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, i haven't had any experience with FR on snow, before, so i wouldn't know, my bro was just complains to me about how his mercedes is shit in snow...

and btw, i WOULD go to extreme measures and go get some god damn studded tires in the winter... just to make sure

This post has been edited by atlantian on Mar 22 2008, 01:16 PM

Studded tyres should be used when competing in a ICE event. For snow, a good set of rally studless tyres will do. If your willing to risk the lives/cars of others on the road, by all means use normal tyres in the snow, if you have any common sense at least get some winter studless tyres or put chains on your car.

BTW atlantian, what the hell does your lil signature say?

ahhh... what about the boyscout motto "better safe then sorry"?

besides, by the time i get around to going out every year in the snow, the roads are forming GLACIERS...

EDIT:i think my sig has to do with "thigh tumor" or something

This post has been edited by atlantian on Mar 24 2008, 02:27 PM

Why instead of answering my question do you go and change your sig??

I hope you didnt think it said "fujiwara tofu ten".............cos it didnt.

errrm... i can read chinese, that means i can read the kanji in japanese

EDIT:and yes, that was the joke...

This post has been edited by atlantian on Mar 24 2008, 06:15 PM

I dont understand what your saying, what was "the joke"?

you probably know already, but japanese and chinese kanji (or hanzi) often have different readings...

and the hiragana you put in was also incorrect......

oh, yeah, pronounced differently but meaning is pretty similar... and idk what hiragana is... i am presuming, you mean the simplified... idk, maybe it's

i didn't make the sig, i just pulled it off a site because it looks cool.

and BTW, what do you think of car that has the ability to move it's front wheels(FF or AWD)? i just think that it helps drive the car when the driving wheels in the rear is not able to grab...

Oh in that case, Ill let you off....

Hiragana is one of the simple alphabets that the japanese use. Altho it would be cool if you had a real fujiwara tofu ten sign - 藤原とうふ店

As for your question, what do I think of a car that can move its front wheel?...well, its good to have front driven wheels, true, if the back loses grip, you have the front wheels along with the weight of the engine giving grip to the front wheels, same as a porsche has the engine weight giving grip to the rear wheels.

I was brought up on FF cars, so I think its a good thing in general, and owning an AWD I have also experienced the benefit of having grip front and back

ahhhh....errrmmm.... idk how to say this... but... i am generally anti FF... but lets put that aside..

i was describing that AWD is more like a monkey(4 sets of grabbing digits) climbing trees as opposed to a strong paraplegic climbing trees(2 sets of grabbing)... FF is like... a guy with muscular legs but no arms trying to climb a tree...(2 sets of... not really grabbing)

but, yes, wouldn't a porsche be better then an equally weighted and equally powered FF? because there is torque steer(the horizontal engine placement is evil), and there is unloading...

EDIT: and btw, i just write 藤原豆腐店(自家用) because i read the chinese scanlations (i don't actually think that would be cool... i would be a fanboy... and flamed to death...)

This post has been edited by atlantian on Mar 24 2008, 06:58 PM

Hmm, i dont know if porsches torque steer or not, but would have to ask someone whos driven one.....

The whole thing with an RWD is the way you can use the power of the engine to oversteer, which is near impossible in an FF. An FF takes driving skill to slide it through shifting the weight of the car, flicking it etc...

Altho I wouldnt agree, on the whole thing about "2 strong legs but not really gripping"

How comes you can read chinese, you chinese? I live in Japan, so Ive learned to read and write japanese....

And as for being flamed, half the people on here probably wouldnt be able to tell the difference between kanji and hiragana (or katakana) let alone know what it means......

This post has been edited by djmisio85 on Mar 24 2008, 07:08 PM

haha, i am taiwanese american, but let's not discuss politics here...
i would say porsches don't torque steer, because:

a) they have the driving wheel in the back, and the power difference will have to be so great that it twists THE WHOLE CAR, and you would probably have fixed that with a torque bias LSD if you are going to tune your car up that high...

b)and... look at the engine orientation, it's built like the first gen impreza econocars.. vertical engine, FF...

oh, and sorry about the analogy... i was trying to point out... FF's don't race-start well, and they have problem with front inside wheel lift(since the engine is in the front and all). but you can fix that with stiffer rear suspension and a good lsd/swaybar/unequal double a arm suspension(TSX)

FWD's are faster on gripless surfaces than RWD's, you just have to look at the history of rallying to notice that. In that case, your thumbless analogy is incorrect.

Porsches suffer from monumental rotational inertia, which becomes very interesting on snow etc.

Torque steer is caused by unequal length driveshafts in FWD's, difficult to overcome in cars with transverse engines (but there are ways). Porsches do not have this issue. Another kind of torque steer arises from hitting bumps while on the throttle in a car that sends power to the front wheels. If you have an ATB diff in a powerful fwd, things can get very wrestlemania up front.

Most AWD's have little steering feel as a result of taming that bump-torque-steer, which is part of the reason why i find subarus unbearable to drive quickly.

Edit: You can't fix chassis flex with a torque biasing LSD. What a stupid, stupid thing to say.

This post has been edited by Cubits on Mar 24 2008, 07:20 PM

well, i am not talking about drifting... and... i know front wheel power is good in dirt... i am a rally fan, but i still like rear wheel power... so i would either get a porsche 911(found some good ones for under 20k), a porsche 911 turbo(R4), or a F4(typical AWD) layout car...

EDIT: i ment a format with the engine pressing on the drive wheels, not just FF or AWD

2nd EDIT:and i have driven a porsche like RR car in LFS, just need to apply throttle with better skills because rallying with an RR is "ub3r 1337"(because it's so "unpredicable")

3rd EDIT:btw, i wonder if i would end up in a ditch if i throw away the powersteering on the impreza?

4th EDIT: i was not talking about chassis flex in the traditional context, i am talking about, if you have 2000hp on a porsche with a horizontal engine, it would just do a pop wheelie and spin around. thus, i was trying to imagine it having a torque difference between the rear wheels and torquing the body into going one direction... and if you have a torque bias LSD, you can fix drivetrain-induced torque steer...

This post has been edited by atlantian on Mar 24 2008, 07:43 PM

Rear-wheel drive is the best and preferred method on race tracks/circuits. The reason is that RWD has less mechanical components (thus less parts will break on any given race), will be LIGHTER (without all the extra drivetrain components), and of course, is NOT prone to understeer. In fact a properly setup RWD car will most likely be the fastest given equal drivers. MOST of the time.

However, my PREFERRED drivetrain setup is All-Wheel Drive. On the street, backroads, mountains, lakeroads and your local freeway ramps nothing can really compare to a properly setup AWD system. On typical public roads you will encounter many bumps, wet patches, rough areas (dirt, gravel, etc) and of course the random blind corner that you just bumped into.

Advanced AWD systems such as on the EVOs will enable you to simply power out of a bad situation by doing nothing more than mashing on the pedal. Although this is the safest to do on the EVO, other AWD cars such as the WRX STi and do it as well.

I've never driven a GT-R with its ATTESA system, but I will be getting one shortly (trading in my 350Z). I can't attest to whether you can simply give it more power to get out of a corner or not, considering it's basically a RWD setup with electronic sensors attached to the front wheels when traction loss/slip occurs.

Although wonderful thing about AWD is its ability to drive in adverse conditions such as dirt, mud, gravel, rain, snow, etc. In Rally racing, you HAVE to have AWD of some kind. RWD would simply make you stuck. When I'm doing backroads, many times I wish I had the grip of AWD cars to get me quickly through a corner when my heavy-ass RWD car simply can't go as fast.

Once again, on the racetrack with full racing slicks and a dry, freshly paved surface, a properly setup RWD car SHOULD be faster (straightaway or cornering).

Furthermore, AWD allows you to launch from a standstill with little or not effort, unlike a RWD car where you have to modulate your throttle extremely carefully. I love doing AWD launches, they are just so fun. Rev the car to about 4-5k, slip the clutch, and go.

Some of the disadvantages of AWD is understeer, although in modern AWD systems this issue has largely been fixed. You can also fix it through aftermarket suspension setups and whatnot. However, advanced systems such as those found on the EVO (ACD, AYC, etc) and GT-R (ATTESA, HICAS) essentially solves the problem of understeer, greatly reducing understeer.

HOWEVER, simply reducing understeer doesn't solve the problem of an AWD car's inherent physical characteristic of "pushing." Because the front wheels are putting down power, an AWD car will ALWAYS have this characteristic where the car tends to "push forward in a straight line." You may not FEEL the understeer because your system is so advanced, but the behavior is still there.

This leads to several problems, the biggest of which is greater tire wear. On a circuit, changing tires more often = more time used = finishing in a bottom position. RWD cars do not have this tendency to push, but will usually provide a neutral feel to oversteer.

In conclusion my heart belongs to AWD. On the street it is almost ALWAYS superior to a RWD car (from personal experiences and real-world datalogging with different cars), you can drive in in any type of weather, and the massive amounts of grip is VERY good for fast driving on public roads. It's a safety net that allow you to drive your car at 80-90%, instead of having to drive it at 60-70%.

I am not an amazing driver, but I am pretty good. I know my lines, how to apex, etc. AWD cars provide me with the ability to push the car FURTHER, and I like driving a car closer to its limits than not.

My personal opinion?

RWD > AWD on the track
AWD > RWD on the street

You forgot one more thing regarding AWD. An AWD has quite an advantage over FRs when accelerating from a stop, but has the slower acceleration in later gears. However, the 4WD layout doesn't suffer from this.

(Yes. There is a difference between AWD and 4WD)

This post has been edited by Meteor on Jun 19 2008, 04:14 AM

Correct. From a dig AWD will usually win, from a roll AWD will usually lose. In theory, but it differs from car to car, and is dependent also upon the AWD system (symmetrical AWD and your DCCD setting on a WRX STi; ATTESA on the GT-R; S-AWC on the EVO).

Isn't 4WD like a system that doesn't change the torque split no matter the situation?

"4wd" is usually a term used for cars that are only part-time 4 wheel drive, ie you can select when to be using all four wheels or not. Awd is usually applied to cars that are powering all four wheels all the time out of the drivers control.

Pff... Dont you know AWD stands for Awesome Wheel Drive? You'll learn that soon as I build my Buntamobile!

Oh, i thought that was 4x4

4x4 is usually used to refer to SUVs, internationally anyway.

Origins of the term are 4 wheels present, 4 wheels driving, this is how we end up with trucks that are 4x4,6x4,8x4, etc.

Holy shit man youre still alive?

I'm the Highlander man... Nothing can take me down.

Negative.

A swift chop off the head and then THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE.

Yea, but who carries swords these days... I'm good to go.


*puts helmet on for good measure*