Wow. Three pages and nobody actually answered the question. It's simple.

1. While the tires the car has are great for sport driving on the street and maybe the ocasional track day, they are definitely not what you want for 0-60 launches. The tires are plenty wide enough to get better times but are not the right compound for launching at the limits. Wanna go quicker, buy DOT drag radials. I like Nitto's for combination drag/street/everyday use.

2. The rear gear ratio on these cars is very low (numerically) which is the opposite of what you want for 0-60 times. It does help though with top speed and comfort on the highway since this a GT car not a muscle car.

3. Don't lie to yourself thinking the electronic diff works for launching in this car. Other cars like a mustang (pre '15) with a live axle and real locking diff will always be better for 0-60. The way the e diff works in this car is much like the e diff in Ford's trucks and believe me it will slow you down.

4. As has been said the suspension and weight transfer fights you as well. If someone could reprogram the suspension parameters it would probably be quite a night and day difference just in that.

5. Don't forget that y'all are comparing your non professional times to professional times that someone is out trying all day to get for a publication to write a story about. You really think most mustang and corvette drivers get anywhere near those numbers? Hell, a Challenger 392 street raced me the other day and while his car is only .3 slower in the 1/4 than a 5.0 XKR his horrible driving let me run circles around him from a dead stop, 15 roll, 30 roll, 60 roll and my car looked way sexier doing it.

6. Track prep, where is everyone testing these numbers? I promise you those publications use either a prepped raceway or if they own a testing facility it is also well prepped.

The way I look at it is if quite a few of y'all are getting 4.2 to 4.4 and the stats say 4 flat, then congratulate yourselves on doing pretty damn well.

 

Can you try to start from 2nd gear? its gonna save you sometime on the shifting.

 

It amazes me how many XK owners want taller gearing, given how tall the gearing already is.

 

I hope that this hasn't been mentioned earlier, but my understanding was that the XKR is essentially engineered to break traction (or maybe that should be that it isn't engineered to stop it from breaking traction).


I assume that it is because people like me secretly love the back end stepping out a little, it happens on launch of course but I've had it happen putting my foot down in the wet at 80kph which was a little disconcerting. But that then brings on the dsc and then the car slows the acceleration which I found immensely frustrating on the track because my instinct was to mash the pedal harder, but that is my inexperience rather than a car flaw.


Personally, I doubt that I would be getting within a second of the achievable times although it is still tremendously fast. But in 18 months of ownership no one has ever thrown down the gauntlet for a run at the lights, and I am probably too "old and sensible" to take up the challenge if they did. My wife on the other hand (who pinches Jaggy at any opportunity) would smash them.

 

I think the supercharged V8 producing 400-460 lb-ft of torque starting just above idle in a front engine rear drive configuration pretty much took care of the ability to break traction, but they did try to limit it with very aggressive DSC and TC programming. Turn all that off and the car gets really squirrely!

 

Fixed

 

I also want to know how the 5.0 NA and 4.2 SC compare in performance. I always hear people claiming they're almost the same!