Why would you think a 2 year old car would have less hp than a new one? It will usually take over 80,000 miles for an engine to begin to lose horsepower, and this chiefly due to a slight loss in compression(although there are engines that will somehow eat platinum plugs in under 60,000 miles). Modern engines do not lose tune like the old carbureted units and generally speaking. a bit "looser" is better. An engine dynoed at 10,000 miles will show better dyno numbers than one with 1000 miles.

 

Depends on the driver. The best track times for the cars belong to the manuals by .2 or .3 and the magazine testers are not particularly gifted so to assume an auto will always have some kind of advantage because the manual is harder to launch isn't reasonable. True, there are a lot of boneheads who figure they can just rev the engine and dump the clutch and those guys will get killed by lots of slower vehicles but assuming you are talking about people who know how to drive, m/t cars are quicker. BUT, with the 05 hp increase, assuming it isn't just another Nissan fairytale, the .2 edge is pretty much gone so an m/t car has no margin for error. In that case, unless the driver of the manual is a real talent capable of squeezing out the best the car has to offer, 99% of the time you have to go with the auto. It is point and shoot vs finessing the ideal launch, and the auto doesn't require changing launch techniques for variances in the road surface. I think that once a few of the 05 cars have been track tested by the mags, or flogged by members of this site we will have a bit better idea. It looks like the 05 may be a bit heavier than the 03. plus I think there is a slight difference in wheel weight but I bet the new a/t will run a sub 14.5 with any driver.

 

... I think you mean "gardener"...

 

Raced my cousin from dead stop and from 60 roll.
from the stop he got a better launch (gas Brake) in the middle of the second dead even, end of the second im a bumper ahead. after that i started pulling hard.
From 60 roll i pulled about 2 cars or more till 100. I was very dissapointed on autos.

But his was an 04 Auto.

My vote goes to 04 6mt with little bit better than average driver.

 

I think you'll find that your VQ won't loss any power as it surpasses 100K miles assuming you change the oil and coolant and don't beat the living crap out of it. I raced my Maxima from 60K miles till 112K miles and it only got quicker with age. I tested the compression on three different occassion from 40K-110K and it varied by a mere 1%. There are lots of NA Maximas out there running low 14s and upper 13s with 100K+ on the clock.

As for plugs, many of us Maxima owners got rid of the platinum plugs in favor of copper plugs. Copper is a better conductor and can actually make fractionally more power. Another advantage is the NGK copper replacements are only $1.20 vs the $10-14 you'll pay for the platinums. The downside is the copper plugs need to be changed every 15-20K miles vs 60K for the platinums. Honestly, I've never been a big fan of leaving any plug in the engine for long periods of time. Plugs are under a ton of stress and I always worry about the tips.

 

Why are you so dissappointed with the autos? If you only finished 2 cars ahead by 100mph, that means you would have only finished the 1/4 mile maybe .15 quicker than him. I consider that to be pretty impressive for a auto that isn't putting as much power to the ground and doesn't have the topend gearing like the 6 speed does. Your races are exactly what I'd expect.

BTW, my auto with less mods and on it's 2nd pass ever, is out trapping your 6MT and getting a slightly better ET. I'm disappointed in your 6MT j/k

 

Just to let you know i had that time at 3000 elvation.
U have nice trap speed for the auto

 

I take it you're running at LACR? You're car should easily run lower 14s at lower elevation track.

My track is at 1050' and the density altitude for the days was close to 1800'. My BS corrected time is something in the neighborhood of 14.19@99.5mph, but I'm not a big fan of correcting timeslips. IMO, you run what you run and if you run in crappy conditions/elevation just note it.

 

About 20% of the time the 5AT might win, but most of the time the 6mt will always win. It's a faster car plain and simple.

 

A while back I tried to find a spark plug that would work in our G that was copper. Any ideas which one we can use? When I went from Plat to Copper in my older A4 Audi it made a big difference especially since its a FI car.

 

It's pretty well-documented, on dynos, that the '03-'04 manuals had more than the advertised 260 hp (marketing is a wonderful business). There appears to be no major difference in the tuning of the '03-'04 6MT and '05 5AT sedans and, hence, their actual horsepower figures are nearly identical. However, taking into consideration drivetrain losses, the actual horsepower at the wheels is probably greater in the 6MT sedan since manual tranmissions are inherently more efficient (i.e. less drivetrain loss). I have no doubt that a pre-'05 6MT sedan is quicker than a '05 5AT sedan with everything else being equal. Of course there's more room for error when you "row your own" versus just "sit and git".

 

I'll be very interested to see what happens at the big Nissan/Infiniti Day Drag event in Englishtown NJ this June. I would bet that auto's win the majority of the races even if they have fewer mods. Z's will be stacked against G's and there will be lots to talk about!

 

In fact the only cars I know of that consistently hit 14.1 and 14.0 are modded autos. I can't think of too many 6MT's with or without mods that hit that...but I don't look for this info and I hang with Sedan owners most of the time..

The 6MT is only plain and simple faster if you can drive it faster. That makes the 5AT faster than 90% of you who might get it right 20% of the time. Again, if you think you know what will happen before it happens, your buying fools gold.

 

I got on the NGK site and there are no coppers as of yet that cross-reference with the standard platinum plugs. There has to be G/Z running with one/two step colder copper plugs in the their forced induced and nitrous'd G/Zs. If they're not, they're idiots.

 

I agree. In a drag race, the first 100' is the most critical. The auto is terribly easy to launch and get high 2.1 and low 2.2 60 foots out of plus we don't have to contend with 1-2 gear spinning. The 6MT requires the correct technique and a little luck to get off the line strongly. If that 6MT comes off the line with a slow 2.3X 60' and the auto gets a high 2.1, the 6MT has instantly cost itself ~.2 in the 1/4 mile which negates any advantage it had over the 5AT.

I was at a Z meet at my track last year and the 5AT Zs were consistently quicker than the 6MTs. Out of the 15 or so NA 350Zs running, the quickest one pulled a 13.8 on DRs and some bolt-ons (6MT). The quickest street-tired 350Z went 14.1 and that was a 5AT with a plenum. ETs/MPHs range from 14.1-14.6@95-99mph with little variation in ET/trap between 5AT and 6MT.

A friend of a friend has a stock 6MT sedan. He ran a 14.4@96mph with a 2.1 60'. He's an ex-Stang driver with quite a bit of drag racing experience under his belt. He was shocked to find out my auto was matching his 6MT and actually out trapping him by 1mph on the same track and under worse conditions. I don't think my car is any quicker/faster than his. I believe it would be a driver's race if we ever ran each other.

While I think the 6MT is ultimately the quicker/faster car because of it launch potential and better top end gearing, I don't think people give the auto the credit is deserves. This isn't a Buick with a tall geared 4 speed auto.