#torque DLC tag

[whoredmode]

Can I crash at your place?

[obtenebrate]

havent had any time for personaposting lately bc woooooooork

[jesusvasser]

First Drive: 2019 Ferrari 488 Pista

MARANELLO, Italy — Ferrari’s name for its latest special-edition mid-engine supercar might not, casually speaking, carry the same performance implications as those of its fondly remembered predecessors: Designations like 360 Challenge Stradale, 430 Scuderia, 458 Speciale—those were immediately recognizable as the bad-boy versions of Maranello’s sublimely balanced, purist-centric modern-day weapons.

“Pista?” The name might describe your neighbor’s attitude when you rev its new twin-turbo, 3.9-liter V-8 to its 8,000-rpm redline as you pull into your driveway past midnight or out of it before 7 a.m. Perhaps it brings to mind a certain off-kilter tower just a couple of hours’ drive from the Italian carmaker’s home base, or maybe the Friday-night leftovers in the back corner of your fridge. On the other hand, devoted Tifosi know Ferrari’s official designation of its famous 1.862-mile test facility—the same one abused over the years by the likes of Lauda and Villeneuve and Prost and Mansell and Schumacher and Räikkönen and Alonso and Vettel—is Pista di Fiorano. If you’re one of them, you then also know that adding the “Pista” moniker—“track” in Italian, if it wasn’t clear—to Ferrari’s already stellar 488 must mean you’re facing something exceptional indeed.

What’s so, er, speciale about this car? The attention-grabbing figure sits top-dead-center: 711 horsepower at 8,000 rpm. Yes, another member of the suddenly burgeoning 700-plus-hp society has arrived (here’s to you, Porsche GT2 RS, McLaren 720S, and Corvette ZR1), this one also boasting 568 lb-ft of torque. For the record, that’s 50 hp and 7 lb-ft more than the 488 GTB. The Pista can hit a launch-controlled 60 mph in 2.8 seconds and 124 mph in 7.6 on its way to a 211-mph top speed. We know, Giovanni, we know: will the madness ever end? Pray not.

Those numbers represent the most powerful V-8 in the marque’s history. Ferrari says the Pista’s engine has more in common with the 488 Challenge race car’s than it does with the GTB’s. The powerplant allegedly features more than 50-percent new parts, including reshaped, stronger connecting rods now made of titanium rather than steel, stronger cylinder heads, carbon-fiber rather than aluminum intake plenums, shorter intake runners, friction-reducing DLC-coated piston pins, new valves (now hollow on the intake as well as the exhaust side) and springs, and wider, longer, backpressure-reducing exhaust manifolds made from Inconel, with 1-millimeter-thick walls versus 3 or 4 mm in the GTB. The crankshaft and flywheel are lighter as well, and Ferrari says the entire engine weighs 287 pounds, about 40 pounds lighter than the GTB’s unit. Impressive stuff.

Additional revisions of note include a rethink of the intake and cooling strategies. Like on the 488 Challenge, engineers relocated engine air intakes to the bodywork surrounding the rear spoiler, providing a ram effect; the Ferrari 308-inspired classic-style intakes on the car’s flanks now only help cool the engine compartment rather than feed the monster that lies inside it. This change increased airflow and allowed the installation of a larger intercooler. The front-mounted radiators are reoriented so they angle toward the car’s rear rather than toward the front as on the GTB, resulting in a 7 percent improvement in cooling efficiency, according to Ferrari.

However, beginning our test drive with four laps of Fiorano—it’s always nice to start your day with more than 700-hp beneath your right foot in a car you’ve never driven, on a track you haven’t tackled in several years—Ferrari doesn’t oversell the point about horsepower. Not exactly, anyway; rather, it makes a strong impression about how the car’s brain manages all the power and torque via the latest version of the company’s already excellent Side Slip Control, in this guise featuring a “lateral dynamics control system” with a marketing-friendly tag that sounds an awful lot like those ubiquitous products you see advertised in the back of men’s magazines: “Ferrari Dynamic Enhancer.” The simplest way to think of it is an additional stream of braking information the onboard driver-aid network processes in the form of brake vectoring, side-to-side and front-to-rear. It only works with the steering-wheel-located manettino switch dialed to the traction control’s “CT Off” setting, which sounds a little intimidating for racetrack runs straight out of the box.

And at first, for a lap or two, it is. Before lighting off from the pit lane, one of Ferrari’s test drivers piloted us on a couple of laps, rear end sliding all over the place. “You can keep your foot down through the exits,” he said. “Use small corrections on the wheel and you can do this, no problem.” It is one thing to see and hear it from someone else, quite another to implement it yourself so quickly after you push the start button. As a result, the first few attempts are too cautious, the car remaining planted thanks to the tacky grip from the bespoke, Ferrari-spec’ed 20-inch Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires (treadwear 180).

Screw it. Hammer down on the next third-gear right-hand corner and, lookout, the tail snaps away. Jolted by the quick breakaway, opposite lock is accompanied by a huge throttle lift. The rear comes back into line in a sloppy display of non-drifting, but it’s clear there’s something to this, so try again. Get the nose turned in, bend it to the apex, and then unleash the power without fear. It takes some mental adjustment, a sort of eerie faith everything will stay rubber-side down, but soon you feel the rear begin to slip in linear, not snappy, fashion. Keep your foot in it and use small corrective steering inputs as instructed to, and the car comes back in line with ease. Not that our attempts with only four laps allotted were anywhere near what Ferrari’s drivers demonstrated, not even close. But nevertheless an epiphany formed and confidence began to build. With another five or 10 laps, we’ve no doubt the experience, and the slip angles, would have gotten nothing but better and bigger. That’s not important, though; the significant takeaway is that arguably never before have non-professional drivers been able to wield such an ominous amount of rear-drive power so gracefully.

From Fiorano, we headed into the surrounding mountains and onto twisting two-lane roads, a simultaneous exercise in laughter at the fun the Pista offers and scowls at the never-ending blockade of slow-moving lorries, Fiats, and the like. In many ways the Pista was too much car for the route, which never offered an opportunity to probe the upper reaches of the tachometer in anything but first and second gears. But the V-8’s punch above 5,000 rpm indicated the ultimate 488 will easily pull as strong beyond 120 mph as it does at less than 50, delivering vision-blurring use of its 700-plus horsepower just as we’ve experienced recently in Porsche’s GT2 RS, McLaren’s 720S, and Chevrolet’s Corvette ZR1. It’s a nimble dance partner as well—not that a regular 488 isn’t, but the Pista’s curb weight of 3,053 pounds is 199 pounds lighter, and contributes to its reactive character the moment you turn the steering wheel. The steering itself is lovely, weighted just right and extremely quick without the blinking-fast, potentially destabilizing initial turn-in found on some of Ferraris of recent past.

As we selected at the track, off went traction control, and the Dynamic Enhancer went to work, allowing—when traffic cleared—hard braking into corners, followed by kicking the tail out some and coming out on the other side feeling like our hair was on fire. The Pista’s carbon-ceramic brakes are among the world’s best and make slowing the car almost as thrilling as accelerating it. Time and again on Fiorano we braked as late as we dared, later even, and the Brembos refused to protest, slowing us brutally and never exhibiting a give-up in pressure even at the furthest reaches of the firm pedal’s path—something we can’t say for every super sports car of this ilk. It’s a welcome ability that gives you a reassuring sense of confidence. The small amount of pedal travel combines with repeatable and unfading stopping power that serves-up braking as precise as any mortal could desire in a road car. It’s just another trait Ferrari engineered into this car, which along with 20 percent more downforce—now 529 pounds at 124 mph, with only a 2-percent increase in drag—makes it insanely stable across a wide spectrum of conditions. The latter is due in no small part to Ferrari’s first road-car use of a Formula 1-style, airflow-channeling “S-Duct” in the front end and an aggressive rear diffuser similar to the one used on the 488 GTE Le Mans endurance racer.

If there’s one minor sensory letdown, it’s the fact—despite the new exhaust manifolds and Ferrari spending time retuning the Pista’s sound versus the GTB—you’ll still never mistake this powertrain as anything but turbocharged. This 488 whistles rather than screams through the air, with a bass-heavy rumble echoing beneath prevalent intake and turbo noises. It’s a nice-sounding car in its own right, but certainly not one—even when standing trackside at Fiorano as the pro test drivers rocketed past—that makes your hairs stand on end. (It is up to 8 decibels louder inside the cockpit, though, due to its new hardware, tuning, and less cabin sound-deadening material.) Conversely, we have no complaints about the powertrain’s responses, sharpened beyond the GTB via a 17-percent reduction in internal inertia to produce quicker revving, and also by integrated turbo rev sensors similar to those found on the 488 Challenge, which provide consistent, identical pressures across both cylinder banks and thus more efficient power delivery. Both are features any self-respecting enthusiast, let alone Ferrarista, will mark down on their list of things to geek out about.

With one final mountain run, each redline-pull of the larger, 488 Challenge-style carbon-fiber paddles sends a jolt through your body, a fresh race-derived shift-map strategy Ferrari refers to as “shotgun + overtorque,” and it feels just like it sounds. If you’re clinging to the F430 in the garage mostly because it has a manual gearbox, we understand—but if any double-clutch, pseudo-F1 transmission can convert you, this is the one.

In fact, relatively benign soundtrack aside—and it’s a big aside for traditional enthusiasts—this car is the one when it comes to mid-mounted, V-8-powered Ferraris. For Enzo’s sake, it can lap Fiorano just 1.8 seconds slower than the apocalyptic LaFerrari. We’re Pista we can’t afford to bring it home with us.

2019 Ferrari 488 Pista Specifications

ON SALE September 2018 PRICE $345,300 (base) ENGINE 3.9L twin-turbo DOHC 32-valve V-8/711 hp @ 8,000 rpm, 568 lb-ft @ 3,000 rpm TRANSMISSION 7-speed dual-clutch automatic LAYOUT 2-door, 2-passenger, mid-engine, RWD coupe EPA MILEAGE N/A L x W x H 181.3 x 77.8 x 47.5 in WHEELBASE 104.3 in WEIGHT 3,053 lb 0-60 MPH 2.8 sec TOP SPEED 211 mph

IFTTT

[jonathanbelloblog]

First Drive: 2019 Ferrari 488 Pista

MARANELLO, Italy — Ferrari’s name for its latest special-edition mid-engine supercar might not, casually speaking, carry the same performance implications as those of its fondly remembered predecessors: Designations like 360 Challenge Stradale, 430 Scuderia, 458 Speciale—those were immediately recognizable as the bad-boy versions of Maranello’s sublimely balanced, purist-centric modern-day weapons.

“Pista?” The name might describe your neighbor’s attitude when you rev its new twin-turbo, 3.9-liter V-8 to its 8,000-rpm redline as you pull into your driveway past midnight or out of it before 7 a.m. Perhaps it brings to mind a certain off-kilter tower just a couple of hours’ drive from the Italian carmaker’s home base, or maybe the Friday-night leftovers in the back corner of your fridge. On the other hand, devoted Tifosi know Ferrari’s official designation of its famous 1.862-mile test facility—the same one abused over the years by the likes of Lauda and Villeneuve and Prost and Mansell and Schumacher and Räikkönen and Alonso and Vettel—is Pista di Fiorano. If you’re one of them, you then also know that adding the “Pista” moniker—“track” in Italian, if it wasn’t clear—to Ferrari’s already stellar 488 must mean you’re facing something exceptional indeed.

What’s so, er, speciale about this car? The attention-grabbing figure sits top-dead-center: 711 horsepower at 8,000 rpm. Yes, another member of the suddenly burgeoning 700-plus-hp society has arrived (here’s to you, Porsche GT2 RS, McLaren 720S, and Corvette ZR1), this one also boasting 568 lb-ft of torque. For the record, that’s 50 hp and 7 lb-ft more than the 488 GTB. The Pista can hit a launch-controlled 60 mph in 2.8 seconds and 124 mph in 7.6 on its way to a 211-mph top speed. We know, Giovanni, we know: will the madness ever end? Pray not.

Those numbers represent the most powerful V-8 in the marque’s history. Ferrari says the Pista’s engine has more in common with the 488 Challenge race car’s than it does with the GTB’s. The powerplant allegedly features more than 50-percent new parts, including reshaped, stronger connecting rods now made of titanium rather than steel, stronger cylinder heads, carbon-fiber rather than aluminum intake plenums, shorter intake runners, friction-reducing DLC-coated piston pins, new valves (now hollow on the intake as well as the exhaust side) and springs, and wider, longer, backpressure-reducing exhaust manifolds made from Inconel, with 1-millimeter-thick walls versus 3 or 4 mm in the GTB. The crankshaft and flywheel are lighter as well, and Ferrari says the entire engine weighs 287 pounds, about 40 pounds lighter than the GTB’s unit. Impressive stuff.

Additional revisions of note include a rethink of the intake and cooling strategies. Like on the 488 Challenge, engineers relocated engine air intakes to the bodywork surrounding the rear spoiler, providing a ram effect; the Ferrari 308-inspired classic-style intakes on the car’s flanks now only help cool the engine compartment rather than feed the monster that lies inside it. This change increased airflow and allowed the installation of a larger intercooler. The front-mounted radiators are reoriented so they angle toward the car’s rear rather than toward the front as on the GTB, resulting in a 7 percent improvement in cooling efficiency, according to Ferrari.

However, beginning our test drive with four laps of Fiorano—it’s always nice to start your day with more than 700-hp beneath your right foot in a car you’ve never driven, on a track you haven’t tackled in several years—Ferrari doesn’t oversell the point about horsepower. Not exactly, anyway; rather, it makes a strong impression about how the car’s brain manages all the power and torque via the latest version of the company’s already excellent Side Slip Control, in this guise featuring a “lateral dynamics control system” with a marketing-friendly tag that sounds an awful lot like those ubiquitous products you see advertised in the back of men’s magazines: “Ferrari Dynamic Enhancer.” The simplest way to think of it is an additional stream of braking information the onboard driver-aid network processes in the form of brake vectoring, side-to-side and front-to-rear. It only works with the steering-wheel-located manettino switch dialed to the traction control’s “CT Off” setting, which sounds a little intimidating for racetrack runs straight out of the box.

And at first, for a lap or two, it is. Before lighting off from the pit lane, one of Ferrari’s test drivers piloted us on a couple of laps, rear end sliding all over the place. “You can keep your foot down through the exits,” he said. “Use small corrections on the wheel and you can do this, no problem.” It is one thing to see and hear it from someone else, quite another to implement it yourself so quickly after you push the start button. As a result, the first few attempts are too cautious, the car remaining planted thanks to the tacky grip from the bespoke, Ferrari-spec’ed 20-inch Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires (treadwear 180).

Screw it. Hammer down on the next third-gear right-hand corner and, lookout, the tail snaps away. Jolted by the quick breakaway, opposite lock is accompanied by a huge throttle lift. The rear comes back into line in a sloppy display of non-drifting, but it’s clear there’s something to this, so try again. Get the nose turned in, bend it to the apex, and then unleash the power without fear. It takes some mental adjustment, a sort of eerie faith everything will stay rubber-side down, but soon you feel the rear begin to slip in linear, not snappy, fashion. Keep your foot in it and use small corrective steering inputs as instructed to, and the car comes back in line with ease. Not that our attempts with only four laps allotted were anywhere near what Ferrari’s drivers demonstrated, not even close. But nevertheless an epiphany formed and confidence began to build. With another five or 10 laps, we’ve no doubt the experience, and the slip angles, would have gotten nothing but better and bigger. That’s not important, though; the significant takeaway is that arguably never before have non-professional drivers been able to wield such an ominous amount of rear-drive power so gracefully.

From Fiorano, we headed into the surrounding mountains and onto twisting two-lane roads, a simultaneous exercise in laughter at the fun the Pista offers and scowls at the never-ending blockade of slow-moving lorries, Fiats, and the like. In many ways the Pista was too much car for the route, which never offered an opportunity to probe the upper reaches of the tachometer in anything but first and second gears. But the V-8’s punch above 5,000 rpm indicated the ultimate 488 will easily pull as strong beyond 120 mph as it does at less than 50, delivering vision-blurring use of its 700-plus horsepower just as we’ve experienced recently in Porsche’s GT2 RS, McLaren’s 720S, and Chevrolet’s Corvette ZR1. It’s a nimble dance partner as well—not that a regular 488 isn’t, but the Pista’s curb weight of 3,053 pounds is 199 pounds lighter, and contributes to its reactive character the moment you turn the steering wheel. The steering itself is lovely, weighted just right and extremely quick without the blinking-fast, potentially destabilizing initial turn-in found on some of Ferraris of recent past.

As we selected at the track, off went traction control, and the Dynamic Enhancer went to work, allowing—when traffic cleared—hard braking into corners, followed by kicking the tail out some and coming out on the other side feeling like our hair was on fire. The Pista’s carbon-ceramic brakes are among the world’s best and make slowing the car almost as thrilling as accelerating it. Time and again on Fiorano we braked as late as we dared, later even, and the Brembos refused to protest, slowing us brutally and never exhibiting a give-up in pressure even at the furthest reaches of the firm pedal’s path—something we can’t say for every super sports car of this ilk. It’s a welcome ability that gives you a reassuring sense of confidence. The small amount of pedal travel combines with repeatable and unfading stopping power that serves-up braking as precise as any mortal could desire in a road car. It’s just another trait Ferrari engineered into this car, which along with 20 percent more downforce—now 529 pounds at 124 mph, with only a 2-percent increase in drag—makes it insanely stable across a wide spectrum of conditions. The latter is due in no small part to Ferrari’s first road-car use of a Formula 1-style, airflow-channeling “S-Duct” in the front end and an aggressive rear diffuser similar to the one used on the 488 GTE Le Mans endurance racer.

If there’s one minor sensory letdown, it’s the fact—despite the new exhaust manifolds and Ferrari spending time retuning the Pista’s sound versus the GTB—you’ll still never mistake this powertrain as anything but turbocharged. This 488 whistles rather than screams through the air, with a bass-heavy rumble echoing beneath prevalent intake and turbo noises. It’s a nice-sounding car in its own right, but certainly not one—even when standing trackside at Fiorano as the pro test drivers rocketed past—that makes your hairs stand on end. (It is up to 8 decibels louder inside the cockpit, though, due to its new hardware, tuning, and less cabin sound-deadening material.) Conversely, we have no complaints about the powertrain’s responses, sharpened beyond the GTB via a 17-percent reduction in internal inertia to produce quicker revving, and also by integrated turbo rev sensors similar to those found on the 488 Challenge, which provide consistent, identical pressures across both cylinder banks and thus more efficient power delivery. Both are features any self-respecting enthusiast, let alone Ferrarista, will mark down on their list of things to geek out about.

With one final mountain run, each redline-pull of the larger, 488 Challenge-style carbon-fiber paddles sends a jolt through your body, a fresh race-derived shift-map strategy Ferrari refers to as “shotgun + overtorque,” and it feels just like it sounds. If you’re clinging to the F430 in the garage mostly because it has a manual gearbox, we understand—but if any double-clutch, pseudo-F1 transmission can convert you, this is the one.

In fact, relatively benign soundtrack aside—and it’s a big aside for traditional enthusiasts—this car is the one when it comes to mid-mounted, V-8-powered Ferraris. For Enzo’s sake, it can lap Fiorano just 1.8 seconds slower than the apocalyptic LaFerrari. We’re Pista we can’t afford to bring it home with us.

2019 Ferrari 488 Pista Specifications

ON SALE September 2018 PRICE $345,300 (base) ENGINE 3.9L twin-turbo DOHC 32-valve V-8/711 hp @ 8,000 rpm, 568 lb-ft @ 3,000 rpm TRANSMISSION 7-speed dual-clutch automatic LAYOUT 2-door, 2-passenger, mid-engine, RWD coupe EPA MILEAGE N/A L x W x H 181.3 x 77.8 x 47.5 in WHEELBASE 104.3 in WEIGHT 3,053 lb 0-60 MPH 2.8 sec TOP SPEED 211 mph

IFTTT

[eddiejpoplar]

First Drive: 2019 Ferrari 488 Pista

MARANELLO, Italy — Ferrari’s name for its latest special-edition mid-engine supercar might not, casually speaking, carry the same performance implications as those of its fondly remembered predecessors: Designations like 360 Challenge Stradale, 430 Scuderia, 458 Speciale—those were immediately recognizable as the bad-boy versions of Maranello’s sublimely balanced, purist-centric modern-day weapons.

“Pista?” The name might describe your neighbor’s attitude when you rev its new twin-turbo, 3.9-liter V-8 to its 8,000-rpm redline as you pull into your driveway past midnight or out of it before 7 a.m. Perhaps it brings to mind a certain off-kilter tower just a couple of hours’ drive from the Italian carmaker’s home base, or maybe the Friday-night leftovers in the back corner of your fridge. On the other hand, devoted Tifosi know Ferrari’s official designation of its famous 1.862-mile test facility—the same one abused over the years by the likes of Lauda and Villeneuve and Prost and Mansell and Schumacher and Räikkönen and Alonso and Vettel—is Pista di Fiorano. If you’re one of them, you then also know that adding the “Pista” moniker—“track” in Italian, if it wasn’t clear—to Ferrari’s already stellar 488 must mean you’re facing something exceptional indeed.

What’s so, er, speciale about this car? The attention-grabbing figure sits top-dead-center: 711 horsepower at 8,000 rpm. Yes, another member of the suddenly burgeoning 700-plus-hp society has arrived (here’s to you, Porsche GT2 RS, McLaren 720S, and Corvette ZR1), this one also boasting 568 lb-ft of torque. For the record, that’s 50 hp and 7 lb-ft more than the 488 GTB. The Pista can hit a launch-controlled 60 mph in 2.8 seconds and 124 mph in 7.6 on its way to a 211-mph top speed. We know, Giovanni, we know: will the madness ever end? Pray not.

Those numbers represent the most powerful V-8 in the marque’s history. Ferrari says the Pista’s engine has more in common with the 488 Challenge race car’s than it does with the GTB’s. The powerplant allegedly features more than 50-percent new parts, including reshaped, stronger connecting rods now made of titanium rather than steel, stronger cylinder heads, carbon-fiber rather than aluminum intake plenums, shorter intake runners, friction-reducing DLC-coated piston pins, new valves (now hollow on the intake as well as the exhaust side) and springs, and wider, longer, backpressure-reducing exhaust manifolds made from Inconel, with 1-millimeter-thick walls versus 3 or 4 mm in the GTB. The crankshaft and flywheel are lighter as well, and Ferrari says the entire engine weighs 287 pounds, about 40 pounds lighter than the GTB’s unit. Impressive stuff.

Additional revisions of note include a rethink of the intake and cooling strategies. Like on the 488 Challenge, engineers relocated engine air intakes to the bodywork surrounding the rear spoiler, providing a ram effect; the Ferrari 308-inspired classic-style intakes on the car’s flanks now only help cool the engine compartment rather than feed the monster that lies inside it. This change increased airflow and allowed the installation of a larger intercooler. The front-mounted radiators are reoriented so they angle toward the car’s rear rather than toward the front as on the GTB, resulting in a 7 percent improvement in cooling efficiency, according to Ferrari.

However, beginning our test drive with four laps of Fiorano—it’s always nice to start your day with more than 700-hp beneath your right foot in a car you’ve never driven, on a track you haven’t tackled in several years—Ferrari doesn’t oversell the point about horsepower. Not exactly, anyway; rather, it makes a strong impression about how the car’s brain manages all the power and torque via the latest version of the company’s already excellent Side Slip Control, in this guise featuring a “lateral dynamics control system” with a marketing-friendly tag that sounds an awful lot like those ubiquitous products you see advertised in the back of men’s magazines: “Ferrari Dynamic Enhancer.” The simplest way to think of it is an additional stream of braking information the onboard driver-aid network processes in the form of brake vectoring, side-to-side and front-to-rear. It only works with the steering-wheel-located manettino switch dialed to the traction control’s “CT Off” setting, which sounds a little intimidating for racetrack runs straight out of the box.

And at first, for a lap or two, it is. Before lighting off from the pit lane, one of Ferrari’s test drivers piloted us on a couple of laps, rear end sliding all over the place. “You can keep your foot down through the exits,” he said. “Use small corrections on the wheel and you can do this, no problem.” It is one thing to see and hear it from someone else, quite another to implement it yourself so quickly after you push the start button. As a result, the first few attempts are too cautious, the car remaining planted thanks to the tacky grip from the bespoke, Ferrari-spec’ed 20-inch Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires (treadwear 180).

Screw it. Hammer down on the next third-gear right-hand corner and, lookout, the tail snaps away. Jolted by the quick breakaway, opposite lock is accompanied by a huge throttle lift. The rear comes back into line in a sloppy display of non-drifting, but it’s clear there’s something to this, so try again. Get the nose turned in, bend it to the apex, and then unleash the power without fear. It takes some mental adjustment, a sort of eerie faith everything will stay rubber-side down, but soon you feel the rear begin to slip in linear, not snappy, fashion. Keep your foot in it and use small corrective steering inputs as instructed to, and the car comes back in line with ease. Not that our attempts with only four laps allotted were anywhere near what Ferrari’s drivers demonstrated, not even close. But nevertheless an epiphany formed and confidence began to build. With another five or 10 laps, we’ve no doubt the experience, and the slip angles, would have gotten nothing but better and bigger. That’s not important, though; the significant takeaway is that arguably never before have non-professional drivers been able to wield such an ominous amount of rear-drive power so gracefully.

From Fiorano, we headed into the surrounding mountains and onto twisting two-lane roads, a simultaneous exercise in laughter at the fun the Pista offers and scowls at the never-ending blockade of slow-moving lorries, Fiats, and the like. In many ways the Pista was too much car for the route, which never offered an opportunity to probe the upper reaches of the tachometer in anything but first and second gears. But the V-8’s punch above 5,000 rpm indicated the ultimate 488 will easily pull as strong beyond 120 mph as it does at less than 50, delivering vision-blurring use of its 700-plus horsepower just as we’ve experienced recently in Porsche’s GT2 RS, McLaren’s 720S, and Chevrolet’s Corvette ZR1. It’s a nimble dance partner as well—not that a regular 488 isn’t, but the Pista’s curb weight of 3,053 pounds is 199 pounds lighter, and contributes to its reactive character the moment you turn the steering wheel. The steering itself is lovely, weighted just right and extremely quick without the blinking-fast, potentially destabilizing initial turn-in found on some of Ferraris of recent past.

As we selected at the track, off went traction control, and the Dynamic Enhancer went to work, allowing—when traffic cleared—hard braking into corners, followed by kicking the tail out some and coming out on the other side feeling like our hair was on fire. The Pista’s carbon-ceramic brakes are among the world’s best and make slowing the car almost as thrilling as accelerating it. Time and again on Fiorano we braked as late as we dared, later even, and the Brembos refused to protest, slowing us brutally and never exhibiting a give-up in pressure even at the furthest reaches of the firm pedal’s path—something we can’t say for every super sports car of this ilk. It’s a welcome ability that gives you a reassuring sense of confidence. The small amount of pedal travel combines with repeatable and unfading stopping power that serves-up braking as precise as any mortal could desire in a road car. It’s just another trait Ferrari engineered into this car, which along with 20 percent more downforce—now 529 pounds at 124 mph, with only a 2-percent increase in drag—makes it insanely stable across a wide spectrum of conditions. The latter is due in no small part to Ferrari’s first road-car use of a Formula 1-style, airflow-channeling “S-Duct” in the front end and an aggressive rear diffuser similar to the one used on the 488 GTE Le Mans endurance racer.

If there’s one minor sensory letdown, it’s the fact—despite the new exhaust manifolds and Ferrari spending time retuning the Pista’s sound versus the GTB—you’ll still never mistake this powertrain as anything but turbocharged. This 488 whistles rather than screams through the air, with a bass-heavy rumble echoing beneath prevalent intake and turbo noises. It’s a nice-sounding car in its own right, but certainly not one—even when standing trackside at Fiorano as the pro test drivers rocketed past—that makes your hairs stand on end. (It is up to 8 decibels louder inside the cockpit, though, due to its new hardware, tuning, and less cabin sound-deadening material.) Conversely, we have no complaints about the powertrain’s responses, sharpened beyond the GTB via a 17-percent reduction in internal inertia to produce quicker revving, and also by integrated turbo rev sensors similar to those found on the 488 Challenge, which provide consistent, identical pressures across both cylinder banks and thus more efficient power delivery. Both are features any self-respecting enthusiast, let alone Ferrarista, will mark down on their list of things to geek out about.

With one final mountain run, each redline-pull of the larger, 488 Challenge-style carbon-fiber paddles sends a jolt through your body, a fresh race-derived shift-map strategy Ferrari refers to as “shotgun + overtorque,” and it feels just like it sounds. If you’re clinging to the F430 in the garage mostly because it has a manual gearbox, we understand—but if any double-clutch, pseudo-F1 transmission can convert you, this is the one.

In fact, relatively benign soundtrack aside—and it’s a big aside for traditional enthusiasts—this car is the one when it comes to mid-mounted, V-8-powered Ferraris. For Enzo’s sake, it can lap Fiorano just 1.8 seconds slower than the apocalyptic LaFerrari. We’re Pista we can’t afford to bring it home with us.

2019 Ferrari 488 Pista Specifications

ON SALE September 2018 PRICE $345,300 (base) ENGINE 3.9L twin-turbo DOHC 32-valve V-8/711 hp @ 8,000 rpm, 568 lb-ft @ 3,000 rpm TRANSMISSION 7-speed dual-clutch automatic LAYOUT 2-door, 2-passenger, mid-engine, RWD coupe EPA MILEAGE N/A L x W x H 181.3 x 77.8 x 47.5 in WHEELBASE 104.3 in WEIGHT 3,053 lb 0-60 MPH 2.8 sec TOP SPEED 211 mph

IFTTT

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okayy

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y’all know the studio that developed the cooler developed the second family guy video game. is this anything

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if you’ve been keeping up with some of my posts lately you know i’ve recently been working on what i’ve called the torque DLC, and i wanted to do some concept sketches for stuff. i’ll just copy the original pitch under the cut, but basically my idea is a sr1 DLC where you play as torque a few years before the actual events of sr1. here’s most of the major characters in it + some very messy concepts for torque’s apartment, which would obviously act as his base in the game. 

my new pitch for another sr1 DLC. takes place a few years pre-sr1, probably around 2003 or so. you play as torque (“the cooler”) essentially doing odd jobs against the backdrop of growing tensions within stilwater. the work includes: his typical bouncer job at TnA—this involves gameplay similar to what would’ve been in the cancelled “the cooler” game (the game itself would be in third person however i could see there being a first person/third person mode you could toggle for this gameplay specifically); doing hit jobs and similar for the lopez brothers, occasionally accompanied by victor; and general fetch quest type stuff for characters like al (the owner of TnA), anteros, and luz.  the game itself would have a much more down-to-earth and serious tone to match torque’s demeanor. the story would also almost exclusively take place at night since that’s when torque works. there would be a heavy emphasis on character relationships and how torque became so connected to this city and its people despite not actually being from the area originally. cameos would include the obvious and aforementioned carnales, luz, and anteros, but also a few smaller cameos by a rookie troy and tanya.

anyway it basically sets the stage for torque’s position in my canon. it introduces what would eventually become his longstanding friendship with luz, his dynamic with anteros, as well as how he is so intwined in stilwater itself. i have some more specific ideas for things like important story missions but i’ll cut myself off here. by all means feel free to ask me about it tho! i'm literally always happy to talk about torque and pre-sr1 stilwater LMAO

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i definitely want some sorta foreshadowing at the end of the torque DLC for the saints specifically. bc this is framed as a sr1 prequel DLC that expands upon stilwater itself before sr1. and like julius was absolutely still there building things up, even tho this is supposed to be ~3 years before the start of sr1.

like maybe when all is said and done as torque walks away from it all, he hears the church bells ring for the first time in years. he doesn’t see anyone near the church. it’s a sound that should be comforting, a call for unity and prayer, but for some reason it just leaves him w an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. it’s like an alarm bell. he feels like stilwater is on the precipice of something big. something that is gonna change the city forever. but he doesn’t have time to worry about that. he’s gonna be late for work.

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i don’t think it was ever said when alejandro lopez died/when hector got control of the carnales. like i don’t think it’s implied alejandro died during the fights in the 70s, rather the carnales were just exponentially weakened—to the point they had no choice but to back off.

i bring this up bc i was thinking about torque DLC stuff and i was struck by if 1) torque ever had any interaction w alejandro (however brief) and 2) how recent the transfer of power to hector was. as in, could that be something going on in the bg of the torque DLC, or has it already happened and been that way for awhile? hmm

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ALSO something else that’s been on my mind lately. i’m really curious about the sr1 gang interactions minus the saints. as in, how did the leaders/lieutenants of each gang interact and deal w each other prior to the events of sr1. this is something i wanna vaguely touch on in the torque DLC (tho truthfully the main gang getting focus is the carnales but there are cameos of joseph and tanya, for instance), but i’m really curious how they deal w each other and how they feel about one another. like CLEARLY the opening of sr1 makes it obvious they’ll fight each other no problem, and there’s some pretty apparent turf wars going on (particularly around the actual saint’s row area), but for the most part it doesn’t seem as if any of the gangs are actively seeking out to destroy each other in the same way the saints themselves do in the first game, and i’m really curious how any potential meetings or agreements or fights have played out. like given the state of things at the very start of sr1, before the saints do anything, we can assume by their turfs that they’ve reached some sorta basic agreement. i just wonder, given the general disposition of their leaders (hector, ben, joseph + sharp), how many official meetings have they had? how did those go down?

but also like. for example. angelo and joseph look to be about the same age, give or take a few years. both come from high profile families. did they know each other when they were younger? how did they interact? like do you see what i’m saying. i feel like there’s a lot of unexplored potential here in discussing and analyzing pre-sr1 stilwater, which again is kinda the whole point of the torque DLC, even if it does have an obvious carnales edge to it. i just find myself dwelling on what things were like before the story really started

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ok but going back to what i was talking about last nite w luz and anteros recognizing each other in sr1 bc they met in the torque DLC. it just goes to further impact their interactions in sr2. makes it even better luz asks whatever happened to dex bc we know they have this past together (even if their relationship was mainly through torque)

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ok actually idgaf how on the nose it is. i gotta have Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana” on the radio tracklist for the torque DLC

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thinking about torque DLC again and in turn thinking about sr1. trying to decide if i want luz and anteros to actually recognize each other at the end of the carnales storyline in sr1. she makes the shoe comment and he pops up like bitch that’s last year’s—!!oh my god…hey.

like maybe that’s how she ends up leaving the scene. like dex still makes the nevermind comment but anteros just yells at her to go. and w that in mind this would make perfect sense for how torque learns anteros joined the saints? cuz they don’t actually see each other during the events of sr1/torque only hears of anteros’ death after the fact. so maybe at the end of the carnales storyline, luz runs to torque initially bc who else is she gonna go to but him. he asks what happened. angelo’s dead. los carnales is gone. that stripper who used to crash on your couch did this.

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anteros being the most technologically adept of the TnA crew meant he probably had to make/edit their website in like 2004.

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ok y’all remember awhile ago i made a post talking about how i think if they remastered sr1/sr2 that i’d like to see a philosotologist activity character. it just occurred to me: the torque DLC. like part of the larger theme of that story is about digging into the foundation of stilwater and examining its history and watching how things developed to the point they are in sr1. and like. given the crowds torque’s familiar with, the shady ppl he knows of and the bouncer gigs he’s done…i could absolutely see him—The Cooler—being approached by some philosotologists who ask him if he’d be willing to do some type of small security gig. or if they’re feeling really brazen, some type of intimidation job.

all that being said, i don’t think torque would ever accept a job from them, no matter how lucrative the pay. but i think them approaching him at all, cementing his status as one of the most notorious people in stilwater’s underground, would make for a really interesting scene. and if nothing else the cult appearing like that makes for a good bit of foreshadowing