Said the guy in the Pontiac G8 GXP!!

I was actually a little surprised how well it did - pretty impressed actually. If he had our Jag Traction control and could hook up he would have had a chance to take me - he spun and lost 1/2 car length.

He definitely had some work done to this thing - said he had 440RWHP... and I do believe it. As stock they are listed at 415HP and he looked to have exhaust, cam, etc...

So that begs the question to me again - does the SC really ONLY have 470HP. Or is it just an XFR engine!

Anyway - this dude was shocked when I smoked him! It's cool having a sleeper!

 

Torque delivers acceleration. Horsepower is not relevant to acceleration.

This is why some fairly low powered but massive cube Detroit iron make Ferrari look slow.

I think the peak torque output for the SC is very close to that of the XFR and at slightly lower rpm. The more torque you have at lower rpm the quicker the car will be off the line.

I note that the spec sheets from jaguar show the XF officially produces about 10% less torque over the same rpm range. That seems suspect to me. The SC will use a larger supercharger pulley, likely, than the XFR. alternatively, the peak boost level could just be set lower. Modern supercharged engines overboost and bleed off excess pressure just like turbo systems do.

Highly suspect is the SC consumes the same amount of fuel as the XFR. This is highly improbable if power outputs are so different.

Hmmm, dyno anyone?

 

Jaguar does a great job of adjusting the timing to get the torque to come in very low in the rev range. That allows it to be much faster at "normal" speeds than most other cars because they hit their power bands high up.

As you found out, it isn't how much you have, it is how it is delivered.