What can a 285 HP miata be compared to?
 

It is hard to get a good idea of how fast things really are compared to thoer things sometimes so i thought i would pose this question. What cars would this be compared to? I know this one would be very rough, but what kind of 0-60 am i looking at? My car feels rediculously fast, but i have never driven anything else really fast other than this same car when it had 225hp.

Why don't you take it to the strip and find out? Easy to compare 1/4 times with other cars.

Drive an STi or Evo to redefine the meaning of "traction" :D which you probably have little of.

Just calculate the power to weight ratio of both cars, that will give you a decent estimation without taking other things into account.

285 chp or 285 whp?
Look at it this way standard LT1 camaro comes with 285 chp and weighs 3400 lbs with driver etc. giving it a 11.92-1 power to wieght ratio. These have been known to run 14's
A foxbody mustang with 5.0 has 230 or so chp, and wieghs 3100 lbs on a good day. and is also about as fast as a LT1 camaro. 13-1
Your miata full of gas at 285 chp gives us. 2500/285=8.77-1 now if that is whp you get 7.46-1 this should put you into the 12's if you have the traction and shifting ability for iit.
This puts you in the range of stock c5 vettes, and vipers.

with experienced instructors driving and Gary Shuhart in the miata, the TDR 260whp car at 2450lb runs neck and neck with a GT3, c6z, and steam rolls pretty much anything else at Motorsport Ranch.

Yup, driver has a lot to do with it. My 250/200 setup was probably quite capable of keeping up with fancier cars, had it been driven by someone better than me.

He's on street tires, too.

On Hoosiers, my slow Miata (170whp) was all over 2 GT3s (one stock, one RUF prepped). They would pull 3-4 cars on the straights and the Miata would be all up on their ass thru the corners.

Back on topic...

280whp = C5 Vette (320whp), MAYBE the C5 ZO6 (365hp)
It's not the whp, but the wtq that makes the difference here. You should laugh at just about any 4.6/5.0 Mustang unless he has FI or a HUGE shot. Other 5.7l cars (the heavy ones) will watch you pull away, unless they have a few bolt-ons or cammed.

In my 170whp Miata, I laugh at stock Stang GTs, and Mach1s (easily beat a cammed GT from 70 to 120), pull modded WRXs (not from a dig), and am even with STi/Evo8s (intake/DP, again, not from a dig).

I,d agree with that:bowdown:

Another factor to remember is gearing. Power-to-Weight does matter, but gearing will translate to acceleration at the (potential) expense of top-end. (However that will also be affected by aerodynamics...)

- L

Compare it to a Boxster S maybe

:robert:

I bet you $10 my MX3 could take it...

Haha, not exactly. He's on shaved RA-1's.

less posting, more megasquirting.

271 to the wheels of my sub 2000 lb Miata give me a 7.38. WOOT!

Nice. What tires?

Pretty good number. Take it to the strip, should be in the low 12s, high 11s I think.

i run Toyo T1Rs. can't run anything with a stiff side wall of the car just skips along bumps and breaks loose too easily. Since I'm in NJ I gotta wait till spring to bring it to the strip. For that I have Mickey Thompson bias drag tires.

Paul, try some R-comps. I used to be able to light up R-S2s through 2nd gear on a cold night; the NT-01s will hook first.