good enough

It has twin turbo 6L V8. It has 625hp.
It is also not a two tonne supercar, its only 3300 pounds. unfortunetly, it has 3 speed auto (for strength). It does 0-60 in 4.2 seconds, the quarter in 12 flat, and on to 218mph. It also pulls .97g's. They only built 22 of them.

http://209.132.49.149/images-large/1991_vector_w8-1.jpg

Having done a fair amount of research on this company, I'll agree on almost all of those points. The one point I can't agree on is the top speed because I highly doubt anyone has ever had one anywhere near 200 mph. First because none of the California Vectors (the W2/W8 being one) had ever seen the inside of a wind tunnel. Second, because the only Wiegert-designed Vector to see a wind tunnel (the Avtech WX3) didn't have the air flow into the engine bay to keep the engine running at high speeds...I was told "it was starved for air." The original prototype (W2) was theoretically (gearing multiplied by redline) capable of 237 mph, according to early reports.

Everywhere I go I see 218 mph for the W8. The company said that, and I must say I believe them. I also doubt someone has ever been to that speed, but I think it could.

The company said plenty of things that weren't true. They said (in 1980) they'd be in production in 1982 (with a 2400lb, $125k car)...they weren't. They told AutoWeek (in 1987), they'd be in production shortly, even showing them cars in the midst of being assembled...it was another three years before ONE car rolled out of the factory. They said alot of things.

My money's on the W8 not being able to top 200...and perhaps having a top speed of 150-160, due to the W8's estimated aerodynamics of over cd .40.

Everywhere you go you see "218" because that's what the factory claimed. Don't believe every factory claim...especially one's you've seen about Vector.

I've done over 250 MPH in one...........








...........in Gran Turismo 2 :D:D:D:D:D

.40 Cd!!!:eek: Thats about the same as the big yellow bus that takes kids to school!! Ok, but this is all hypothetical. With that much power, 200mph is definately possible. That drag is not at all good, so I would have to be iffy in the top speed, but I would have to think it would be over 160mph.

My estimate (read: guess) is based on the awful aerodynamics and the fact that later designs would have "starved themselves for air" at high speeds. While the weight, gearing, and power could potentially give the W8 a top speed well over 200 (estimates being as high as 237), I would doubt anything more than 160. The engine needs air to go and a lack of it would prevent extremely high speeds.

Teh air starvation could be indicative of good aerodynamics. The air is going around the car nicely, not being interrupted by the parts of the car. So a good idea might have been to put air intakes in the front to get the air in.

It is kinda neat wondering what would happen, though, and what it all means.

I've heard (first-person) stories about the W8 ranging from it being "over-engineered" to it being a glorified "hot rod." The ones I have seen look very nice up close, and seem to be a bit nice than the M12s I've examined.

They really are kind of like hot-rods. They use a transmission and engine from the big three, which are widely used by hot rodders. I've never seen one, but they look nice in pictures.

The M12 is really more exotic, with a Lamborghini V12 (and I assume the 5 speed stick, opposed to the 3 speed auto)

Yes, the W8 used a Donovan-engineered 6.0L twin-turbo V8 based on the Chevrolet small block hooked to a 3-speed automatic transaxle, based on the Eldorado/Toronado transaxle.

The M12 used the Lamborghini Diablo V12 mated to a US-build 5-speed manual. The M12's driveline was placed longitudinally while the engine in the W8 sat transversely.

If you read the fine print about the top speed of the Vector you will see that they are guessing. There is no one that has done an offical test of the car. I do know some W8 owners and they all say the car becomes semi unstable at high speeds. If you look at the early W8s versus the newer W8s you will see they added a font spoiler and chaged other parts of the car do to the aerodynamic issues.

Wiegert was a master media hound. He feed the figures to anyone who would publish them. I think you will find those followed the Vector W8 closely found the car did not live up to the hype. It is still a very unqiue automobile and Wiegert is not the first guy to make claims his car could not reach.

If you ever get a chance to buy one, beware that they are expensive to own. I know of one owner who spent $10,000 on his W8 over the course of 600 miles. I put 600 miles on my car evey week.

The W8 is has other flaws, but the point here is don't believe all those fantasitic performance numbers you read about the Vector W8. The over engineered part was in refrence to the crash tests. That is one area the Vector did do very well in.

Vectorclub, welcome to AF! You've been posting like mad in all of the Vector Forums, if you keep this up, maybe Igor will make you a mod here. Good to have knowledgeable people here, and I am thankful for your insight.

I maybe posting like mad, but the grammer erros arekind of ulgy because I am typing fast and not checking for type o's. Really English is my native language. It is typing that is new to me.

lol:D I know how that can be!! One of my threads was "Is it reall and good??" (I meant: Is it really any good).

Anyone see the cars anymore in the dupont registry. About a year ago, there were atleast 3 in every months issue, now I haven't seen any posted in a LONG time.

Last I heard, they are going for $125,000+ (USD)

One thing to remember is that you need a special Vector mechanic to work on a car, I heard a story once that some guy blew out both his turbos and punctured the cars frame - which is EXTREMELY tough to do seeing its made out of Kevlar and honeycombed alluminum - and he had to hire a special Vector mechanic @ $300/hour.

He also said most of the parts on the car, the non-exotic parts, were off of older American cars, like the taillamp fixture.

If anyone has video of the W8, please let me know, hd04@hotmail.com

Thanks

One thing to remember is that you need a special Vector mechanic to work on a car, I heard a story once that some guy blew out both his turbos and punctured the cars frame - which is EXTREMELY tough to do seeing its made out of Kevlar and honeycombed alluminum - and he had to hire a special Vector mechanic @ $300/hour

That is a story I have never heard before. As Director of the Vector Aeromotive Club I have heard many stories. I have found half of them to be false. Vectors use mostly very common parts and technology. The Rodak racing engine is just a sprint car engine. Most of the owners I know just use their local exotic car mechanic.

Odd items on a Vector are parts like the display panel and the jet fighter fuses. There is a former Vector W8 engineer that works on W8's in Michigan and I understand that David Kostca, the main engineer on the W8 does do some work on W8's in the old Vector HQ in Wilmington, CA. I am sure Wiegert gets a cut of money.

The #9 Vector W8 gets taken care of by his main mechanic. After speaking with him he claimed 90% of the car is easy to work on. They did have David Kostca come and fix something related to the electrial system many years ago.

The #12 car had many parts changed so it is not what you call a pure Vector W8. Rumor is the horsepower was jumped up to 1000 bhp thanks to the new parts. I have taken a ride in the car, but we didn't get a chance to push the beast to hard.

Anyone see the cars anymore in the dupont registry. About a year ago, there were at least 3 in every months issue, now I haven't seen any posted in a LONG time.

The Du Pont has been a wondeful source for dinding vectors, but others have been sold outside of the Du Pont. The Blackhawk COllections in Las Vegas sold the #6 W8 for $146,000 a couple of months ago. That car had sold for $115,000 less then a year prior to that. Now that same car is being sold again.

In Japan chassis #13 (believed to be the 3rd or 4th chassis built. Another #13 was built in 1992) was sold for $60,000. Other Vectors have sold for well under $100,000.

There is a network of owners of buyers working through the Vector Aeromotive Club to help bring them together. In 2002 the club will have listings for Vectors up for sale. Currently there is 3 for sale, but only 1 at a realistic cost.

Also watch Ebay Motors for Vectors. Gerald Wiegert listed his personal PP2 (Pre Production #2) W8 on Ebay a short while ago. He was asking a staggering $275,000 and got no bids on it. As of 2001 I would say $115,000 is the going price for a good W8.

All exotic cars have issues. Most people could not afford to keep an exotic car going if it as given to them. My friend likes to say "Exotic cars have exotic problems." He has owned over 300 cars and most were exotics. His W8 has cost him $10,000 in repairs just to drive 600 miles.

The W8 is more like a race car then a street car. Like most race cars it requires lots of care. I would not suggest anyone to buy a W8 unless they deep pockets and strong will. The M12 also had its share of issues as well. When American Aeromotive begins production of the new Vector (time line unknown) I hope they will build a car that does not need so much work to keep going.

More news and info on vectors can be found at www.vectoraeromotiveclub.com (This site is still in Beta mode, but is still fun to see).

Exotic cars have exotic problems


That is very true. Kinda makes a Z06 which will whip a 550 seem like an even better bargain, just drive it 2 miles down the road to be fixed.

$10000 for 600 miles is a bit much, though. I don't know if he drove it alot or not, but you should drive your cars often, or bad stuff happens (Jamie Kitman drives each of his 12 cars at least once every 6 weeks, or so he says).

I guess it's good I have a good sense of finance, and when I do start to make money, I won't hang myself:rolleyes:

$10000 for 600 miles is a bit much, though. I don't know if he drove it alot or not,

He actually drives it as much as he can. The vector he has is really buggy. That is actually true of most Vectors. These are the kind of cars that will push your love cars to the limit. I know if I had one i would have to park it. There is no way I could afford the up keep.

Which sucks, because cars were built to be driven. Thats it, I'm not buying an exotic, and just keeping designing them, and drive my Mustang and Ranger!

Which sucks, because cars were built to be driven. Thats it, I'm not buying an exotic

I would tend to agree with you. My friend cracks me up because he says he wants a more reliable car. I ask him why doesn't he buy a 911 Turbo, NSX, Z06 or something along those lines. He loves the attention he gets in his exotics. He actually thinks of the 911 as being like a family car. It is to common in his mind.

After my test drive in the Saleen S281-E I think I would buy that instead. The Saleen is still semi-rare and I can get parts for it at most auto parts stores.

Maybe if GM made a mid-engine Z06, something like the Corvette Indy concept car, then I would get that instead.

Originally posted by vectorclub
Maybe if GM made a mid-engine Z06, something like the Corvette Indy concept car, then I would get that instead.

Well, there are rumors of a "supervette", or you could get a Z06 powered Mosler MT900 (although not all the parts would be off the shelf of the local NAPA)

The MT900 would be reliable. The engine, suspension, computer, instruments, and other little things that go wrong, are lifted from vettes. Whats different are: brakes, chassis, body. But (disregarding the brakes), if they go wrong, it is going to be very bad. This is one of my favorite cars, it will do 0-60 in 3.5 seconds with 350hp. You can get it with the 1000hp Lingenfelter 427 TT. All this for about $250000. Not too bad;)

MT900 brakes are standard Brembo's, which are easy to get parts for, if you get a Porsche gearbox, everything is from a 911, if you get the Quaife you'd be SOL on parts, and if you get a Hewland (the AMECO running at Daytona has one) the parts would be fairly common via race sources. The suspension is corvette upper A-arms and uprights(slightly modified by Mosler), Mosler lower A-arms, and Penske coilovers. The most unique parts are the Teklam composite chassis (subframes are standard chromoly tubing), and the body work. The computer control and instrument cluster will be from Stack, with an option for Motec, and not the Corvette unit.

Just don't crash, and you'd have a nice GM serviceable supercar. The streetcar seen in Car and Driver has been on the road with no major problems since its construction in May of 2000.

I'm still waiting for someone to order a twin turbo model, that will be one bad mo fo.

A Lingenfelter 427 TT would be the ultimate. Change the gearing, and 240mph could be a very distinct possibility. 0-60 would probably be the same, at 3.5 seconds, due to traction.

Originally posted by Chris
A Lingenfelter 427 TT would be the ultimate.

Put a Hewland NLT sequential gearbox behind it, and that car would haul butt.

Construction of a Z06 powered MT900S should be starting soon. It will be a true 900kg(or darn close), ~435hp barebones streetcar. That should be a really quick 0-60 car.

I decided to look into the data online for the car one of my uncles helped assemble and test. For security reasons, I will not give my name nor my unlces name. If U don't belive what I'm about to say, no prob. I'm not gonna take the time to argue with anyone about it. I'll get to the point. As I said, my uncle was involved in the the design, construction and testing of the W8. Due to my everkasting interest in anything faster than it needs to be, i often asked him about the project he was working on. We had discussed the W8 project including the pros and cons. As for the legit top speed issue, he managed to get it clocked at 174MPH. on a large area of level ground. He mentioned the instability issue after passing the 150MPH mark. When I asked why, he said the camber of the car, drag coeficient, and downforce were not working well enough together to keep the car firmly on the track. when I had asked about teh speeb beign less than the stated 218MPH he said that the engine did not have a large and direct enough intake for the engine to run at full ability. Later on, he manged to get authorization to toy with teh body design for his own experiments. He adjusted the ground effects and created 2 nearly direct intakes for the engine. While the timing was not official, he performed a 0-60 in 3.6 sec. The 1/4 mile was in 10.9sec. The top speed was 253PMH before he ran out of track. He estimated another 10MPH for the full top end. All he had adjusted was the body. If I recall corrctly, he said he dropped about 150LBS from the total weight of the car. Well, feel free to reply as I'm sure U will. 8-)

Well, if what you say is true, it is impressive, to say the least. But I do have a hard time believing that a car (albeit, with a 650+ hp engine) that only has a 3 speed auto, could go this fast.
Although I believe it is worth mentioning that a car built on such limited resources could never have been properly 'sorted'. So this adds credibility to your story.

One problem to the theoretical top speed of 253 mph is that third gear could only provide a top speed in the 230 mph range. The original W2 was claimed to have a top speed of 237 mph redlining in third gear.

Was this "253mph" run clocked with anything besides the speedometer of the vehicle?

Porsche is God, I have spent some time with David Kostca, Gerald Wiegert, and other Vector Aeromotive related people. Kostca was the main man behind the W-8 and did a ton of work on the W-8. He mentioned how the top speed where thoery, not reality. When you consider a car like SAleen S7, McLaren F1, Porsche GT1, or EB110 SS never broke 250 mph, I have a hard time with anyone claiming a Vector went that fast. Group C race cars at Le Mans would have a tough time breaking 250 mph. If a Group C (also known as GTP here) could not break 250 mph, then no Vector could.

You would have had to throw away the GM transmission and do major body modifications to have a chance of breaking 250mph. Dropping 150lbs is not enough to help, I would guess the car would need to lose 500lbs or more.

You better check with your Uncle about those speeds. He must of been reading kilometers not mph. I have yet to find any real proof of any W-8 ever breaking 180 mph.

I saw a video on the web where a W8 was goin' abou 190-200mph and then the fromt end lifted off and the whole car was flying for a second before the rear crashed into the ground andthe car blew up.:bloated:

where did you see that video? post the link!

It was on kazza or morpheus.:alien:

Dang im goin to check that out.

I just looked on Kazaa and couldnt find a thing. tried 5 times, so goood luck.