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American Muscle vs Japanese Muscle
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True. Personally, I'm not so excited about it, either. I'd prefer to get a little more usage out of these puppies.
Wadded Beef
Banned
to be "muscle" they have to corner like a shopping cart, so yea (i don't consider the z06 muscle, it's too good for that)
i'd much rather have an r34 than any of the american cars
Blazin Trav
Banned
Japanese muscle, rofl. American, definately.
Dodge too, no muscle car list is complete without the Charger and Challenger..
and.. Japanese can not make muscle cars.. they build sports cars.. when you have raw power and a deep throaty (shut up no puns intended) exhaust and it hauls ass, has a METAL body, and a nice wide stance (w/o a widebody kit).. then you have a muscle car.. plus it has to be around 30 years old
Now thats more like it!
BenSkywalker
Diamond Member
The same series that Cadillac was trouncing Audi in last year with RWD? Did Audi's AWD units all of a sudden stop working? The fastest vehicles in racing all run RWD, AWD is not competitive on the fastest levels and it won't ever be for numerous reasons.
1- Added weight/reduction of power. Adding in a differential adds weight to the car and reduces the amount of power making it to the drive wheels.
2- Considerable increase in unsprung weight- something no amount of refinement of technology is going to get around. Unsprung weight can't be controlled effectively enough on any vehicle- adding more of it is always bad.
3A- Physics. Start with acceleration because that's where AWD is 'good'. Under heavy acceleration weight is transferred to the back of the car(given that we are talking about anything resembling a traditional automobile) away from the front drive wheels. With enough acceleration the front wheels won't be touching the ground at all.
3B- The other more serious issue is cornering. When taking a corner you your car to essentialy pivot around your front tires. Looking at the most adaptive of AWD systems they use a computer controlled differential to adjust the torque to the tires that have the most traction. Under heavy cornering when under load the rear tires will lose traction first as the car is attempting to pivot around the front tires and the rear tires are the outer extremity of the cars surface contact with the road. When this happens an AWD car starts funneling torque to the front tires- and that is where we run in to problem. The power is diverted to the front tires because of too much power combined with lateral forces made it so the rear tires couldn't keep their grip- the front tires now have to deal with altering the direction of several thousand pounds of materials and their lateral forces along with additional power being put down. What ends up happening is that the front tires lose enough traction to reduce their effectiveness in changing the direction of the car and we end up with understeer- to counter understeer in a FWD or AWD we need to lift throttle- always best to avoid when racing.
In a RWD car you are allowed to modulate the amount of oversteer or understeer you want as a driver simply by adjusting the position of the throttle. The advantage of a RWD is that you have power on oversteer- rear changing position too quickly. Given the fact that you want to change direction(it is why you had the steering wheel turned after all) when looking at the limits would you rather it is done too quickly, or not quick enough? It is much easier to modulate in a RWD or FWD setup also as you know exactly what you are dealing with everytime- push too hard in a FWD and you won't make the turn, push too hard in a RWD and you spin out- both of these are catchable however while a four wheel spinout isn't(I'll get to dirt in a minute, don't worry).
These forces are also the reason why at the limits a mid engine RWD car is the ideal setup. By placing more weight over the drive wheels, you allow the front suspension to be tuned better for focusing on directional control while allowing more power to be put down to the rear wheels(as you have superior weight distribution). There is one drawback to mid engine however, the same elements that make it superior at the limits also serve to make it snap out of control much faster then a front engine RWD car. While a normal RWD car will tend to give you ample warning before you are in a spin(gradual oversteer) mid engine cars tend to snap out quite quickly.
Some think that rear engine just takes this to the next step however rear engine vehicles have so much weight over the rear that accelerating hard while in a corner can still lead to understeer as the weight transfer caused by acceleration combined with rear weight bias doesn't leave enough weight on the front tires to set for the turn.
As far as dirt is concerned, the same elements that serve to make AWD inferior under ideal conditions aid considerably when looking at worst case scenario situations. Because all responses are relatively muted in an AWD vehicle it is ideal for cases where people don't have quick enough reflexes to deal with external forces. On dirt, RWD vehicles pivot very quickly while FWD vehicles pivot very slowly making AWD a very good solution. You also have a different dynamic to consider on dirt, "spinning" in and of itself creates additional traction for you by building up dirt on the side of your tires- a factor that is never going to be there on pavement. Because of this, reasonably experienced drivers will have little trouble controlling four wheel drifts(and on dirt that is what they usually are) as they know how hard they can push it and when they will create enough traction to move in their intended direction(which is why when dirt rally racing you tend to turn way before the corner arrives and slide keeping the vehicle facing the direction you are going to be going- when you get there).
Looking at just being practical, FWD is the best. Looking for the best grip in worst case conditions, AWD is the best. Looking for at the limit performance it is AWD. Technology may have come a long way over the years, but until we can figure out new ways to manipulate gravity these things aren't going to change.
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