Navigator Wrote:Thats no problem Harri, just give your thoughts on what you think it should drive and such.

Thanks for testing all!

@ Gorgias; I can't play or even see what you posted for some reason, but I'm pretty curious right now

gorgias1976 Wrote:First impressions:
The engine feels too aggresive at higher revs.
When on throttle the engine feels very low torqued until it reaches 5000-6000rpm when you suddenly get a sudden punch and get's rather difficult to control the rear.
When braking you get the same. Engine gets too much torque having the car waving fighting it.
I don't know how the cars drove in that era, so I can only tell how I've felt it in my test.

Also the steering felt too soft, compared at least to the BT44 I had just been driving. In this cars I expected the steering to feel a lot stiffer (no power steering in that era?).

Quote: The W196 power curve is extremely steep to a sharp peak at 290 brake horsepower and 8,500 rpm. There’s not much torque until 5,000 rpm; the first torque peak is at 6,400 and there’s a second wind at 8,100. The straight-8 pulls smoothly to 5,000, when it suddenly comes alive with the hollow, booming roar that marks these cars – like two Porsche Spyders sounding off at once. It’s not deafening, but it does induce a ringing in the right ear. I only took the engine to about 7,000 rpm, enough to get the full, sensual surge of that first leap of torque. It moves out – and right now.

Engine throttle response was startling. A jab at the pedal for a downshift brings an instant, eager response that overdoes it until you learn to match dosage to need. This is a key advantage of fuel injection on a racing engine, as throttle response can be a problem with multiple big Venturi carburetors. I went full bore to 7,000 in third, fourth and fifth around the test track, perhaps 120 mph with the low gearing and small back tires fitted.

Quote:It was only possible to probe the han­dling on two turns – one long, tight right and one fast left-hander – but it was obvious that the 00006/54 was an amazingly easy and safe car to drive. It wasn’t just a case of being “forgiving,” of allowing you to rescue yourself with ease; the W196 felt quite capable of handling the rescue all by itself. When I entered the tighter closing turn a hair too fast, the tail swung automatically out, as if to say, “Okay, now make the correction like I told you and you’re in business” – in German, of course.
Exactly as chassis designer Ludwig Kraus had intended, steady cornering speeds provoked gentle understeer. Apply power and the tail shifts easily outward toward balanced neutrality; more power brings oversteer in an unbroken progression. The entire spectrum of handling was easily accessible. Steering was light yet highly informative, with a way of instilling confidence. At 2.5 turns lock to lock, it was fast enough to cope with the car’s very progressive motions – a product of a high polar moment of inertia.

Quote:When I started out, the brakes were cold. When I first applied them, I was sure I was headed for the bulrushes. They began to warm up, however, and soon were answering the pedal with smooth, strong deceleration. Braking is aided by a hydraulic servo developed by ATE for truck use, fitted for the first time to the SLR in 1955.