Appropriate weight setting for GTech Meter

Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives

My buddy wanted to show me my quarter mile time and base horsepower using a GTech Meter. It was proven accurate by 5HP or so with my other friend's Saturn Redline.

So here's my question. AS the car accellerates, the GTech tells you the highest output within that range. The best I could get was 150 HP on flat road (*Mind you this was on the thruway within speed limits*)

The GTech requires the total weight of the car to calculate correctly. 150 HP seems accurate; I'd like to expect a wee bit more but my car -is- an Auto..Please tell me I'm plugging in the incorrect total weight of 3780 pounds (Myself=160 and my passenger=220)

I'm going with a curbweight of 3400 or so (as per the door label). I figure the extra weight is due to the auto tranny itself, plus the traction control unit and leather interior amongst other things.

Am I doing something wrong? Or is 150 HP what I should expect coming from my car?

3780 would be the weight of a Lincoln Town Car!! You're looking at closer to 3000lbs, maybe 3200 with a driver.

Mark

Well see Mark, I know that number Im using is crazy!!

But the door jamb seriously tells me otherwise. or am I reading the wrong numbers?

I will just go with 3200 for car weight as Ive ALWAYS thought my car weighed and post pics later. I did the math, and even though it didnt seem right to me I didnt want to post "fake" numbers and get flamed. Hopefully I have some real nice numbers to show later

It seems we didnt take into account the Contour is technically a five seater..so we goofed up our numbers a bit. That's 180 extra pounds we had programmed into our initial runs..maybe it equals a few horsepower.

I'm happy though, 150 HP is not bad at all. Next mod is a tune

Originally posted by Pre98:
It seems we didnt take into account the Contour is technically a five seater..so we goofed up our numbers a bit. That's 180 extra pounds we had programmed into our initial runs..maybe it equals a few horsepower.

I'm happy though, 150 HP is not bad at all. Next mod is a tune

well hers teh deal , directions were to take teh total weight of teh car with all passengers

teh fully loaded weight is teh weight on teh door

his total weight was 4300lbs (all 5 passengers) so we subtract 180lbs for every passenger that is not in the car,

no pasengers in teh car is 3400lbs(curb weight)

so we add 160(billy) and 220 (my fat butt) making teh total weight of us and car is 3780lbs

then we do our runs , our runs were off by maybe 5 hp b/c i ddint realize that the car was a 5 passenger vehicle as to where mine and my friends are 4 passenger vehicles, so there was an extr 180lbs

to prove this is teh right method, we ran my buddies redline and we got about 200whp , those cars dyno between 195 and 205

sorry for being so long , i just wanted to explain my point

as for billys car being 3400lbs curb weight , well he does have teh fully loaded car , leather/powerseats are heavy, power windows, door locks, not sure if teh ATX is heavier than teh MTX but it all ads up

anyways 170hp car making 150whp is a 12% loss which is expected drivetrain loss through an auto ,
theres and evin bigger loss in RWD cars

thanks
bobbyd

Originally posted by bobbyd:

anyways 170hp car making 150whp is a 12% loss which is expected drivetrain loss through an auto ,
theres and evin bigger loss in RWD cars

more like double that.

12%-15% is mtx loss, the atx is near 25%

Originally posted by Russell-3L:

Originally posted by bobbyd:

anyways 170hp car making 150whp is a 12% loss which is expected drivetrain loss through an auto ,
theres and evin bigger loss in RWD cars

more like double that.

12%-15% is mtx loss, the atx is near 25%

well do the math

170 x 12% = 20.4 which is 149.6hp

170 x 25% = 42.5 which is 127.5 hp

hmm, we def got 150hp reading so i only calculated a 12% loss
front wheel drive has less drivetrain loss than rwd

dont get me wrong , i know nothign about contours, but my calculation only gave me a 12% loss

THE. THE, not teh!!

Originally posted by Matt R:
THE. THE, not teh!!

The weight on the door is the MAX WEIGHT you can carry (including car and gas and passengers...)

GVW - Gross Vehicle Weight, NOT the curb weight.

Curb weight of an auto SE is about 3100... plus each passenger, plus any extra stereo equip, etc.

Ray

check out the thread from a week or so ago on weights

ive been through this on other forums , yes i know its THE but when i type i type TEH its just the way it happens , im not gonan go back and recheck everyone of my spelling errors cuz i do make alot so deal with it

and two im just fallowing teh directions the gtech gave me and its worked out so far, so i will do it that way

Another thing, Bill's car is making more than 170hp at the crank. That is what the regular 2.5L Duratec made out of the box. With the intake and exhaust, thats probably around 180hp or so...

If we assume that there is a 25% Drivetrain loss (Probably close, maybe a little high), 150x1.25 = 187.5hp. So, based on that we can assume that he is making ~190hp at the crank. Pretty good!

Hey... maybe F-body forums don't care about "the" or "teh"...

Besides... he's not gonna enter the right weight.. he's doing it like he wants, so he's just gonna keep on doing it..

More power to ya, man!!!!!

Ray

Originally posted by 95Sleeper:
check out the thread from a week or so ago on weights

I shall look into that. In the meantime, I shall rip those who speak unintelligently a new ass via PMs.

I did see the GTech's instructions though. I'll get him to post a pic if I can.

Thanks for the info, Russell. Btw, didn't you get your ATX into the 14's?

Originally posted by 99Mystique ATX:
Another thing, Bill's car is making more than 170hp at the crank. That is what the regular 2.5L Duratec made out of the box. With the intake and exhaust, thats probably around 180hp or so...

If we assume that there is a 25% Drivetrain loss (Probably close, maybe a little high), 150x1.25 = 187.5hp. So, based on that we can assume that he is making ~190hp at the crank. Pretty good!

that is one thing i ignorantly forgot to take into suggestion so yeah im sorry i was wrong about taht , i kinda forgot to add in his power adders honest mistake, at least u are nice about my ignorance

and well if u dont liek me using TEH then bann me i can care less , my nexts post ill even capitalize TEH , i didnt come here to start trouble but if u want it u got it

well if u dont liek TEH way i put in TEH weight read TEH directions for urself

Go get the car weighed instead of using worthless guesstimated weight data.

Though it's not like the data you are going to get from the G-tech is going to be very accurate unless you use a strict testing regime.

Flat ground, multiple passes both ways average the info, using 3rd gear (drag hurts numbers in 4th and 1st & 2nd are far too short to be accurate), et cetera...

It's a fun tool for comparing changes once you have an accurate baseline. ACCURATE being the KEY word.

It is 100% WORTHLESS for comparing against anything else. PERIOD!

Originally posted by DemonSVT:

It is 100% WORTHLESS for comparing against anything else. PERIOD!

damn cause i got mine to say 400hp. and i was gonna take a pic. and post it on the board. Thanks for bursting my bubble

lmao, that's a good laugh dubkatz

Thanks Demon, we ran the Contour many times on several key flat locations. I'm wondering where to weigh in at.. a local truck stop? I'm sure it wouldn't cause a hassle ..

I'll look into it further. Next mod is a chip.

Originally posted by Pre98:
Next mod is a chip.

You sure you want to do that yet?

I think so.. I dont want to sink too much into my aging car; somethings gotta break soon! It's been running too good for it's age, know what I mean?

Here's a performance mod list:

Custom Cougars CAI
9mm Ford ignition wires
Trubendz Catback Exhaust

It's early I may be forgetting something but those are the major ones. I just got done replacing all the blue tubes on my CAI this morning. Yes I could get headers, optimized y pipe and a new cat; but that's about a grand total that I'm not going to invest anymore.

So a chip is in thought, but not final

You might as well optimize your y-pipe and TB before you do it, since those are so cheap. Other than that, sounds good... hopefully you'll see some nice gains! Go to SZ and dyno for a baseline, then dyno after a chip... see how much you really get.

Originally posted by 95Sleeper:
You might as well optimize your y-pipe and TB before you do it, since those are so cheap. Other than that, sounds good... hopefully you'll see some nice gains! Go to SZ and dyno for a baseline, then dyno after a chip... see how much you really get.

Thats what I think im going to end up doing. Just have to decide if I want to go with headers or not....

Originally posted by XKontour98:

Originally posted by 95Sleeper:
You might as well optimize your y-pipe and TB before you do it, since those are so cheap. Other than that, sounds good... hopefully you'll see some nice gains! Go to SZ and dyno for a baseline, then dyno after a chip... see how much you really get.

Thats what I think im going to end up doing. Just have to decide if I want to go with headers or not....

You know you want them...

Oh I forgot about the optimized SVT TB I borrowed from tour96se. Also, Im hoping I'll be able to register for the dyno but my money is TIGHT. We'll see.

Originally posted by 95Sleeper:

Originally posted by XKontour98:

Originally posted by 95Sleeper:
You might as well optimize your y-pipe and TB before you do it, since those are so cheap. Other than that, sounds good... hopefully you'll see some nice gains! Go to SZ and dyno for a baseline, then dyno after a chip... see how much you really get.

Thats what I think im going to end up doing. Just have to decide if I want to go with headers or not....

You know you want them...

Its true

Its just coming up with the $$$ that will dictate WHEN that happens...

Originally posted by DemonSVT:
Go get the car weighed instead of using worthless guesstimated weight data.

It's a fun tool for comparing changes once you have an accurate baseline. ACCURATE being the KEY word.

It is 100% WORTHLESS for comparing against anything else. PERIOD!

i agree with teh getting it weighed part, but i was just working with what i had and i dont c y his numbers would be that far off , since ive already proven it on another car that teh numbers are within a 5 hp difference

as for being accurate, with teh info i had , we were trying to be as close to accurate as we could be i mean thats y teh book tells u that theres a +/- in what the gtech says and the real dyno

as being worthless, im not saying this is supposed to be put in place of dynos or real times u run at the track , but it gives a good estimate without teh dyno and track ,

it is a fun tool , i will try it on my car tonight, i just brought it out and ill let u knwo what i come up with

ok it looks like i set out on the wrong foot with u ppl,
i mean i told u im nto here to start trouble but some of u guys turned out to be real a-holes

i dont knwo much about contours but i do know my basic mechanics so i want to try to help as much as possible

like i said ok my numbers could be off but i was just workign with what i had, adn if u guys dont like it then dont even respond to posts i make or post in ,

just tryign to make peace with u ppl

bobby

Admirable.. I can respect that!

Don't worry about not knowing about contours on here! There is a wealth of information at hand, and the residents here know a TON more than most service reps would ever dream of knowing. You will leave here with a MUCH higher knowledge level about this platform!

Enjoy the testing times, regardless of how accurate you think they'll turn out to be. It is still fun to be doing the runs, too!!! Have fun!

Ray