for myself, street manners are the ability to start and idle on it's own in wintertime, get double digit gas mileage, run power brakes, not overheat in traffic.
most importantly, i like low end pull - if i can't drive around at 1200 rpm in traffic in top gear i won't be happy.
and that's where small heads will beat big heads - part throttle response under load; peak torque doesn't matter much if you're at 1/8 throttle chugging along.
however, this is not something you will ever see on dynos, cause most can't pull a torque motor down that low, and nobody tests part throttle on engine dynos anyway.
it's also hugely more relevant - like day and night - with stick cars vs automatics, because as noted above, torque converters cover a whole mess of bad behavior.
__________________
is this thing on?
|