This morning I turned sport off for a change. It really allows you to run full throttle in higher gears. I have to admit, the feel of utilizing the torque provided was a nice feeling. It sure felt like she got to 50mph as quick as ever.

This got me wondering how much of a performance improvement does Sport really provide in some circumstances. Obviously if you're cruising at 35mph and floor it, Sport is the clear winner. But in other situations it seems to hold its own. Maybe it's all placeboo effect and I'm just thrilling on a more refined feeling of acceleration.

I have no way of measuring this, was just wondering if anyone ever saw any tests that tried to do so or what your thoughts were. BTW my car is normally aspirated.

John

 

The only difference in transmission operation between sport and normal is that in sport the shift points are raised by about 300 rpms and for the R version the transmission starts in 1st rather than 2nd. Under full throttle I can't see that it would make much difference.

Incidentally, BMW using the same transmission call our sport mode normal and our normal mode winter.

 

theres absolutely no difference between both modes at 100% throttle.

Sport only increases throttle response, holds gears longer and holds on to the lowest gear when possible. the combination of all that makes it feel like you're actually going faster

 

In sports mode, my car clearly has higher shift points.

I made the "mistake" (ahem) of going full throttle once, and thought I was gonna be ejected from the G-force..lol

Normal seems to be easier on the engine and also (I think) cruises at a lower rpm as well.

Found this online:


Added XK8 Driving Excitement.
Most XK8 owners have never explored the performance potential of the XK8. To get driving excitement from the XK8, you must push the button near the shift lever that puts the transmission into the sport shifting mode. Make sure you have it in sport shifting mode. Now, when you floor it, the engine will rev up to redline(6800 RPM) before automatic shifting. Automatic downshifting is not as intuitive. For automatic downshifting. push the gas pedal down as far as you know from practicing with it in sport mode, will get it to downshift, then it will take about a half a second before it downshifts, but when it does, it will drop down about 3 gears and take off like a rocket. When first practicing this, try holding the gas pedal about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way to the floor. The sensation of this half second or so lag time for the automatic downshift is probly not unlike turbo lag. While it takes a little practice to get the hang of this automatic downshifting with the lag time, it's really no more difficult than practicing to get good at a video game. With practice you will get a feeling for how far to depress the gas pedal then hold it there until the downshift occurs(you don't floor it for most situations). Again, expect a half second or so lag time before the downshift occurs.
For those of us who grew up driving automatic transmissions that had a vacuum modulator to determine the downshifting, the sensation is like a vacuum modulator that had a small vacuum leak causing a late downshift. So why does a modern car like the XK8 with electronic controlled shifting have this lag time? I can only speculate that this transmission, the ZF model 5HP24 which was also used on the BMW V8's, may have been originally designed for BMW and then Jaguar having overspent on the engine design went looking for an off the shelf already designed transmission to bolt to it, and therefore using shift programming that was taylored to the BMW application.
Once you master the downshifting technique with the transmission in sport mode, driving your XK8 will be a far more exciting experience. In my opinion, when you drive your XK8 using this technique, it sounds not unlike a crotch-rocket motorcycle reving up through the gears.