So I'm driving home from work today and hit a long stretch of straight clear road. There is a grain truck ahead of me and some car (the Nissan) behind me. I pass the truck and the Nissan follows.. keeping close to my tail. I keep the gas pushed down in 5th... getting up to 110 pretty quickly.. and this guy keeps right up. I wasn't worried too much, but fairly impressed. So a mile or so down the road (after slowing down for an intersection) this guy is still behind me... just tailing me and keeping up. I figure I'll drop it to 4th (at about 65) and pull away easily. Granted I wouldn't say I'm the best at aggressively shifting... but this guy was on my tail up through 120... at 130 I started pulling away and by the time I hit 140 he was quite a ways behind me, but still I was impressed with how much he did keep up. I let off at close to 150 and coasted down to what seemed like a crawl at 70 and he caught up to me. We gave each other a thumbs up and went our separate ways. Do you guys think he'd done some work to that car or are they just that fast? Or do I just suck that bad at shifting? I really don't race at all and I rarely mess around like that unless the conditions are prefect.
The 3.5 especially in a SER version is pretty decent in the Altima. Not enough to out perfrom the GTO but good enough to impress you like the one you ran did. I have a '04 Maxima with the 3.5 of course and for a sedan it does pretty good. I surprised the hell out of a guy in an Impala SS with the LT1. He tried pulling away from me but it didn't happen. I was slowly and I do mean slowly gaining ground on him. My ride has 265hp/255 lb. ft of tq. and weighs just under 3500 lbs. compared to the Impala SS at 260hp/330 lb. ft. of tq. and 4036 lbs. By the time we were at 120 or so he slowed down to make his exit.
Yep, gotta agree with others. If you were serious about pulling away, you should have grabbed 3rd @ 65mph not 4th.
With that said, the difference between a 270 HP car and a 400 HP car is not really all that much in the real world. You won't just instantly put 3 car lengths between you and almost any decent car from a roll. Off the line, your 400 Ft Lbs of twist will give that kind of result against most I4's or V6's which tend to be top end wonders these days.
Not too surprising, the new Altima 3.5 SE Coupes, and the previos SE-R's are low-mid 14 sec cars. And being fwd, they're quickest from a roll of course. Next time you know to downshift even lower just to be on the safe side....
AutoForums.com is the premier network of enthusiast-owned
enthusiast-operated automotive communities.
We operate more than 100 automotive forums where our users consult peers for shopping information and advice, and share
experiences and opinions as a community.
Linear Mode
