FWD or RWD?

[Patrick Bateman]

ORD said:

Cringeworthy. Has your 172 Cup had an engine and suspension transplant? If not, I can think of very many RWD cars that would keep up with it, and in fact be much faster. Or was that your way of saying 'I drive recklessly'?

On a B-road, not sure about 'much faster' there to be fair. The Clio's are rather good at staying with far more exotic metal when the road gets twisty.

[V8RX7]

DoubleTime said:

Ford Ranger 3.2 Auto

Renault Clio 172 Cup

Honda CRF305 Modified

Volkswagen Golf Mk1 GTi

BMW 325i M-Sport E30 Touring

Peugeot 205 XS

Peugeot 306 D-Turbo Phase 1

Volkswagen Golf Mk1 GX

Yamaha RD50

[anonymous-user]

A couple sneak in here chief....

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L1rtU02ljvQ



Or are they considered, unworthy?

[RobM77]

I'm out of work now and have watched the Mini video. This simply demonstrates what I and others have been saying. His neutrality (beautifully driven!) is a product of a racing setup and the speed he's carrying:

The setup is a very weird one and peculiar to front wheel drive. With the Mini in question you usually calculate the optimum camber as with a rear drive car, but then rather than sticking with that, it's common (with a racing Mini or Metro) to then modify the rear suspension mountings to reduce that camber, which seems counter intuitive but you actually end up going faster because understeer isn't so much of a glaring issue (if combined with the right driving style - see below). It's an extremely strange thing to do, but it works very well. It was this single tweek that saw me go from midfield to the front, years ago, and I learnt it off someone far more experienced with FWD.

With regard to the driving, when you're on a race track you can commit enough speed to the corner to use weight transfer and momentum to neutralise the car. This isn't possible on the road at lower safer speeds, and it's why I prefer RWD on the road, but don't mind FWD on track.

The above two points also support my point of discussion about how inherently weird FWD is to both set up and drive. A rear drive car is much more intuitive and friendly, which is why many people prefer them.

[Toltec]

ORD said:

DoubleTime said:

22 pages and counting....? Haha

Have a clio 172 cup for my fwd needs (B roads - I would challenge any rwd to keep pace. Good luck!)

Crf250 enduro for my (pure) rwd needs (not bullst lateral internet bks)
& a decent pickup that switches from rwd to 4wd when I get to the dirt (which will easily out perform either of the aforementioned in suitably muddy conditions)

So where does that conclusion get us? Into another pointless debate I'm guessing....

Cringeworthy. Has your 172 Cup had an engine and suspension transplant? If not, I can think of very many RWD cars that would keep up with it, and in fact be much faster. Or was that your way of saying 'I drive recklessly'?

Oddly enough I was on a road trip earlier this year with an ex bike racer along in a Clio, not sure if it was a 172 or 182, but not a cup. He pretty much kept up, but he was having to drive the wheelnuts off it and had the brakes smoking more than once. We were all pretty impressed how well it went and in reality was never more than a few tens of seconds behind and any traffic meant he caught up straight away.

[nickfrog]

RobM77 said:

I'm out of work now and have watched the Mini video. This simply demonstrates what I and others have been saying. His neutrality (beautifully driven!) is a product of a racing setup and the speed he's carrying:

The setup is a very weird one and peculiar to front wheel drive. With the Mini in question you usually calculate the optimum camber as with a rear drive car, but then rather than sticking with that, it's common (with a racing Mini or Metro) to then modify the rear suspension mountings to reduce that camber, which seems counter intuitive but you actually end up going faster because understeer isn't so much of a glaring issue (if combined with the right driving style - see below). It's an extremely strange thing to do, but it works very well. It was this single tweek that saw me go from midfield to the front, years ago, and I learnt it off someone far more experienced with FWD.

With regard to the driving, when you're on a race track you can commit enough speed to the corner to use weight transfer and momentum to neutralise the car. This isn't possible on the road at lower safer speeds, and it's why I prefer RWD on the road, but don't mind FWD on track.

Agreed totally - the Megane in Cup/aggresive kinematics/GSK guise is boring on the road. It kind of starts working at 8/10ths.

[nickfrog]

Debaser said:

nickfrog said:

Debaser said:

nickfrog said:

It doesn't need to as the front wheels are pointing in the right direction in the traction zone.

Doesn't matter which way the wheels are pointing. It'll always obey the laws of physics.

Agreed. It won't understeer from there nor tend to.

It will if he's accelerating.

With the 4 wheels pointing straight ? Somehow I doubt it. He is accelerating. Check if he understeers in the video. Oh, and can you show us some workings please ? wink

[Kawasicki]

nickfrog said:

Debaser said:

nickfrog said:

Debaser said:

nickfrog said:

It doesn't need to as the front wheels are pointing in the right direction in the traction zone.

Doesn't matter which way the wheels are pointing. It'll always obey the laws of physics.

Agreed. It won't understeer from there nor tend to.

It will if he's accelerating.

With the 4 wheels pointing straight ? Somehow I doubt it. He is accelerating. Check if he understeers in the video. Oh, and can you show us some workings please ? wink

I've looked at the videos and many others. He goes into corners very quickly with moderate lift off or trail braking oversteer. Then when he gets on the throttle, the balance shifts towards mild understeer.

have you looked at the videos?

workings are easy...the more vertical load on a tyre the more lateral load it can support. The more longitudinal load on a tyre the less lateral load it can support. Put those two together and you can work out in 5 seconds that fwd will always tend to understeer under power.

[anonymous-user]

Toltec said:

ORD said:

DoubleTime said:

22 pages and counting....? Haha

Have a clio 172 cup for my fwd needs (B roads - I would challenge any rwd to keep pace. Good luck!)

Crf250 enduro for my (pure) rwd needs (not bullst lateral internet bks)
& a decent pickup that switches from rwd to 4wd when I get to the dirt (which will easily out perform either of the aforementioned in suitably muddy conditions)

So where does that conclusion get us? Into another pointless debate I'm guessing....

Cringeworthy. Has your 172 Cup had an engine and suspension transplant? If not, I can think of very many RWD cars that would keep up with it, and in fact be much faster. Or was that your way of saying 'I drive recklessly'?

Oddly enough I was on a road trip earlier this year with an ex bike racer along in a Clio, not sure if it was a 172 or 182, but not a cup. He pretty much kept up, but he was having to drive the wheelnuts off it and had the brakes smoking more than once. We were all pretty impressed how well it went and in reality was never more than a few tens of seconds behind and any traffic meant he caught up straight away.

Oh shucks!

Merry Christmas.

[Debaser]

nickfrog said:

Debaser said:

nickfrog said:

Debaser said:

nickfrog said:

It doesn't need to as the front wheels are pointing in the right direction in the traction zone.

Doesn't matter which way the wheels are pointing. It'll always obey the laws of physics.

Agreed. It won't understeer from there nor tend to.

It will if he's accelerating.

With the 4 wheels pointing straight ? Somehow I doubt it. He is accelerating. Check if he understeers in the video. Oh, and can you show us some workings please ? wink

Why do you doubt it? You really think FWD cars don't obey the laws of physics?

I've watched the video, nothing surprising happens, when accelerating it tends towards understeer.

As Kawasicki said, the workings are simple. If you're asking the front tyres to accelerate they won't be able to provide the same lateral load.

[RobM77]

Kawasicki said:

nickfrog said:

Debaser said:

nickfrog said:

Debaser said:

nickfrog said:

It doesn't need to as the front wheels are pointing in the right direction in the traction zone.

Doesn't matter which way the wheels are pointing. It'll always obey the laws of physics.

Agreed. It won't understeer from there nor tend to.

It will if he's accelerating.

With the 4 wheels pointing straight ? Somehow I doubt it. He is accelerating. Check if he understeers in the video. Oh, and can you show us some workings please ? wink

I've looked at the videos and many others. He goes into corners very quickly with moderate lift off or trail braking oversteer. Then when he gets on the throttle, the balance shifts towards mild understeer.

have you looked at the videos?

workings are easy...the more vertical load on a tyre the more lateral load it can support. The more longitudinal load on a tyre the less lateral load it can support. Put those two together and you can work out in 5 seconds that fwd will always tend to understeer under power.

Yes, that's basically how you drive a FWD car fast - you aim for slight oversteer before coming on the throttle and you exit with slight understeer. The video doesn't show it that much purely because it's mainly filmed at the kink before St Mary's and through St Mary's, which is decelerating the whole way, thus unloading the rear tyres and helping him into neutrality.

[heebeegeetee]

Debaser said:

Why do you doubt it? You really think FWD cars don't obey the laws of physics?

I've watched the video, nothing surprising happens, when accelerating it tends towards understeer.

As Kawasicki said, the workings are simple. If you're asking the front tyres to accelerate they won't be able to provide the same lateral load.

Why do you apply this only to the front tyres? If a car is accelerating then all four tyres are clearly accelerating. If lateral load is increasing on the car then obviously it applies to all of the car. Why are you separating out the front tyres, where are they going that the rest of the car isn't?

The front wheels of fwds tend to have a much higher vertical loading than the rears pretty much all the time - the fronts have an engine and drivetrain between them, the rears have not a lot between or above. They're at totally different loadings, hence the imbalance of a fwd (which can be readily exploited )

[Debaser]

heebeegeetee said:

Debaser said:

Why do you doubt it? You really think FWD cars don't obey the laws of physics?

I've watched the video, nothing surprising happens, when accelerating it tends towards understeer.

As Kawasicki said, the workings are simple. If you're asking the front tyres to accelerate they won't be able to provide the same lateral load.

Why do you apply this only to the front tyres?

Er, because it's FWD

[heebeegeetee]

Debaser said:

Er, because it's FWD

So there are only 2 wheels?

You need to explain why did I experience the rear end coming straight round on me on at least 2 occasions. So far you haven't managed to in all your explanations of what fwds do, which is why I think you've largely got this wrong.

There are four wheels on the car and one pair have more vertical loading than the other pair. The car is under lateral load (and possibly accelerating) both axles are doing likewise and all four wheels are doing likewise.

It is true that an fwd will tend to understeer, indeed that may apply to virtually all road cars, but I suggest the occasions when fwds tend to oversteer might be more common (and more easily achievable) than you think. Was certainly more common than I thought.

[Kawasicki]

heebeegeetee said:

Debaser said:

Er, because it's FWD

So there are only 2 wheels?

You need to explain why did I experience the rear end coming straight round on me on at least 2 occasions. So far you haven't managed to in all your explanations of what fwds do, which is why I think you've largely got this wrong.

There are four wheels on the car and one pair have more vertical loading than the other pair. The car is under lateral load (and possibly accelerating) both axles are doing likewise and all four wheels are doing likewise.

It is true that an fwd will tend to understeer, indeed that may apply to virtually all road cars, but I suggest the occasions when fwds tend to oversteer might be more common (and more easily achievable) than you think. Was certainly more common than I thought.

I've also had massive oversteer with fwd cars, probably bigger angles than with rwd cars, at least bigger angles that were recoverable.

I have read no comments that fwd cars don't oversteer. Of course they do/can. FWD cars tend to oversteer on a trailing throttle or with braking. They then tend to understeer on acceleration.

A typical fwd car accelerating away from a corner is in a very stable condition. Too stable for my tastes. Other people love that stability, and I understand why.

[Debaser]

heebeegeetee said:

Debaser said:

Er, because it's FWD

So there are only 2 wheels?

You need to explain why did I experience the rear end coming straight round on me on at least 2 occasions. So far you haven't managed to in all your explanations of what fwds do, which is why I think you've largely got this wrong.

There are four wheels on the car and one pair have more vertical loading than the other pair. The car is under lateral load (and possibly accelerating) both axles are doing likewise and all four wheels are doing likewise.

It is true that an fwd will tend to understeer, indeed that may apply to virtually all road cars, but I suggest the occasions when fwds tend to oversteer might be more common (and more easily achievable) than you think. Was certainly more common than I thought.

There's plenty of possible reasons the back end came round, if you turned in on a trailing throttle or on the brakes it's entirely possible. Has anyone claimed FWD cars don't oversteer?

What they all do, though, is tend towards understeer when accelerating out of a corner.

[e21Mark]

In fairness, my old E21 BMW race car could also understeer whilst accelerating.

Anyway, Happy Christmas no matter what wheel drive you prefer.

[Kawasicki]

e21Mark said:

In fairness, my old E21 BMW race car could also understeer whilst accelerating.

Who suggested that is not possible?

[mx-6]

It's an interesting one. I've driven and owned various FWD and RWD cars and would have to admit that I prefer the feel of FWD. To be fair I'm not one of these serious car men and have never owned anything very special, I'm sure others can tell me how RWD is technically better. I can see advantages for lap time, power slides/drifting and that sort of thing but I don't really get involved in that so it's not a requirement.

It's interesting to see how sort after older RWD performance cars are in comparison to FWD ones. I recently bought a new project motor, a MX6 2.5 V6 manual for £430, it's in very good shape for the year, I'm happy with it. I think they would be worth quite a bit more if they were RWD, as they aren't they are quite unfashionable and cheap...

[e21Mark]

Kawasicki said:

e21Mark said:

In fairness, my old E21 BMW race car could also understeer whilst accelerating.

Who suggested that is not possible?

No-one, although there was a comment about FWD doing so.