Erm, right, well...MULLEY wrote: Not sure what you mean by a narrow power band on the gti? It can rev easily upto the redline whilst the td runs out at about 4.5k. There is a 35bhp difference to a stock td to a Gti, & in a lightweight car thats a massive difference.
the petrol engine developes maximum power through a fairly small rev range, whereas with the TD it's less about the horsepower and much more about the wave of torque the turbo provides.
Whilst the horsepower difference between the petrol and diesel is quite substantial, the TD doesn't so much use power, it's all about the torque.
Couple that to not only the differences between the gearing, but the final drive aswell, and the TD is quite a formidible weapon (well, I mean, one that really works well)..
Again, we need to seperate torque from horsepower.Mulley wrote:Your'e right doc, there is a misconception that the 8v has more torque than a valver, you quite correctly pointed out it doesnt, the difference between them isnt that much & in the valver it comes in much higher up the rev range than the 8v.
A valver doesn't come on to cam until you hit the magic 4.5K revs, which is lower in the 8V, but lb/ft for lb/ft of torque and the valver still wins, assuming said valver has a No. 3 inlet and No.2 Exhaust pulley.
Which mine does.
Ok, thats the way I set mine up for a reason, I like the fact it has lots of bottom end torque, this is slightly to the detriment of top end power, but I'm not one for screaming the nuts off it everyday. It's still more fun than sex when it does bounce off te rev limiter...
But wqually it'll pull very strongly from 25mph in top gear, which works for me..
Yes the diesel lump is heavier than the petrol engine, not by as much as you might think, but it does make a difference.Mulley wrote:I think the 8v gets a bit of a dis-service, td's are much more fuel efficient, but once you get into 4th gear performance is leisurely in td whilst in the 8v its still going strong. The gti also feels a lot more nimble to drive for some reason, is the diesel lump quite heavy in comparison?
I'm not sure the 8V gets a disservice TBH, I think it's a lovely engine, and it's no slouch by any means.
IT'll never be as good on fuel as a diesel, as you say, but then that was rather the point of the diesel engine in cars!
Which is why things like the Golf GT TD seems a bit silly to me..
Equally, if you say your TD feels leisurly in 4th then I would suspect it aint running aswell as it could.
Dependant on what related road speed we are talking about here of course.