HSV GTS v Ford Falcon XR Sprints 2016 Review

HSV GTS GEN-F2 v Ford Falcon XR8 Sprint v Ford Falcon XR6 Sprint
Strip and dyno shootout
Heathcote, Vic

Big Aussie sports sedans days are numbered, but there's still time left to secure your slice of Australian automotive history. Ford has delivered its final fast Falcons with the high-output XR Sprint limited editions and, while Holden and HSV are yet to present their best, the GTS is the current king of the hill when it comes to home-grown performance. So what better time to put the most powerful models from each side of the fence to the test on both drag strip and dyno, to see which brand wins the last ever Australian-made muscle car grudge match.

It's been a long kiss goodnight for local car-makers as we head towards the shuttering of Australia’s last three major automotive manufacturing plants this year and next. Confirmation that the big three will close their factory doors was made way back in 2013, yet the last cars won’t roll off production lines until late 2017.

While sales of Commodores and Falcons continue to fall, Holden and Ford are no doubt banking on a late surge in interest from customers keen to grab the keys to an Aussie icon while they still can. And if you’re one of the customers planning on buying one of the last cars, then you’re in for a treat -- Aussie muscle cars have never offered better performance for your dollars.

The HSV ClubSport LSA V8 and Ford Falcon XR6 Sprint both made the shortlist for the 2016 Australia’s Best Driver’s Cars award, and while each put up a decent showing, we couldn’t help wonder how much better the heroes of the respective brands – the HSV GTS and the Ford Falcon XR8 Sprint -- would have acquitted themselves.

So after returning from Tasmania, we decided to put three of the fastest production cars ever made in Australia – including the nation's most powerful ever six-cylinder, the XR6 Sprint -- to the test, to see which is the quickest and most powerful once and for all.

In the red corner is the HSV GTS GEN-F2, a monster of car that has already laid claim to the title of Australia’s fastest.

One of the last of the big Aussie V8s from Holden Special Vehicles, the GTS is definitely one of the best ever Commodores, with a monster 6.2-litre supercharged V8 pumping out a promised 430kW and 740Nm.

For the Blue Oval, we grabbed the keys to the XR6 and XR8 Sprints, numbered #003 and #001 respectively from Ford’s 1400-car limited production run.

Under the bonnet of the XR6 Sprint is a potent, turbocharged 4.0-litre straight six that generates 325kW -- just 20kW less that the 5.0-litre supercharged V8 in the XR8 Sprint. Officially, it also creates torque on par with its supercharged sibling, at 576Nm for the XR6 and 575Nm for the XR8.

Ford's first official XR outputs in overboost mode tell a similar story, with the six claimed to make 370kW and 650Nm and the eight claimed to produce 400kW and the same 650Nm in their respective 10-second transient overboost modes… Given the right conditions.

We put the cars through two exercises. The first was at Heathcote Park dragway to determine the quickest car to 100km/h and over the quarter-mile (400 metres). Our second test was dyno runs to determine which car’s power and torque figures are closest to their manufacturer’s claims, and which delivers the most performance at both the engine and rear wheels.

Each challenge certainly threw up its own surprises, even though all three cars each car was tested in the same conditions. For the record that was matching ambient temperature (16 degrees for both tests), on the same piece of (admittedly slipperier than ideal) Heathcote bitumen, on standard tyres inflated to maximum recommended pressure, with the same fuel type and load (full, 98 RON Caltex Vortex) and with the same two occupants on board using the same GPS performance data recorder (Qstarz 6000S).

motoring.com.au’s own V8 Supercar enduro driver Luke Youlden tore up the drag strip in each car, getting behind the wheel of the GTS first to set our benchmark time.

HSV had supplied us with a six-speed manual variant, and with all that power and torque on hand, gaining traction for a clean getaway was quite a challenge.

On this particular surface, loading up the engine to 2000rpm gave the HSV the optimum take off as Luke dumped the clutch and hit the loud pedal hard to get moving, before slipping the clutch just slightly to avoid turning the tyres too much.

The HSV is an impressively quick car and, as anticipated, reached 100km/h in a blistering 4.967seconds and hit the 400-metre mark in 12.780sec at 183km/h.

No, that's not as quick as the times previously recorded by some outlets – including motoring.com.au – but it was as good as the Heathcote strip allowed on the day.

Next up was the Ford Falcon XR6 Sprint. Having run this very car around Baskerville raceway on our Tasmanian tour, we knew it would be capable of a quick time, but even we were surprised by its performance.

The XR6, which is only available with a six-speed automatic transmission, smashed out a 5.029sec time to 100km/h (just 0.062sec slower than the GTS) and hit the 400-metre mark in 13.114sec at 177km/h – a third of a second and 6km/h slower than the HSV.

Again, that's not as quick as the 4.6sec 0-100 passes we recorded on far grippier surfaces at the launch, but given the conditions the more-than-admirable performance of the turbo six would give its big brother a pretty tough time to beat.

Last to the strip was the XR8 Sprint, which was also equipped with an automatic transmission, although a manual is available. In fact, Ford says the manual is the slightly quicker of the two, but requires a big dose of technique to extract the quickest times.

Indeed, we struggled to record a sub-5sec 0-100 time in the XR8 manual at its launch, where it was half a second slower than the XR6 to 100km/h. Thus it's unlikely a manual XR8 would've been quicker at Heathcote.

While all three runs were done – naturally -- without traction/stability control and in normal Drive mode in the autos, Luke commented that the XR8 was much harder to load up for take-off than the XR6.

In the XR8 particularly, slamming your foot down on the loud pedal resulted only in hefty deposits of rubber on the tarmac, requiring smooth, progressive throttle inputs for best results.

Acceleration to 100km/h for the XR8 Sprint was measured at 5.149sec – just over a tenth slower than the XR8 and less than two-tenths behind the HSV.

The XR8 completed its quarter-mile run in 13.112sec at 180km/h – two-thousands of a second sooner and 3km/h faster than the XR6, but 0.332sec and 3km/h slower than the GTS.

So the GTS emerged quickest and fastest – just. It was quicker than the XR6 to 100km/h by less than a tenth, quicker than the XR8 to 400m by less than a third of second and had a 3km/h-faster terminal speed than the XR8.

Just for reference, the HSV ClubSport R8 LSA and Holden Commodore SS-V Redline we also tested on the same day at Heathcote were both slower than the GTS and XR6, confirming the GTS – if anyone had any doubt – is indeed the quickest GM vehicle available in Australia.

While the Clubbie belted out an impressive 5.079sec 0-100 time (just 0.112sec slower than the GTS and 0.05sec slower than the XR6, and 0.07sec quicker than the XR8), the SS was at least a quarter of a second slower than them all at 5.402sec.

THE DYNO
That three different vehicles with three different mechanical configurations and three different kerb weights perform so similarly in a straight line is remarkable, so it was time to find out how they measure up on the dyno.

Dyno testing is a great way of measuring engine and rear-wheel outputs relative to other cars and manufacturer's claims. But it's a fine art and the results are only comparable between cars tested on the same day on the same dyno using the same test procedure with the same compensation metrics.

In this case, all engine outputs were up to 10 per cent either side of the manufacturer's claims, after each car was brought up to temperature and given four consecutive runs with a pair of fans providing cool air.

Power and torque were and at the rear wheels and mathematically calculated at the flywheel. The testing was carried out in third gear in the XR autos and fourth gear in the GTS manual.

Power at the XR8's flywheel was calculated at 437kW – 37kW over Ford’s own overboost power figure – while peak torque was recorded at a whopping 685Nm, again 35Nm over Ford’s numbers.

At the rear wheels, the XR8 slammed down an impressive 359.3kW/573.3Nm – more power and only slightly less torque than Ford's official (non-overboost) engine outputs.

That's also more power than the 350kW we saw at the rear wheels of the limited-edition FPV GT F 351 in 2014, when it out-powered the 340kW GTS.

In contrast, the XR6 achieved slightly less impressive outputs: 330kW/629Nm calculated at the flywheel and 276kW/525Nm at the rear wheels on our rolling road. Although our recorded engine numbers were still up on Ford's claimed (non-overboost) figures, unlike the XR8 they were well down on its (370kW/650Nm) overboost claims for the six.

We asked Ford why and it said the XR6 Sprint should be good for 320kW at the rear wheels – given the right conditions for overboost.

The XR6 Sprint is claimed to deliver more peak boost pressure for a wider spread of revs than the old FPV F6, with over 14psi of boost available in second and third gears.

"The result we would expect to get from the turbo would be about 320 rear wheel kW if everything was operating correctly," said Ford.

"276kW is quite low and may indicate that the car was producing the stated 325kW at the flywheel but not the full 370kW on overboost.

"In previous tests we’ve seen that the cars can show these results both if too hot or also too cold, as the transmissions and engine need to be at operating temperature before overboost will engage.

“If the car was put on the dyno and transmission not warmed up then this could explain the result.

"Also if the dyno run was conducted in 5th or 6th gear (to avoid wheel slip on the dyno) we run less overboost in these high gears, especially at high RPM. Overboost is at its highest in second and third gears.

"It is definitely possible to come out of transient overboost (TOB) mode on an extended dyno run up. Some operators will take a long time to run the car up to maximum engine speed, and the engine PCM will transition out of TOB mode before reaching peak power."

We believe our dyno tests of the XR6 Sprint were within Ford's parameters to achieve full overboost performance, which Ford says: "Is operational once vehicle is at nominal temperature (engine & transmission); Provides maximum power until engine protection strategy is engaged; Power reduces until the engine achieves the base power number; Lasts for 10 seconds, resets on every gear change; and Does not goes below advertised power."

It's not the first XR6 Turbo we know of that performs as it should on the road but not the dyno, but after checking the car over Ford confirmed there was no problem with the XR6 Sprint we tested.

Whatever the reason for the XR6 Sprint's lacklustre dyno outputs, it certainly delivered in the real world on the road in Tassie and at the drag strip, where it was the fourth quickest car overall in ABDC.

The GTS, meantime, is claimed to output no less than 430kW and 740Nm. Clearly HSV believes in those numbers as the car bears both a '430' badge and 'GTS430' on its number plate.

Sadly for the red team, the only car we saw that number on was the XR8, since the GTS engine was calculated at 417kW and 718Nm -- three per cent short of its claimed figures.

At the rear wheels there was also less power than the XR8, at 330kW, but HSV wins the torque war here again, with 596Nm – 23Nm more than the XR8 and 72Nm more than the XR6.

So while the quickest car in our homemade grudge match is no doubt the GTS, on the dyno it was the XR8 that made the most power at the rear wheels – where it matters. The GTS, however, made the most torque.

Another result that's not in doubt is that this is one of last comparisons of this type that motoring.com.au will ever undertake – a fact that's made our whole team quite melancholic over the last few days.

As one of our Australia’s Best Driver’s Cars judges said: “Australia has no idea what it is losing.”

Now there's something we can all agree on.

2016 HSV GTS GEN-F2 specs:
Price: $98,490 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 6.2-litre supercharged V8 petrol
Output: 430kW/740Nm (claimed)
Transmission: Six-speed manual
Fuel: 15.3L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 363g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety rating: Five-star ANCAP

2016 Ford Falcon XR8 Sprint specs:
Price: $62,190 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 5.0-litre supercharged V8 petrol
Output: 345kW/575Nm, 400kW/650Nm in overboost (claimed)
Transmission: Six-speed automatic
Fuel: 14L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 333g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety rating: Five-star ANCAP

2016 Ford Falcon XR6 Sprint specs:
Price: $54,990 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 4.0-litre turbocharged in-line six-cylinder petrol
Output: 325kW/576Nm, 370kW/650Nm in overboost (claimed)
Transmission: Six-speed automatic
Fuel: 12.8L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 304g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety rating: Five-star ANCAP