Quote:
Originally posted by Tervuren
DUH! You don't design a FWD to be exactly like a RWD. The best FWD car's for an pliaction are not going to have the same setup. I think that would be common sense.
There are tons of variables. In my case, with my race car(Not the 944) FWD is horrible. The TOrque at the wheels is almost impossible to keep from excessive wheelspin - even with RWD. The suspension is not setup for FWD either, but is built for weight transfer to bite into the dirt on the side that needs to do the work. Make the front the driving wheels, and the weight shifts to the back, and you just spin tires and through dirt in the air. RWD isn't much better at low speeds, get too throttle happy and you power into nice tiny radius 360's. At higher speeds where torque at the wheels is less, its a very nice setup. I mostly run four wheel drive, which lets me push throttle through a corner.
I am wondering if we should also remove the brakes from the front of your car, as your front wheels eed to jsut do steering. Would it help? I think not.
FWD first came out on outright race cars, they allowed a lower center of gravity for better handling. Previously, you had to run things over the drivetrain that went to teh rear wheels. The fastest race cars back in years past where FWD at the Indy 500.
In higher horsepower applications, FWD starts to lose out a lot due to weight transfer. But in a car designed for smaller engines, it can be made to get around corners quite nicely. The problem, si when you have a driver driving a FWD likes its a RWD, they aren't getting the most out of it. Rally driver's tend wring more out a FWD then most. I've onyl driven them in sims or not in conditions to test the handling. I do love my 944's balance though.
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Umm, the Novis were successful because of their power, not because of FWD. Even the Offy-powered cars were RWD. And they dominated until the mid-engine/RWD cars came on the scene. Some of the early Novis were FWD, but none had more than 300 HP. In fact, more than one fatal crash in the Novis was listed as caused by terminal understeer.
Braking take traction away from all wheels equally, or at least, close enough to equally that the traction it takes away isn't material. Also, the weight transfer under braking increases traction available at the front wheels which offsets the traction used by the braking force. Your analogy doesn't hold.
FWD cars cannot be throttle-steered to the same degree as RWD cars and the steering will always have less feel. That's simply the way things are.
And to be perfectly honest, I fail to see how anything you've said contradicts anything I've said. I say that if all else is equal, RWD is superior due to the division of needed traction more evenly. You say that when things aren't equal, my claims aren't true. I've already said that. You've created a nice straw-man out of positions I don't actually hold, but nowhere have you contradicted anything I've said.