Chevy Cobalt SS T/C vs. Dodge Caliber SRT 4

[acezhigh]

Anyone read the reviews on either? Which one would you pick?

Personally, I like the neon version of the SRT-4. It's light weight and quick as shit... The Caliber was rated against the Mazda Speed 3 and it was close all the wa around, but the the new SRT-4 is heavy... And a 4 Door at that....


The new 2008 Turbocharged Cobalt SS comes stock 260 HP-ish, still realatively lightweight, depending on the add ons that you get... I think I'll take the new SS over the Caliber. However I'd take the Neon SRT-4 over either cause then I could say, "You got smoked by a NEON!!!"

Inputs?

[kombi731]

the SS went to turbo because the LSJ engine doesn't meet 2008 emissions. The aftermarket has developed quite a bit. The LNF turbo motor (from Sky RL/Solstice GXP) can put down 300whp w/ a tune. Some ppl have seen 23psi out the stock turbo. I think stock max psi is 20?? More stuff will come out for the LNF as its put in the balt SS/SC and HHR SS. I am a Neon SRT4 lover as well. I don't like the caliber I've driven the regular the R/t and AWD one. I dunno how different the SRT will be, but w/ that much power and FWD sounds like wheel hopping madness. Not that you don't have to address all that on the Cobalt. I want to see the price on SRT4's at the dealer should be intresting. The balts cost way to much now compared to back then.

[xurusaibobx]

was able to drive a HHR SS its one peepy car...wonder how the cobalt feels ....

[acezhigh]

The Cobalt SS/SC does suffer frm wheel hop, but there are a few things to you can do to minimze it... I Threw on the Torque Dampener to start. I haen't done too much to my engine in terms f performance, so I didn't have to do much else.....

[kombi731]

on the IRL side we have service bulletins on cracked tranny housings, broken axels, and broken motor mounts from wheel hop. They had to change are trans mount from 04(the first year). I had to get solid motor mounts, traction bars, better tires to make it subside. So are you a balt owner???

[acezhigh]

Yep... 2006 SS/SC

[freeride]

i gotta a question... sorry if off topic. is the hhr ss engine drivetrain same as the cobalt ss?

[kombi731]

04-07 IRL LSJ engine
05-07 Cobalt SS/SC LSJ Engine

HHR SS LNF engine
08+ Cobalt SS LNF engine for the prime trim package

LSJ is 2.0 supercharged
LNF was first seen in Saturn Sky Redline/ Pontaic Solstice GXP. It's a similar 2.0 w/ VVT and setup for turbo(high boost/low compression). LNF's can put down almost 300whp w/ a tune or so they say. Perhaps the future is bright. :)

[acezhigh]

^^^ Ummm yeah what he said....

[xurusaibobx]

i liked the recaros they had in the balts

[acezhigh]

yeah i likethem too.... Very comfy....

[spider_monkey52]

cobalt ss is dope. i remember when gm brought out a factory prepared cobalt ss and it donked the crap out of everythin in every class at the super street time attack a couple years back. i have mad respect for that car. srt4 on the other hand isn't my cup of tea. but it does have that 500hp kit for 5k but on the other hand it's the #1 douchebag car on the list lol

[acezhigh]

But still... It's gotta be sooooooooooooo much fun to say, "Dude... You just got smoked by a Neon..."

Lol

[spider_monkey52]

But still... It's gotta be sooooooooooooo much fun to say, "Dude... You just got smoked by a Neon..."

Lol
my friend has actually got to say that to a few people. man i have respect for acr neons though. we jumped huge ass hills with all the tires off of the ground and that thing never bottomed out once. i miss those days

[acezhigh]

:chuck_norris:

Friggin gangster.....

[ikeyballz]

i wanted a SRT4..woulda straight traded my camaro for one..those things are EXPENSIVE tho..and i only dislike the fact its FWD. if it was AWD man...

[idiosyncratic]

just drive it in reverse and pretend it's a RWD :crazydriver: :gapteeth:

[ikeyballz]

LOL. then itd 'drift' like crazy ahhahaha rwd, rwsteering.

[1badsrt4]

i dont care too much for the caliber srt4. i kinda like the cobalt, especially now that the new one will be turbo'd.

[spider_monkey52]

just drive it in reverse and pretend it's a RWD :crazydriver: :gapteeth:
gotta drive in reverse with a rear wheel drive car. me and my friend did that once in his 330i bimmer or his m3 i cant quite remember. we played a game called "how fast can we go in reverse" we hit 45 at 4.5k but whe he adjusted the wheel a little bit it kicked out and we didn't feel so safe so we stopped. pretty fun though

[xurusaibobx]

drove a ion s/c today...pretty mean .

[acezhigh]

Yeah it's the same car.... was it a 2.0L S/C?

[kombi731]

sounds like a ion redline to me
staged?

[zff]

I've been reading some really interesting stuff about the new turbocharged Cobalt SS. Apparently, Chevy really did their homework and put a LOT of effort into tweaking the handling. If you look at the Road Test Summary in the back of an issue of Road & Track, the 2008 Cobalt SS gets through their slalom faster than a Ferrari F430, and on the skidpad, it only does 0.02 fewer G's.. and it's like 1/10th the price.

Chevy even did what all the cool kids are doing nowadays... they tuned it at the Nurburgring. It ran an 8:22 there, which is as fast as an E46 M3 or an R32 GT-R. It's faster than a Lotus Exige, Porsche Cayman, S2000 or an NSX. That is pretty impressive. Damned impressive when you consider the Cobalt is basically an econobox.

It's even reasonably fast on the quarter mile. It's faster than any of its front-wheel-drive competition, and it's faster than the WRX (which is AWD).

Best of all, it's dirt cheap. Wow. I can't believe I'm actually impressed by a Chevy Cobalt.

[kombi731]

they tuned the Ion Redline at the Ring back in 04 when it was realeased. That was the first delta platform car. It came out as a quad coupe in 03. They tested and relesased a weaksauce tuned RL in 04. The Balt/RL came out in 05 w/ a better tune and was very similar to the redline. The only reason we got semi lucky w/ tuning was the fact that GM was testing the C6 vette's at the ring and already had a camp going.

I surf Cobaltss.net a lot. The stage 2 on the supercharged puts out more at the wheels than the SS/tc. A lot of heartbreak over that w/ the new owners :( T/c = stage 1 on the S/c about. What is nice is they beefed up the A arms and motor mounts and axels on the new t/c. Thats a huge step and most of the common broken parts. I had to address pretty much all those points on mine. Wheel hop if you make power will just tear a stock balt apart! It would have been cool to not to have to spend and just have it.
I think the LNF (engine) aftermarket is gonna get real big soon
and thats a cool engine iirc it's 9.2 compression and 19psi stock or something wild
its in the
HHR SS
Balt
Sky RL
Solstice GXP

so I have a feeling every part will be available very soon :)

[ikeyballz]

^serious? nice! maybe people will start buying it...hmmm

[kombi731]

oh and there's a RL owner that moved from the mainland to here and last week said he was ordering the caliber SRT
maybe I see one in person soon

[xurusaibobx]

so far ive only seen 1 T/C cobalt sold.....over all the cobalt isnt a great seller here

cant stand the plastic induction piping they used.

[kombi731]

yeah real SS's the ones w/ forced induction are few and far between here. I see some on base here and there. I guess the get loan's easily.

did I see a G8 at your place?

[zff]

The startling underdog story of the turbocharged Cobalt SS continues....

Every year for the last three years, Car & Driver does a "Lightning Laps" issue. They take about 20 cars to Virginia International Raceway and run them. It's the same track every year, so over the last three years, they've built up a small database of lap times for about 50 or 60 different cars. It's their version of the Top Gear test track time board.

Here are the times from this year:

2:45.9 Mosler MT900S
2:48.6 Dodge Viper SRT10 ACR
2:54.6 Ferrari F430 Scuderia
2:55.6 Nissan GT-R
3:01.2 Chevy Corvette Z51
3:04.0 Cadillac CTS-V
3:05.6 BMW M3
3:06.5 Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG
3:13.0 Chevy Cobalt SS (turbo)
3:13.3 Mitsubishi Evo MR
3:13.7 BMW 135i
3:14.0 Lexus IS-F
3:14.6 Audi S5
3:15.0 Honda S2000 CR
3:16.3 Dodge Challenger SRT8
3:16.6 Lotus Elise SC
3:17.5 Infiniti G37 Sport
3:19.0 Subaru WRX STi
3:20.8 Dodge Caliber SRT4
3:21.8 VW R32
3:24.8 Honda Civic Mugen Si
3:26.6 Volvo C30 T5 V2.0


Look at the illustrious list of cars the Cobalt is faster than. Evo? STi? S2000CR? Elise? ..and the Cobalt is less than $25K? Wow, I'm still very impressed.

[freeride]

John Heinricy isn't messin' aorund...

[kombi731]

yeah that beefed up front end helped a bit on the 08 and up

in 05 when I got mine and the new mustang GT came out.. the went to VIR
and the saturn didn't lose
bout broke my bosses heart who was gonna buy another mustang :D LOL

[Kreggae]

That's amazing. And it costs a third of the price of the next car up, the C63.

[GtotheJ]

motor trend did a handling test with 10 cars in the oct. issue. and the times it put up on laguna seca was on par with the evo x mr

[spider_monkey52]

for a cute little ff car it's got some boto. if i like ff cars i'd probably be down to get one,well if it was a nissan lol

[xurusaibobx]

sadly ive only seen 1 turbo Cobalt sold on the island ....sold more HHR turbos then cobalts surprisingly

[spider_monkey52]

wtf hhr's are fugly x 193474907

[twowheels]

I saw one at a SCCA event, still had paper plates. What sucks about the cobalt is that well, it's a cobalt. They need to re-do the body panels and name it something else, until then, kids will still prefer the civic si with da veeeetaakk!

As of right now there's nothing out there that can touch the cobalt ss when it comes to performance/value ratio. I mean those are some serious numbers there made by an econobox?

[twowheels]

Also I would love to see a top gear review. I know that JC will bash it for its craftsmanship but in the end if the stig can make a lap that will downright embarrass purpose-built sport cars then it will well worth it hehe.

[xurusaibobx]

gm interiors suck anyways ...
cheap lame plastic interiors always felt like they would break and pop off which they do!


i only got to see the turbo Cobalt for a day too! had brembos which caught my eyes..ooooh

[twowheels]

gm interiors suck anyways ...
cheap lame plastic interiors always felt like they would break and pop off which they do!


i only got to see the turbo Cobalt for a day too! had brembos which caught my eyes..ooooh

Only GM? Most american cars have some crap interiors made out of some cheap ass plastic. What really sucks is that America can build a bad ass well built car if michigan wasn't full of lazy ass unionized workers making 30 bucks an hour installing door panels.

[zff]

That's amazing. And it costs a third of the price of the next car up, the C63.Well, in the C63's defense, it is a big, heavy, roomy, gadget and safety feature-laden luxury car that was 7 seconds faster.

What's really amazing is the cars the Cobalt managed to outrun. The IS-F and the S5, despite their high-performance personalities, are still big and heavy luxury cars, so ok, I can kinda get that. I'm still surprised, but it's not mind-boggling.

The Evo MR, though? I realize the Cobalt turbo was only the tiniest bit faster, but I never would've thought they'd even be in the same league. We're talking about the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution MR, here -- one of the best performance/dollar cars coming out of Japan right now. It's $15K more than the econobox Chevy, but it's not any faster.

Then there's the S2000 CR and the supercharged Elise. Those are practically purpose-built track cars built by companies with fantastic reputations in this kind of thing. They were in their element -- on a race track -- being compared to a much cheaper Chevy econobox, and the Chevy was comfortably faster. Not only that, the Cobalt is immensely more practical too. That is TRULY mind-blowing. This is a GM econobox we're talking about here.

sadly ive only seen 1 turbo Cobalt sold on the island ....sold more HHR turbos then cobalts surprisinglyThat's too bad, because I would actually buy one. I don't like buying new cars, but if, in a few years, I needed a cheap beater, I'd get a Cobalt SS turbo.

What sucks about the cobalt is that well, it's a cobalt. They need to re-do the body panels and name it something else, until then, kids will still prefer the civic si with da veeeetaakk!That's what I love about the car. It would be fun to drive, but it wouldn't draw any attention. When I drive my truck, I love the fact that no one ever really notices me (compared to when I'm in one of my cars). Problem is, my truck isn't fun to drive. A Cobalt SS would be fun to drive and practically invisible.

Also I would love to see a top gear review. I know that JC will bash it for its craftsmanship but in the end if the stig can make a lap that will downright embarrass purpose-built sport cars then it will well worth it hehe.That would be AWESOME.

[twowheels]

Yeah that's what I like about my car too. It flies under the radar pretty damn good. Is there a way to make car review suggestions to top gear? They should make an souped-up econobox shootout. civic si vs cobalt ss vs mazdaspeed3 vs caliber srt-4

[zff]

Speaking of your car... I saw one of the new Mazda 6s the other day. I like it. I wonder what the new MS6 will be like.

[twowheels]

I don't care for it. It lost a lot of the "zoom zoom". Looks more like a camry, it's bigger and more practical but it definitely lost some edge. The Euro and Asian Mazda6/Atenza looks 100 times better. The mazdaspeed version is supposed to be kick ass.

Euro Mazda6

http://image.motortrend.com/f/9512556/112_0802_03z+2008_mazda6_euro_spec+front_view.jpg

USDM mazda6

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_FoXyvaPSnVk/SBHKnzeEIII/AAAAAAAAqOo/jHlTL69ZHrA/s1600/M6_8U.jpg

[ikeyballz]

the cobalt ss reminds me of when neons were just starting to come out w. the ACR version. built for the autox guys.

hm.

still didnt sell much tho. haha

[glock22]

i would take the cobalt. just drove an 08 one. not bad for what i expected

[kombi731]

Delta platforms (cobalt,G5,Ion,Pursuit) rule