Irunelevens

Exactly.

1CAMWNDR

iTrader: (21)

Seems to me that (at least in the V8) the broad torque band could work well with a more conventional 6 speed. I bet if you give the engine time to work with only 2 or 3 gear changes instead of zing it up and down the rpm range the 0-60 times and 1/4 mile would improve. And the engine would not jump all over the tach at cruise just because you dial up a little oomph to get up that hill.

Yes I like the idea of a couple overdrives. Worked so well in the F and Y bodies. But 8 speeds seems like way overkill. If the engine is so bad on fuel economy that it needs 3 or 4 overdrives; perhaps you just need to change the final drive ratio and live with slightly less acceleration but a smoother ride without 5 shifts getting to the next stop light.

I also hate the same idea in BMW and Mercedes. Anything over 6 speeds belongs on a vehicle with 18 wheels. Just my opinion.

LS1vazquez

The only thing that the traditional LS1 F-Body has over this car is pure displacement and good old fashioned power under the curve. That can count for a lot when it comes to real world driving conditions because the car can just rely on its brute power to get up to speed.

However, the Hyundai has a lot going for it, especially if the engineers really worked out the dead spots in the powerband with the 8 speed transmission. If the car is capable of putting itself in the proper gear at the proper RPM at any speed to maximize its power, then that would be a real problem for the F-Body. Just think, no more "40-50" MPH dead spots that the M6 guys had to suffer through, IE too high for 2nd gear, too low for third gear scenerios.

T the proper RPM

ss1129

iTrader: (16)

Am I the only person left in the world that still has problems trusting a Hyundai?

and if not, why do people put more faith in Hyundai over a GM product? GM was no where near as bad as Hyundai of the 80s 90s and 2000s and is still better than them today? What the hell happened?

LS1vazquez

I don't think its an issue of trusting Hyundai. I think what were seeing here is the overall result of the past decade of design philosophy breaking through. While GM was fighting bankruptcy, negotiating labor disputes and negating research and development, Hyundai was able to spring board off its prior acheivements and set its self up to produce the next generation of cars, with this being one of the results.

I think a ton of people are having issues dealing with it and are focusing instead on the merits of a now-obsolete 14 year old platform as a coping mechanism.

Irunelevens

It doesn't have 3 or 4 overdrives. You go ahead and hold on to your opinion though.
Hyundai has been steadily improving the past 20 years, and has taken enormous steps in the past decade. They tend to listen to be more communicative with their customers as well, from what I've heard. Whereas while Hyundai was getting to their best, GM was heading toward their worst. It is much easier to gain somebody's trust than it is to gain it back.

ss1129

iTrader: (16)

Hyundai built some of the biggest pieces of **** cars since they yugo. Literally every car they made was junk. We owned a hyundai excell. My dad took it to a carwash and the thing died....literally. He pulled the plates off and left it there. So yeah I will say gaining hyundais trust back should be a big deal if anyone has ever owned one through 2006. Just a big head scratcher, thats all.

Irunelevens

Through '06? Exaggerate much?

justin455

No kidding. I don't have too much experience in Hyundais, but I've been around a few Kias. (Which is like saying Chevy and Pontiac) And none of them had any reliability problems. My girlfriend drives a 2002 Spectra, and while it's not a nice car and everything feels light and cheap, it just keeps going and has held up quite well. My mother drives a 2007 Kia Rio and that car still feels light, but in a much better way. The interior and exterior fit and finish are pretty nice for the basement pricing. Lastly my ex-wife has a 2011 Sorento and that thing is just a joy to drive as far as SUVs are concerned. It's much closer to a Buick Enclave than the 2006 Rendezvous that it replaced.

LS1vazquez

10 years ago GM was on top of the game, and Hyundai was barely a blip on the radar.

Flash forward to today and here we are having this conversation.

LS1vazquez

Not necessarily.

GM has the design philosophy of arbitrarily combining motors and transmissions. While this may work well with standard commuter cars and trucks, design fallacies start rearing it's ugly head when you really start taking a microscope to the power band and you can tell where the gaps in performance are.

A car manufacturer can design a car from the ground up with the specific transmission and engine combination in mind. It's a pretty powerful tool when you can design a engine from a clean sheet design with certain head flow figures, bore and stroke design, and a multitude of other factors to make the engine produce a certain horsepower and torque at designed RPM's, and then mate it to a transmission that was specifically built with the engine specification in mind to keep it at it's peak operating potential AT ALL TIMES. That's heads and tails over the current GM manufacturing mindset that just arbitrarily pairs a standard M1A1 transmission with the standard M1A1 engine of the day and hope they can just tune out the design fallacies.

So my question is, what's the argument here? Is it GM versus Hyundai? Or is it specifically this car versus a stock LS1 F-Body? I'll bite on that. I think the difference will be specifically down to what configuration the F-Body is in. If it's a M6 coupe that's been worked over properly, then yes, I think the F-Body will soundly thrash the car. If it's a slush-box convertible Z28 that's bone stock down to the stock 16 inch pizza cutters and paper air filter, then the Hyundai won't even be able to see it in the rear view mirrors.

The problem is that the biggest difference between the two F-Bodies is also the Hyundai's biggest advantage. The M6 F-body has two extra gears and a lower final drive to work with then the Automatic F-Body that only has a four speed automatic. The Hyundai shows up to the party with two extra gears to work with and a dedicated design structure.

If your willing to admit the six speed has the advantage over the four speed, then why wouldn't you be willing to admit that the eight speed has the advantage over the six speed?

Irunelevens

Cuz it's a Hyundai.

SSCamaro99_3

iTrader: (1)

There had been dome talk of the next Corvette getting a 7-speed manual. I played with some ratios vs the T-56 4th gen ratios most of us are familiar with. If done right, the gearing can be just below a 4.10 equiped F-body, while still maintaining the final overdrive of a 3.42 equipped 4th gen.

nanokpsi

Exactly. You can gear them agressively for acceleration yet still have the flexibilty to get good mpg without having any dead sports.

1CAMWNDR

iTrader: (21)

I have no problem with Hyundai as a company. They have come up by leaps and bounds. I really like the Genesis Sedan.

My opinion is that 7 or 8 forward gears is over complicated, too heavy, and more opportunity for failure. Maybe they make it work and that is fine. Maybe the tranny doesn't shift up and down everytime you breathe on the gas pedal. But if it isn't going to shift everytime you manipulate the throttle pedal and keep the engine in a specific rpm range; I fail to see the need...And yes that is the opinion I will keep. If it does not have 3 or 4 overdrives it has 6 gears with a ratio lower than 1.00:1. That is a whole lot of shifting. Is first gear super low like 5:1?

TriShield

10 years ago GM was producing garbage cars and rebadging them across numerous brands. Cars trimmed with shiny vinyl and plastic inside and built so poorly you could put your fingers between the panel gaps. Cars that had powertrains that originated decades ago. Cars that had no attention to style, detail or dynamics whatsoever.

GM vehicles are as improved today as Hyundai/Kia products are from what they were years ago. You can say the same about Ford as well. It's amazing to look back at ten years ago and see how aged and cruddy looking American cars were.

Grey plastic days indeed.

WhiteKnight '01

I agree with this post. My Camaro, as far as quality goes, is a straight up piece of ****.

TransAmWS.6

How so? A lot of the fastest super cars today have transmissions with 7+ gears. Besides, with the state that technology is currently in, I'm sure it's a design that has been almost perfected by now so I wouldn't worry too much about having a lot of reliability issues with them.

bizerk1

in the sedan there is a 5.0 in the r-spec idk if it is v8, I have driven these. I am a driver so i get to drive a lot of new cars from differnt companies.

RedHotG8

iTrader: (1)

GM did make a car like it, the G8 GT. Then they killed Pontiac so there's only a somewhat limited number of used ones available. It's definitely the best car I ever had and the first car I don't want to sell to get something better.

There has been rumors of Chevy selling them but it hasn't materialized. The Lumina SS has a Chevy front end so it would be an easy transition to make it an Impala SS or whatever else they name it.