Um, these prices are all already up on Edmunds and have been since at least last week:
http://www.edmunds.com/pontiac/g8/2008/index.html

Ace Combat 6 (when it comes out, that is). Love the demo.

Ah, I doubt it.

1. BMW has never put a "M" motor into a regular production car (the Z8 doesn't count as a regular production car)

2. The V8 in the M3 is a high-revving, low torque engine. The original N62B44 made more torque than that engine, and the current 4.8 liter version makes lots more. It's also very unsuitable for forced induction with it's 12:1 compression ratio.

This is probably an evolution of the N62 with forced induction, or a diesel as someone else posted.

Is RS-232 even fast enough to send the time at 100 ns resolution? Wouldn't the latency of sending from the box to the PC pretty much cancel out any benefits of this?

"Unfortunately its often the finance and admin departments that buy the software, not the users or even the IT departments (the IR department were some of the more vocal opposers)."

As a former employee of a huge online university (starts with a K), I can attest that this is 100% true. We had our own CMS that was suddenly "replaced" with an outsourced 3rd party service. We had to jump through all kinds of hoops to integrate it with our existing stuff, and it was (is) really crappy and unreliable to boot.

Your comments about usability, reliability, stability and integrity are spot-on for most educational software. I guess as they say, those that can, do. Those that can't... write CMS software.

In addition to roads, Europe apparently lacks sarcasm as well.

The Office

Zane, another point too, about the complexity: the Valvetronic V8's in the newer BMW's are an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE more complex than the simple pushrod V8 in GM's. Not only are they DOHC, but they have variable cam phasing AND cam lift. In fact, BMW has been backing away from Valvetronic for the very reason that it makes the engine too large, too complex and too top-heavy (lots of moving metal parts in those heads, not to mention the Valvetronic actuator). Why do you think they don't use it in the M engines and the new 3 is coming out with 2 turbos bolted to the older M54?

Oh, and as far as mileage, the 4.8L in the BMW may only have 91% of the volume, but it still gets similar mileage numbers to the M3 (16/23). So how does the smaller displacement do any good in that case...?

Zane, you might want to compare the fuel efficiency of the BMW engines vs the GM V8. Although the BMW has a smaller displacement, it's going to be hitting higher RPMs more often and thus will use more or the same amount of fuel as a low-revving V8. In fact, the EPA's mileage numbers bear this out: the M3 gets 16/24 and the Impala SS gets 18/28 in a heavier car with a slushbox (albeit with DOD, but what's wrong with that?). HP/Liter is a nice way to try to show technical superiority, but what really matters is how much power an engine makes and how much fuel it uses to do so, period. I'll bet the alloy V8 is even lighter than the iron block S54 in the M3.

I consider myself a BMW fanboy, but GM really does know what they're doing in the drivetrain department.

Too bad VW = FWD and huge overhang. I love the rest of the lines of the car. Could've even been a Z4 Coupe competitor with the 3.6, too. Oh well.