I hear you there....that is definitely a valid point, but that's also how I feel about any modern car. I don't want to put up with having to "configure" the stupid thing every time I get into it. The SMG above reminds me of this BFS:
My friend and I did a track day, his '05 M3 and my '92. On our way home, we were on a 2 lane divided road w/stop lights. We ended up getting a red where he was in one lane, I was in the other, both of us up front. Guess what came next?
I punched my ASR button, brought my tach up to about 4k and waited for the green. Green lit up and boom, I was off. Easy. Fast. Mine.

Later he told me his version: we stopped at the light and he knew what was coming...but his car was in who-knows-what mode? Whatever it defaults to. He told me that he frantically started scrolling through the modes to hurry up and get it to "S6" mode, and then invoke "launch control", then perform the procedure for a launch....all before the light turned green. He said that he got it into S6, set the LC, had all the peddles and paddles in the right places...looked up the instant to see the light switch from red to green....he released the paddles and was off! Sound fun? Imagine if the light had changed 1 second earlier?

Unfortunately, for all of that horse **** and stress....he still lost to me. Also unfortunately for him, there isn't a thing in the world that he could have done to make his car go better; it was a video game experience. I, on the other hand, earned my win -my car gave back exactly what I put into it. So I know that it's a personal thing, but I don't want to deal with that BS on a car, every day. I didn't even like waiting 10 seconds to turn off the crap off, in my C6 every time I drove it. As you say....I didn't put up with it and don't own the car anymore (among other reasons)

 

I don't disagree with any of that. I'm just discussing the speed with which various types of transmissions can be shifted. The experience is something else entirely. Also, all those electronic gymnastics that you described with your friend's BMW are not limited to automatics: just like his SMG, you can launch sort of okay in regular driving mode in any modern manual, but nannies will kick in. If you want no nannies and full control, you will have to turn some things off.

 

Again, I think what these folks are missing is that there's two very different elements here. There's the "I like the feel/driving experience," which is totally fine since that's subjective. It's perfectly okay to like things that aren't the best way of doing it. As I've said before, I own a '95 6-speed and I love it.

But then there's referring to the DCT in the C8 Corvette as a "slushbox," which is not subjective, it's objectively false. There is saying that generally a human will always outperform a computer at shifting gears in a transmission, which is also objectively false. Can you find examples of transmissions which are outperformed by humans? Of course you can! But to say that it's generally true is just incorrect, especially in 2021. And as for the "well how come Trans Am is using manuals" argument, it's silly since both F1 and Super GT (to name a few) use computer-controlled transmissions. If a particular series wants to use manuals, again, totally fine. But saying, "Well this race series uses them so CLEARLY they're superior" is ridiculous since other racing series (including F1) use computer-shifted ones.

So yeah. Totally fine to love manuals. Totally ridiculous to claim you're better than a computer.

 

I agree. Not sure who "these folks" is, but just to be clear, MY claim was in response to, specifically, SMG, computer shifted transmissions in street cars, which was brought up by someone who said:
I disagree with that. It's nothing like some robots...but not production street going robots with one dry clutch. I know that you could shift a 6XD faster than an SMG. MM is right that the 6XD would be intolerable on the street...but sticking to the speed with which various types of transmissions can be shifted, a dog clutch style racing transmission could most definitely be shifted faster than an SMG from a production car. That statement is no more objectively false than the statement that it can't be done.

A human faster than all computer shifted trans' and clutch swapping trans'? Of course not. And you're also right that the DSG in the C8 is clearly not a "slushbox". That statement is absurd. Who ever says that, would they show us the fluid coupler in that drive train, please?

E36 SMG:


E36 Dog box 3:15 and 4:15:

Tell me which is faster?
THAT is what I was responding to. I am aware that other roboxes shift faster than a human ever will.







.

 

I agree the BMW SMG sucked. And I never said there was no SMG ever produced that couldn't be beaten by a human with a good dog-ring box. What I thought was implied in my statement was that the technology of the SMG concept allows it to be faster than a manual dog-ring transmission. Of course some are better than others, but a good track-oriented SMG (comparing apples:apples) is going to always be faster than a manual. It will also be safer in terms of not finding the wrong gear and blowing things up or sending the car spinning off track. For reference, here's another SMG from 16 years ago that might just slightly outperform the drifter guy with his 6XD:

 

its silly to say a computer is better than a human, You do realize who made the computer, and who programmed the computer. If the human is flawed, than that which he made is flawed.

 

Poor philosophical debate. The same people that argue this are often the ones ready to take up torches when someone says God must be flawed for making humanity.
Is a calculator as bad at math as you?

The computer is faster. It thinks faster, it reacts faster. It does more math, quicker math. It can make 1000 decisions in the time it takes you to press a clutch pedal.
It doesn't debate, it doesn't hesitate. It does the job it is supposed to do, and it does it better than you will in that particular circumstance.

 

Wow dude...

Heavy.

 

Dig into the computer program on your new corvette. Look at what the guys that program it decided to let you do, or not let you do. talk with the guys at Delfi about computer programs. Your faith of computers is your religion. its still only as good at the guy that made it. I worked in the industry for years. Trust me on this. Your faith is misplaced. any computer can only do what a person told it to do. A person can do anything. So yes, a person had to figure out all that math, to program that calculator. So yes, a person is smarter than the calculator. And yes, a person can drive a car down a road, shift the gears, and then parallel park all way before computers. And believe it or not, guys made some of the best engines and designed transmissions way before calculators. The good old paper and pencils. a computer simply runs a programmed system that was program by a smart person, that was told by a group of not the smartest people what they wanted.

 

How does that F1 trans shift? I'd bet that it's a computer actuated dog box that is sequentially shifted with a drum....(?)

 

"Better" was not the discussion - "faster" was. I'll go ahead and add in "accurate," too. In this case, how fast and accurately any given transmission can carry out a shift. There is no debate here. Of course the computer that controls any modern auto/DCT/DSG/whatever transmission had to be programmed by humans,* but what it takes hours or days for a programmer to tell it to do, the computer actually does in milliseconds. They are just way faster and more accurate at crunching data and making decisions based on that. If they weren't then there would be reason to use them!


I know the early ones were an adaptation of a fully manual dog ring box. Ferrari had their SMG first (1989), and it had pneumatic (IIRC) shift solenoids operating the forks. Even then, it proved its worth almost immediately and every team scrambled to emulate within a season or two. I do not know exactly how they've evolved since then. I think there are actually some limits in the rules that prevent them from using some technology, too, in the interest of cost caps.

*That's not actually true anymore: computers are generating code on their own now and AI is helping them adapt and get better at it.

 

You gave Tom 10% more cubes - that's all I have to add here.

 

He's welcome!

 

amen to this all.

this is how i see the ‘rich old man’ with a c8 losing to the c4 enthusiast.

 

You mean the C4 enthusiast who dumped C8 money into a C4? Who's the rich old man again?

A pleasure as always.

 

Using a superchargrer, E85, Nitrous, and Meth injection to attempt to make your C4 as fast as a bone stock C8 is worse.

 

come to road america, lots of old cars with good young drivers out driving rich people in fancy new cars. I'd be very interested in seeing what a C4 with a LS swapped engine would do for a lap time against a C8. I would take a guess that if the wait was close, and power was close, that the times would be very close. Unless a C8 has some magic fairy dust in it. (C8, poor mans Ferrari, or the new Fiero kit car)

 

This line alone is enough to disregard your opinion on pretty much everything.

But then there's your silly arguments that "well an amazing driver in an older car can outdrive an inexperienced old man in a newer one," which doesn't have anything to do with the cars at all. You think you have some kind of superiority (like Diz does), then you put the same driver in both and go back-to-back. That should be obvious.

 

the new vette sure looks like its trying to copy someone, maybe a joke, maybe not. unlike the C4
Looking at the new car vs the old. you need to dig into why its faster. if its just power and weight, then a C4 can loose some weight, and add some power, and you'll be there. Stock to stock. yep, the new car is lighter, more power, and has all kinds of electronic help to make up for skill. I can't find anything were some has talked a old car, added power to match the new car, and run them both on the same track with the same driver. and I'm not too surprise. Its not a very good way to sell a new car. and if I bought a 1990 corvette for $10,000, if I couldn't get it to be faster than a new corvette after spending the next $90,000 to get to what a new car cost,

 

Again, what does that have to do with anything? Chevy isn't selling cars by making adverts of old dudes driving it on Road America. That was your claim, not Chevy's. And I pointed out that the claim is nonsense. If you think your C4 is a better car, then you'll have no problem letting a race driver take it out on Road America, then take the C8 out and do the same. Pretty straightforward comparison test if the car is what you are trying to test.

Diz is even more interesting since he doesn't do track days, he does 1/4 mile racing. And so he's dumped significant chunks of change into his '92 convertible to try to beat a stock C8 in a straight line for 1320 feet. He loves to brag about how the C4 is better than the C8 and Teslas and all that, but...well...even once he finally manages to do it, it's still not all that impressive strictly in the context of his claim. Plenty of cars can spank either of those down a 1/4 mile right now. Doesn't make them better cars, just makes them better purpose-built drag cars than a stock C8 or Tesla.

So for the umpteenth time. Totally cool to love the C4 (I do, I own two). Totally cool to love the manual transmission (I do, my '95 is). But all this nonsense about how either "a computer can't beat a human" or "a C4 is better than a C8" or whatever is just nuts. Can we get back to reality, maybe?