Blues vs. Skittles: Cobalts vs. Neons Dyno Day

The automotive world is filled with rivalries.  STI owners think EVO drivers are mentally handicapped, Mustang owners laugh at Camaros, Prius drivers have those "pissing on Insight" stickers, and Holden owners like to pull Ford drivers out of their cars at stoplights and beat them to death with pipe wrenches.  Another to add to the list: Cobalt SS and Neon SRT-4 owners.  On the surface, both cars are pretty similar: high performance versions of domestic economy cars, with drastically more power and braking abilities and not a lot of interior luxuries.  I love both; I love the Cobalt SS Turbo more.

One way to settle the whole argument is to quit the bullshitting and bench racing, assemble some teams, slap them on a dyno (or rolling road), and see who actually makes more power.

Spoiler alert: It's the Cobalts.

Stock-turbo Cobalts can put down impressive power numbers: this is Rick Ramos's SS Turbo, with a tune and bolt-ons.  It put down 325whp and 402ft-lbs torque at the wheels.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q0Usdk2gLE

His car has shown up in a few articles here before; most recently at the Eurowise meet.  Nice to see a car that rubs tires on the dyno still putting down LS1 torque levels.

Ernie Romano's Cobalt SS Turbo used to rock the stock K04, but after a minor thermal incident (the polite way of saying "the motor blew up"), it was rebuilt with a stronger bottom end and a Bullseye 252 turbo.  On pump gas, the car put down 376 horsepower and 352 torque at 25.5psi.  Normally this setup runs 31psi, so there's still a good bit of power on the table.  The sound of the open-dump wastegate is unbelievable.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70CrkK6Dx80

Red, yellow, red, yellow, awww, the black car ruined it.  The Audi looks a bit out of place.  Matt Welliver's S4 has seen a few addition since I featured it; a custom 3" stainless exhaust, an intake, and a Unitronic Stage 2 tune.

With the modifications, power has risen from 253whp and 264wtq to 284whp and 282wtq.  Not bad for around $1500 in modifications.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK9KZWT_L84

Thomas Gidden's Cobalt was originally supercharged, but now sports a ZZP Turbo conversion and runs off of E85 Ethanol.  You've seen this car before in my coverage of Rockingham drag racing events, and now we have some solid dyno numbers.

411 wheel horsepower, and 382 wheel torque.  The funny thing?  This is a relatively conservative tune, due to "winterized" Ethanol.  Winterized Ethanol has a lower effective octane rating than normal E85, so Thomas had to pull out 7 pounds of boost and 6 degrees of timing advance to avoid detonation.  This car should make more than 450whp in the summer.  More impressive: this is still on stock LSJ internals.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXDdPfLSsx0

This new-style STI hatch had a big turbo setup, and put down 409 horsepower and 381 torque - to all four wheels.  Sadly the microphone on my camera isn't as good as the lens itself is; it tends to get overwhelmed at really loud noises, but you can still tell it's pretty wicked.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th9FyAnUzSI

The Cobalts ended up winning again - mostly due to higher overall torque numbers, but it was still fairly close, with all of the SRT-4's that dyno'd putting down more than 300whp.  Stock for stock, the SRT-4 Neon's put down around 225whp and 240wtq, with most stock turbo Cobalts making closer to 250 and 260- so despite the Cobalt's 400cc displacement disadvantage and smaller turbo, the LNF's use their direct injection for a huge advantage when modified.  Class dismissed.

This is the final scoreboard at the end of - the day - the first number is power, the second is torque, and the squared entries are best in class.  There are two more dyno videos - this one of a Yellow turbo Cobalt making 332whp, and this one of a bolt-on 350Z making 249 - and there's a gallery of images below.  Enjoy!