I'm going to have to get an AUTOMATIC when the time finally comes to get back in a new five-liter, my knees have got too bad to shift gears in the stop and go traffic in my area, any ideas on difference in performance between the 6-speed manual vs the 6-speed automatic? Zero to sixty & 1/4 mile? Thanks.

 

The automatic means never having to say, "I missed a shift."

 

Don't the automatics usually have longer gears?

 

Usually the automatics are a better tranny and so you would be able to get to higher speeds faster. I know a lot of people that drag race and they have automatics

 

I remember the Chally SRT8 reviews, and the automatic pulled the best and most consistent times.
But I'd still have to have a stick in a performance car.

 

i believe both 0-60 and 1/4 mile time should be comparable. The only thing with the auto is you won't be able to order the track pack or brembo package. But the aftermarket will surely provide

 

My friend's 2010 SS is an automatic which is rated at 400HP, 26 HP less than the 6 speed and it gets comparable times in the quarter. So i think that the Mustang should be about the same, if not i say just a tenth or two quicker on the 6 speed. If i'm getting one, it will have a stick for sure. These things are so much easier to shift than lets say...my 4 speed '69 top-loader.

 

Did he run it before or after you hit him in the head for buying a camaro?

 

You mean buy it.....No actually he owns quite a few performance machines if you ask me. Two of them are an '87 Notch with a 347 strocker, and the other is a Ford GT, so i CANNOT say anything, he is mostly a Ford guy, but he enjoys all kinds of fast toys on 4 wheels. Did i mention he also owns a modified '82 or something Mini, a M3 Bimmer and a 69 Zamaro has i like to call it.
He specifically bought a lift to put his two beloved Camaros one on top of each other. Go figure.... If i were to do the same set up with my '69 and '88, well lets just say that SWMBO wouldn't be too happy getting the '69 in the middle of the living room since i've got no overhead room to do the same.

 

All you had to say was Ford GT

Does he plan on getting an '11? And what does do for a living lol

 

I'm a lucky dude, i got to drive all of his cars more than once ( of course him sitting next to me )and believe me, that Ford GT is something else. What a rush of adrenalin this thing is.
He owns a big ventilation-heating company that does pretty good around here. No he hasn't told me anything about getting an '11 GT. He has something else on his mind and he won't let me know. But it's for sure running on 4 wheels...

 

Man, thats gotta be awesome having a friend like that!

 

I have no comment on the question...But, LEO_06GT...Your aviator freaked me out man...I thought I was in some kind of Movie...That guy pointing to me moving his finger....Freaky...

 

All these days he's had that avatar and I never even noticed the finger moving till you said it.

I guess I'm not very observant.

 

hahaha I never noticed it either gary!

 

Its from the Invasion of the Body Snatchers...a scifi classic.

Dave

 

In the 1960's an automatic vs manual was almost a full second slower in the 1/4 th mile. Now the automatic is at the most .2 of a second slower than the manual and some automatic's are equal.

 

The only real performance difference between the stick and auto stems from the efficiency difference between a clutch and a torque converter. An automatic uses a little more power, so less gets to the wheels. A generally accepted drivetrain loss from the engine to the wheels is about 15% loss for the manual and about 20% loss for the automatic. So, with 412 flywheel hp, a 2011 GT stick should make about 350 rwhp and a 2011 GT automatic should make about 330 rwhp.

1/4 mile trap speed will likely be around 2 mph better with the manual transmission with that 20 rwhp difference over the automatic. However, I suspect that the actual ET's will be quite similar - maybe just 1-2 tenths different at the very most - as the automatic looks like it'll have a much steeper 1st gear to counter the steeper rear end gears available with the manuals.

Want to make an automatic launch hard? Replace the torque converter with an aftermarket stall converter. You'll launch hard like a stick shift car, never miss a shift, and revs will never drop below the higher stall speed rating at WOT (much like powershifting a manual).

 

Modern autos run faster than manuals. See the CTS-V. The Camaro is a different story as the engine in the auto version is different. L99 in the Auto versus the LS3 in the manual.

 

Modern autos are vastly improved, but this has not shown to be true for the Ford Mustang automatics yet. The old 3 and 4 speed automatics were notoriously slower than their stick shift counterparts. Even the 2005-9 5-speed automatics in the Mustang GT's were about 2 tenths and 2 mph slower in the 1/4 mile than their 5-speed manual counterparts. That didn't stop me from getting an automatic in my 07 GT, though, as I knew what to modify to make the automatic perform better than a manual.