- Messages
- 49
- Likes
- 25
- Location
- Santa Cruz
- State
- CA
- Country
- United States
- What I Drive
- 2018 Stinger GT2
Did my first auto cross with Porsche Club today. Here are my initial impressions of the car. Course had variety of features from slow technical to fast slaloms and straights. My car GT2 RWD - bone stock.
I struggled finding right setting for the car. Sport mode obviously but alternated between disabling traction control to both stability and traction off. First off this car turns very well! It's amazing in turns for a 4000 lb car! Slaloms are fast too.
I had a tough time with car staying in gear I wanted. Went manual but car seem to shift into next gear and shifts were painfully slow when I triggered them. Big lag before up shift to 2nd gear. Traction control and stability off led to slower runs with me drifting half way down straights - most fun though! I had a major 360 spin out of a fast turn. It was crazy! Got standing ovation from course workers. I could also drift at will and car is easy to put into sustained drift.
I think I my favorite setting was traction control off but stability on. Allowed car to rotate but stopped car from getting too far out of shape. It still limited wheel spin a little too much cutting power if car lost traction out of turns. But that was faster than tires lighting up all the way down a straight. I had hard time modulating power in tighter sections . Stinger works much better in nice wide open spaces - more technical sections it gets hard to manage - at least hard to manage if you want to go fast.
For a big sedan I set respectable times beating several Porsche's. Time was about equal with Subaru WRX that showed up.
Think my biggest complaint is vague shifts when car is actively under stability control and overall heft of this car. On more open course with big slaloms this car will rock. Tighter technical courses make it pretty tough. Oh yeah tough to grab paddles when you are anything but straight forward. Had some sections where I wanted to down shift but tough to grab paddle. If I where to ax or track this car I'd invest if paddle extensions. For big show room stock car it performed better than I'd expect in handling department and worse than expected in power delivery. I thought I would be going slow in turns and making time up in straits with power. Was actually opposite - I was attacking turns and slaloms but not able to get power down as well as I thought I would. Driving more like a sports car than a big heavy sedan. Car at limit is tail happy which makes it fun too.
Also have to mention braking system. It does some really interesting stuff. Abs and stability control don't allow you to over brake. I was loving that as I could go into turns without modulating brakes and just stomp going into braking zone. Could leave my foot into brake and as I turned system let up off brakes to allow car to run turn at perfect speed. Sort of like system modulated trail braking. Also found at some turn exits for real sharp turns I could brake and car holds slight amount of oversteer. The fastest of street tire cars were not too far ahead of me. Maybe 3 to 4 seconds for very well driven Porsche GT3 and GT4 Caymans. With more time behind wheel, proper alignment and some better tires I could have taken a couple seconds off my time.
I did have fun hearing people say that's a pretty Jag, that's a pretty Maserati. Nice Lexus .
I struggled finding right setting for the car. Sport mode obviously but alternated between disabling traction control to both stability and traction off. First off this car turns very well! It's amazing in turns for a 4000 lb car! Slaloms are fast too.
I had a tough time with car staying in gear I wanted. Went manual but car seem to shift into next gear and shifts were painfully slow when I triggered them. Big lag before up shift to 2nd gear. Traction control and stability off led to slower runs with me drifting half way down straights - most fun though! I had a major 360 spin out of a fast turn. It was crazy! Got standing ovation from course workers. I could also drift at will and car is easy to put into sustained drift.
I think I my favorite setting was traction control off but stability on. Allowed car to rotate but stopped car from getting too far out of shape. It still limited wheel spin a little too much cutting power if car lost traction out of turns. But that was faster than tires lighting up all the way down a straight. I had hard time modulating power in tighter sections . Stinger works much better in nice wide open spaces - more technical sections it gets hard to manage - at least hard to manage if you want to go fast.
For a big sedan I set respectable times beating several Porsche's. Time was about equal with Subaru WRX that showed up.
Think my biggest complaint is vague shifts when car is actively under stability control and overall heft of this car. On more open course with big slaloms this car will rock. Tighter technical courses make it pretty tough. Oh yeah tough to grab paddles when you are anything but straight forward. Had some sections where I wanted to down shift but tough to grab paddle. If I where to ax or track this car I'd invest if paddle extensions. For big show room stock car it performed better than I'd expect in handling department and worse than expected in power delivery. I thought I would be going slow in turns and making time up in straits with power. Was actually opposite - I was attacking turns and slaloms but not able to get power down as well as I thought I would. Driving more like a sports car than a big heavy sedan. Car at limit is tail happy which makes it fun too.
Also have to mention braking system. It does some really interesting stuff. Abs and stability control don't allow you to over brake. I was loving that as I could go into turns without modulating brakes and just stomp going into braking zone. Could leave my foot into brake and as I turned system let up off brakes to allow car to run turn at perfect speed. Sort of like system modulated trail braking. Also found at some turn exits for real sharp turns I could brake and car holds slight amount of oversteer. The fastest of street tire cars were not too far ahead of me. Maybe 3 to 4 seconds for very well driven Porsche GT3 and GT4 Caymans. With more time behind wheel, proper alignment and some better tires I could have taken a couple seconds off my time.
I did have fun hearing people say that's a pretty Jag, that's a pretty Maserati. Nice Lexus .
Last edited:
