lb / 240 HP = 13.45 lb/HP <== Slight Advantage
Acura: 3510 lb / 260 HP = 13.50 lb/HP
So the Alty 3.5SE/auto has a slight power to weight ratio advantage, but when it's this close you have to look beyond that and look at powerband and gearing.
Powerband - Advantage Acura
The Acura actually has a wider powerband. Peak torque is at only 3500rpm (vs 4400rpm for the Alty) and peak horsepower is at 6100rpm on the Acura (vs. 5800rpm on the Alty). The Acura engine is a lower displacement and slightly less torquey, but it's horsepower that will determine who's gonna win a race, so I'd have to give a slight advantage to the Acura here.
Gearing - Advantage Acura (on a technicality)
The Acura has a 5AT tranny vs. the Altima which only has a 4AT. Gears 1-3 on the Acura are very close together and are optimized for good 0-60 and 1/4 mile performance. 3rd gear tops out at 116 mph, but after that, 4th and 5th are both extremely tall and pretty useless overdrive gears. The gearing will probably prevent you from beating a CL-S at lower speeds below 100 mph.
I'm not sure of the Alty SE's 4AT gearing, but I'm guessing it's similar to the Maxima's. 1st gear going up to 40-something, 2nd going up to the mid-80's and 3rd going all the way up to 130-ish. You could beat the CL-S's gearing on the highway after 116 mph because after that they'll hit their first overdrive gear and slowly chug up beyond 116 mph after that, meanwhile you're still pulling strong up to redline in 3rd up to the 130's - that's where you could pull many many car lengths on a CL-S, but wait....
The Technicality
The Alty SE/auto is electronically limited to well below that I believe so scratch that on your gearing advantage - the electronic limiter wouldn't allow you to take advantage of your gearing advantage on the highway unless you found a way to remove the limiter. Doh!!!
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That's as far as a scientific analysis will take you
Street results will vary a lot depending on the driver. The two cars are close enough that it could very easily go either way just on stupid things like who has the least amount of gas (weight) or how much the drivers weigh, or how many passengers you have. Other important things are launching. It's close enough that whoever launches the best could gain a car length lead and maintain it all the way up top.
So anyways, on paper I think the Acura might have a slight advantage, but it's seriously close enough that it could go either way at any speed. You guys would have the advantage up top though if you could get rid of the electronic limiter
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2002 Acura TL-S 5AT: 3510 lb, 260 HP, 232 lb-ft
The Acura has a horsepower and gearing advantage, but is almost 300 lb heavier than the Alty SE auto.
Alty: 3227 lb / 240 HP = 13.45 lb/HP <== Slight Advantage
Acura: 3510 lb / 260 HP = 13.50 lb/HP
So the Alty 3.5SE/auto has a slight power to weight ratio advantage, but when it's this close you have to look beyond that and look at powerband and gearing.
Powerband - Advantage Acura
The Acura actually has a wider powerband. Peak torque is at only 3500rpm (vs 4400rpm for the Alty) and peak horsepower is at 6100rpm on the Acura (vs. 5800rpm on the Alty). The Acura engine is a lower displacement and slightly less torquey, but it's horsepower that will determine who's gonna win a race, so I'd have to give a slight advantage to the Acura here.
Gearing - Advantage Acura (on a technicality)
The Acura has a 5AT tranny vs. the Altima which only has a 4AT. Gears 1-3 on the Acura are very close together and are optimized for good 0-60 and 1/4 mile performance. 3rd gear tops out at 116 mph, but after that, 4th and 5th are both extremely tall and pretty useless overdrive gears. The gearing will probably prevent you from beating a CL-S at lower speeds below 100 mph.
I'm not sure of the Alty SE's 4AT gearing, but I'm guessing it's similar to the Maxima's. 1st gear going up to 40-something, 2nd going up to the mid-80's and 3rd going all the way up to 130-ish. You could beat the CL-S's gearing on the highway after 116 mph because after that they'll hit their first overdrive gear and slowly chug up beyond 116 mph after that, meanwhile you're still pulling strong up to redline in 3rd up to the 130's - that's where you could pull many many car lengths on a CL-S, but wait....
The Technicality
The Alty SE/auto is electronically limited to well below that I believe so scratch that on your gearing advantage - the electronic limiter wouldn't allow you to take advantage of your gearing advantage on the highway unless you found a way to remove the limiter. Doh!!!
==========
That's as far as a scientific analysis will take you
Street results will vary a lot depending on the driver. The two cars are close enough that it could very easily go either way just on stupid things like who has the least amount of gas (weight) or how much the drivers weigh, or how many passengers you have. Other important things are launching. It's close enough that whoever launches the best could gain a car length lead and maintain it all the way up top.
So anyways, on paper I think the Acura might have a slight advantage, but it's seriously close enough that it could go either way at any speed. You guys would have the advantage up top though if you could get rid of the electronic limiter
The CL type S is only available with an automatic so a 5speed Alty would probably win, auto to auto would be a close race. Motortrend has the following numbers:MR Bulk™ said:
Altima: 0-60 6.3, 1/4 mile [email protected]
CL type S: 0-60 6.4, 1/4 mile [email protected]
Basically the CL has 20 more hp (260), but doesn't reach it until 6100rpm, has 14lbs less torque, and weighs about 300lbs heavier. To me the CL is bland looking compared to the Altima, and costs about 5-6k more, but they are nice and come fully loaded with the NAV being the only option. When I have visited the CL forum, the guys there seem to be respectful of the new Alty and Max, and the CL-S seems to dyno around 200hp, which is very similar to our cars. From what I understand, the CL-S is also in high demand and 30k is about the lowest you can expect to pay (w/o NAV) for a CL-S at this time. Supposedly a manual version of the CL-S is in the very near future.
Kevin
Reading Steve's post reminded me that I forgot to mention that the CL-S auto is a 5speed auto vs the 4speed auto in the Alty, and the Acura's engine is slightly smaller. As for the limiter....I'm not sure....I've had my auto Alty to 130. I let off at that point so if there is one I was probably real close to it....and who knows what my true speed was vs the displayed 130.
Kevin
Kevin
Re: Re: Acura CL 3.2 "S" auto versus Altima 3.5 auto...
Yep, saw one at the L.A. Auto Show. 6-speeds. Don't know about price or availability though. Looks like it will go on sale sometime around March '02. Still doesn't mean I'll be trading in mine any time soon. Not worth an extra $5k to me.kvou812 said:
Re: Re: Acura CL 3.2 "S" auto versus Altima 3.5 auto...
The higher the peak horsepower point the better, and the lower the peak torque point the better. Having peak torque at a low RPM is good because that means the engine gets in full swing earlier. A higher peak horsepower point is good because that means the engine is able to maintain its torque output for longer, thus extending your powerband and giving you more horsepower.
Horsepower = (Torque x RPM) / 5252
So if you've got 246 lb-ft of torque, the longer you can maintain that torque curve the more power you'll make.
The tiny little 2.0L engine in the Honda S2000 makes the same 240HP that the Altima does even though it only has 153 lb-ft torque. It's able to make so much power from such a tiny engine because it can maintain its torque curve all the way up to its 8300rpm power peak.
240 HP = (152 lb-ft x 8300) / 5252
You'll see that works right out to 240 HP. Torque is only 152 lb-ft there because it drops off a little from the 7600rpm peak torque of 153 lb-ft, but that's where peak power is made - at 8300rpm.
A higher peak horsepower point is better than a lower one.
A lower peak torque point is better than a higher one.
As is common in engineering though, two desirable traits often conflict with each other. Having good low-end power often compromises high-end power (old-school American pushrods), and having good high-end power often comes at the expense of a lower low-end power (high-revving Honda engines) But variable valve timing and nifty variable intake manifolds help you have the best of both worlds - low-end torque and high-end horsepower
Hope that clears up any confusion
That's a good thing.kvou812 said:
The higher the peak horsepower point the better, and the lower the peak torque point the better. Having peak torque at a low RPM is good because that means the engine gets in full swing earlier. A higher peak horsepower point is good because that means the engine is able to maintain its torque output for longer, thus extending your powerband and giving you more horsepower.
Horsepower = (Torque x RPM) / 5252
So if you've got 246 lb-ft of torque, the longer you can maintain that torque curve the more power you'll make.
The tiny little 2.0L engine in the Honda S2000 makes the same 240HP that the Altima does even though it only has 153 lb-ft torque. It's able to make so much power from such a tiny engine because it can maintain its torque curve all the way up to its 8300rpm power peak.
240 HP = (152 lb-ft x 8300) / 5252
You'll see that works right out to 240 HP. Torque is only 152 lb-ft there because it drops off a little from the 7600rpm peak torque of 153 lb-ft, but that's where peak power is made - at 8300rpm.
A higher peak horsepower point is better than a lower one.
A lower peak torque point is better than a higher one.
As is common in engineering though, two desirable traits often conflict with each other. Having good low-end power often compromises high-end power (old-school American pushrods), and having good high-end power often comes at the expense of a lower low-end power (high-revving Honda engines) But variable valve timing and nifty variable intake manifolds help you have the best of both worlds - low-end torque and high-end horsepower
Hope that clears up any confusion
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5,809 Posts
Motorweek
Go to the site, they road tested both cars and the alti smoked it in the numbers..............I have been ridding my buddy about it ever since....the one with the TLs........
TLs 0-60-----6.6sec
1/4 [email protected]
3.5 Alti 0-60-----5.9sec
1/4 [email protected]
Go to the site, they road tested both cars and the alti smoked it in the numbers..............I have been ridding my buddy about it ever since....the one with the TLs........
TLs 0-60-----6.6sec
1/4 [email protected]
3.5 Alti 0-60-----5.9sec
1/4 [email protected]
I hate to say it, but I think the CL-S would have the advantage auto-to-auto, mainly because of the 5-speed auto. Nissan's 4-speed automatics seem to always pull slower times than you think they should. Hopefully the 5-speed auto coming in the G35 will reverse that trend.
SteVTEC, I've read several people complain that the CL-S engine is much peakier than the VQ engine in the Maxima and Altima. Any idea why this is? Maybe because even though the torque peak in the VQ is higher, it still produces more lb-ft of torque throughout the midrange than the Acura?
SteVTEC, I've read several people complain that the CL-S engine is much peakier than the VQ engine in the Maxima and Altima. Any idea why this is? Maybe because even though the torque peak in the VQ is higher, it still produces more lb-ft of torque throughout the midrange than the Acura?
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5,809 Posts
tls
It does have that sport shifter thing, I really think the alti auto will take it. i have driven both.
It does have that sport shifter thing, I really think the alti auto will take it. i have driven both.
Afty said:
The VQ35 has more torque and totes around less weight, so that would make it feel peppier than the Acura probably. 232 lb-ft of torque is not a whole lot for a 3500+ lb car when you want to make it fast. But the top-end on those engines is better than the VQ35.
On the J32A2 engine (CL-S/TL-S engine), the variable intake manifold switches over to the performance mode at 3800rpm. And the VTEC switches the intake valves to the hot cam profile at 4800rpm. If you have intake mods you can very easily hear this switchover. Just before the switchover is usually when the torque curve is just starting to drop off on the "econo cam profile" so you feel a slight bump and a distinct sound when the switchover occurs. Even though the engine is making about the same torque before and after, the bump effect and the sound can easily confuse the mind into thinking that you weren't accelerating as much before that.
But I seriously don't know. My Accord V6, which has a peak torque at 4700rpm really doesn't start to haul azz until you hit 4000rpm. This is after the VTEC x-over at 3500rpm and we don't have a variable intake manifold. Guys that drive the Accord V6 and then test drive a CL-S/TL-S always say that the car has a ton more thrust down low than ours, which is easy to believe since the peak torque point is a lot lower on the CL-S than ours.
It's probably just a matter of perspective, but
I really wanted a CL before I got my altima. The sales guy on the acura lot wanted to "blow out" a 2001 CL-types that was on the lot 580 days and had 700mi on it. They only would discount it to 28,000$ a discount of only 2 grand so I told them to kiss it and walked next door to nissan. Anyway I test dove the CL and from the start the Altima pulls harder, as you go through the gears the CL becomes very smooth. 5sp altima would spank a CL on the other hand auto vs. auto slight advantage to the CL but it would be close.
. Anyway I test dove the CL and from the start the Altima pulls harder, as you go through the gears the CL becomes very smooth. 5sp altima would spank a CL on the other hand auto vs. auto slight advantage to the CL but it would be close.1 - 15 of 15 Posts
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