Forget Politics, AGW, Peak OIL, IRAN - THIS IS SERIOUS

[tortoise]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

What, Po, be the limit in power for FWD applications ?

No limit, just increasing disadvantage.

Watch a drag race between front and rear drive cars of equal ET. The rear-drive car will leap ahead at the start, the fwd will catch up near the end. The fwd needs much higher power/weight for the same performance as the rwd.

There's horses for courses . . .

[botsapper]

Here's a 1-mulepower, front & rear 'leg' drive. I feel sorry when they give it a swift kick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSbZrQp-HOk

Just in case, here's a 'fun' testing of the BigDog.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXJZVZFRFJc

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

Well - circa 1970s or something, the current rockets go by rail

Only the Russian ones.

[brucey]

Wheels? Wheels are for roads.
Where we're going. We don't need roads.



Also, RWD is just more fun to drive. Having the front wheels turn, brake, and power while the rear wheels just drag along is very efficient but it just doesn't feel as balanced to me.

[larrybuck]

Amphibious Hover craft w huge fan, like Gentle Ben TV show in the Everglades!

May you ever glide so peacefully on any terrain or lack of you wish!

Just keep the bottom waxxed, and GAS it UP!!! ( Oh sorry, I forgot we are not to think
about gas in that bad way) I'm embarrassed, floored actually...oh! there I go again
wid those bery bad.d.dd.d adjatives!! , not to mention my spelling... I did mention!

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Only the Russian ones.

Chinese too



Oh and the Indian ones



:P

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by brucey

...Having the front wheels turn, brake, and power while the rear wheels just drag along is very efficient but it just doesn't feel as balanced to me.

Originally in the 1920s as cars got faster and faster many designers believed that even having the front wheels braked was a bad move for the same reason, i.e the wheels had too much to do - including the originator of my sig quote.

He changed his mind one day after testing a car where the axle had been fitted backwards - so it went quickly in reverse instead of forwards. He braked hard of course and realised the brakes were more effective that way.

A good handling FWD car shouldn't have the rear wheels just dragging, but quite a few do unfortunately - the dead beam style axle on a Paseo compared to it's contemporary competitor the Civic Coupe having a wishbone setup.

George has a "dragging around" design which in normal driving doesn't seem bad at all - some people who have pushed it harder than I do have said that a bug can get less predictable - there is a potential project in an owner's club to come up with a tuned suspension setup for bugs (107/C1/Aygo).

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by brucey

Also, RWD is just more fun to drive. Having the front wheels turn, brake, and power while the rear wheels just drag along is very efficient but it just doesn't feel as balanced to me.

That's a subjective evaluation, and I'd suggest unlikely to be accurate because of the many other differences between typical RWD and FWD cars. Just to take a couple of extremes, can you honestly claim that a RWD '59 Chevy http://photos.cokertire.com/data/505...ala-white2.JPG is more fun to drive than a FWD Honda CRX?

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

That's a subjective evaluation, and I'd suggest unlikely to be accurate because of the many other differences between typical RWD and FWD cars. Just to take a couple of extremes, can you honestly claim that a RWD '59 Chevy http://photos.cokertire.com/data/505...ala-white2.JPG is more fun to drive than a FWD Honda CRX?

Key point, well made.

There are great RWD cars and great FWD cars - there are also really crappy examples of both in the world unfortunately, just like there are really crappy AWD vehicles too.

[niky]

On the racetrack, the only advantage of rear wheel drive is that you get to accelerate faster from a stop or from slow speeds. On corner entry, you can pretty much chuck a front wheeler in any way you want... Get all crossed up, have the back end kick out, then slam on the gas pedal and the car straightens up and out of the slide. Just like all wheel drive.

Of course, it's not an efficient way to get around a dry track, and FWD race cars are often slower (unless rules balance things out), and in long corners, it does help to have power applications push e nose in rather than out... but given how most rear wheel drive cars on the road are tuned with annoying, nannying understeer nowadays...