Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General General 1998 Cavalier Z24 out accelerate an SVT Contour???

:rolleyes:

Yep SVT would whup it. the cavalier in question only has an intake and exhaust. They also seem to think that a stock Z24 runs mid to high 15's?!????!! I dont know where they got that number but thats way off.

maybe his friend let him drive the his svt, in that race. maybe thats waht he means, becauase there is no way in hell he beat it stock. that or his friend was busy with some chicks.

This weekend I attended the J-body Bash in Ashtabula Ohio. I watched a whole slew of cavaliers and sunfires run. I saw z-24's run everything from a 18.2 to a 15.3. I also saw an old second gen z-24 run a 13.3 with massive boost.

Z-24's definitally do not seem consistant in their track times, although just about every automaic I saw ran high 17's or worse.

My last car was a 99 Z-24 ATX, and I gotta tell ya, that thing had a great slushbox. No problem redlining it, and it was WAY better that the 99 MTX ('00 MTX was another story, with the Getrag...)

I've never driven at the track, but my Z-24 "felt" faster than my SVT, and this is what I contribute it to:

The J-body had to work harder to get the same or close to equivalent performance out of it - the SVT is calm, composed, and SMOOTH - it never feels like it's working all that hard. There's really no comparison between the Contour and the Cavalier. The ride in the Contour is miles ahead of the Cavalier, and so what if the Z's quicker off the line - we'll just fly by it a few hundred feet down the road.

If I really wanted to drag race, I probably would have kept my Z-24 and thrown a turbo and a chip on it, cause it could move in a straight line. But I'd rather have my "sleeper" SVT and cruise comfortably at autobahn-like speeds, and get more enjoyment out of corners. I don't know, just my input.

Cars with poor suspensions that drop the ass to the ground when you floor it will feel faster but won't necessarily be! The SVT's speed isn't in the initial jolt off the line but the beautiful pull there after!

-Andy

When looking at the 0-60 mph times posted in magazines for the contour svt, that may include a few different factors that we aren't thinking of, such as how they launched, but more importantly I'm sure someone else here has noticed that when you are shifting in an svt (this is the case in mine) that 2nd gear redlines at 55 mph, so you have to take in the fact that another shift will take in maybe 1/2 a second or so...my point is that if you compare the csvt's 0-55 mph times with other cars, I bet it would do significantly better than when you compare it's 0-60 mph time.

I guess I really didn't clarify my post - my Z-24 "felt" faster cause it was working harder, but my SVT "IS" faster, just more composed.

Since this is still going...

In college, our car club rented out Milan drag strip during the summer term. In my freashman year when I didn't have a car at school, I rode down with some others. One guy with a 98 Z24 stick (2.8L V6) was running 16.4's. Another guy had a later (91-94) 3.1L auto Z24 and ran about the same. One more guy had the Sunbird twin with 3.1L 5-speed. He was happy to get 16.08.

My wife bought a 91 Z24 automatic the following year. It's a very torquey engine hampered by the 3-speed automatic. In city driving it was great. Highway passing, it ran out of steam.

I thought that the 95 Z24 had the 2.3L quad cam motor (not the high output)