PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post

t walgamuth · #2 04-18-2013, 06:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ned2683

I respectfully disagree with that.

Those are race cars that often time have a minimal weight to compete. they often include ballast weights to bring it up to minimum weight. they also use race tires as well as a lot of aero dynamic tricks. This cannot be compared to street cars.

Also i believe there is a limit on the engine type, but not the HP so its drive trainloss can be negated.

with the same minimum weight (1415lb) the AWD car theoretically will turn/brake and accelerate as fast as the RWD car (assuming race tires have the grip necessary for both). with the added benefit of possibly gaining any additional traction on loose surfaces.

In this specific example it does not include any of the downfalls of a typical AWD street car.

I never believed AWD to provide more grip, the handling at and over the limit are different and you get on the throttle at a different time. personally to me the downfall has always been the weight associated with them.

since you autocross - i also had a 99 miata which i miss everyday!!

S2000's dominated Bstock, same class as the Subaru WRX STI's. despite having AWD and more HP. but in BSP where they can crank up the HP and add a lot of tires they dominate - however i think S2000's are in A Stock now?

now i have been at an event where it rained half way through and all the AWD cars were dominating.

i dont mean to be rude or anything, I also agree with everything Brian said, i just want to bring some real world examples.

I guess you have not noticed how the Subies dominate the stock classes they run in. Heck they aren't even very well balanced, very nose heavy. If they were balanced theyd be even faster. I am not aware that any subies fit into BS or AS and run head to head with s2000s. It may be different other places but I doubt it.

At Indy in the late sixties the stp turbine cars ran 4wd. Their cars were heavier and had less horsepower than the other cars and (I just read an interview with Parnelli Jones yesterday in Racer magazine) the gearing was such that he ran out of acceleration about half way down the straightaways. He made it up in the turns. That was in 1967. They ran the tires on all four wheels that the rear drivers ran on the rear.

For 1968 Lotus designed all new four wheel drive cars which were lighter and (if possible) handled even better) but USAC limited the intake size and restricted them to the smaller tires on all four wheels that the rwd cars ran on the front, hoping to make them uncompetitive. They made up some of the lost power by running white gas instead of jet fuel and still dominated the race.

After that usac reduced the intake even more... effectively banning turbines, and later went so far as to outlaw 4WD altogether when folks started showing up with it in piston engine machines.

4wd was banned in every major form of racing it was introduced in because it effectively made all the 2wd cars obsolete.

I suspect the ruling bodies also may feel it is more boring since with the added stability there are not as many crashes.