My point is, why do all that work to get silly power out of the engine, when all it does is make the car awkward to drive because it's totally beyond the abilities of the chassis? There are limits to the FWD chassis, no matter what you do to the gearbox. And if you do nothing to the gearbox, then you're just a tw4t really! Wheelspin sucks, I hate it. Almost as much as I hate cars that are tuned purely for a BHP figure and nothing else. I lost count of the amount of 300BHP cars I beat last year in my 207BHP mk2........ May I also point back to the fun days when John Cruttenden used to get cracking times in his mk1, and Chris Eyre in his mk1 jetta, and even yourself Bill, in your Jetta 16v, Graeme Vanstone(and of course Nick Wilson in his mk1 and now Polo)), through driving ability and good car setup. Not through having a "point and squirt" car to potter around the corners and beat everyone down the straights. Where's the fun in that?
Hmmmm. Interesting stuff. My only experience with 4WD is with an old Audi Quattro and a half day test drive of an R32. It's worth pointing out that whilst FWD cars only power the front wheels, they all have four wheel handling and four wheel braking, so it's only the acceleration aspect that is making the difference. There's a common perception that 4WD makes you invincible. My dad used to say,"No, it just gets you into more trouble faster!" I've driven the 225 FWD Cupra and the RWD 225 Audi TT and to be honest they both understeered in extremis, a bit dull really. Both coped with full power acceleration in 1st gear in the dry with no problem at all. I think if you're driving like a loon in the wet in any car you need your head examined. 4WD, TCS, ABS and Haldex wont do diddly squat when your sideways on having aquaplanned! I think on a dry track with everything else being equal the RWD cars are faster than the 4WD anyway. Personally, for a fun car, I'd rather have a RWD car (cue new Corrado in auto express last week, or a RWD Mk1 2.0 16v!) with a bit of oversteer! But for day to day use, FWD every day. More compact, less to break, less weight, dull predictable but safe handling etc etc. I'm not a 4WD fan as the vast majority of the time you're just carrying around a lot of unused weight. Keep it for landrovers, unless you constantly doing 1/4 mile sprints, or gravel stage rallies of course! Big power and lots of fun? RWD gets my vote. But you can have a lot of oversteer fun in a FWD mk1 if you know what you're doing! Cheers, Drew. Edited by: drew
I think the hugely successful Scoobies, high power Audis, Gallardo, 911 Turbo and Carrera 4 plus Evo,etc owners may disagree... Good thing about Haldex is that it's only 4wd when needed so more efficient. Works very well - I've taken daft liberties (with big run off areas just in case) and been astounded by the composure and grip. Especially reassuring in the wet. Not a lot goes quicker than a good 4wd car point to point on the twisties.
Ok ill venture out into the firing line....... ive got a mk2 with power thats into the high end of 200bhp, and at the moment it is overpowered in one respect to how the car is set up. That being if you plant it, it will spin in the dry through 3rd and in the wet through 4th. However knowing this i never plant the power down fully untill its well into its grip. When its wet i stay well within the limits of the conditions and never f**k about. Its nice to own a car with a fair amount of power to it and i can only afford to do things 1 at a time. Next on the list is an LSD (going for Quaife now) some coilovers instead of just matched springs and shocks, and eibach anti roll bar kit (this being top of the list). Its a great car to drive, has a real smooth delivery of power and is pretty good on the juice too 42mpg going down to Weymouth from inters Good luck to ya prof!
As everybody has mentioned, it's all about the way the car handles the power you have. With my car, I did all the preparation first and then fitted the powerful engine. Quaiffe Diff & Gearbox rebuild for reliability & traction, Helix racing clutch, 4 pot anchors, eibach anti roll bars, eibach strut brace, fully adjustable suspension, uprated bushes is certain areas and replacement standard bushes in others, seam-welded wishbones and a few other bits. Then and only then was I happy to fit the engine. I can safely say (having driven a Focus RS to within an inch of its life), my car handles gets the traction down allot better. Torque steer is present but nowhere near as bad as the Ford. But having grown up driving high powered RWD cars, there's no substitute for arse-out/opposite lock action!
A friend of mine had over 300bhp in his FWD octavia and it handled the power very well. His had KW 3 way suspension IIRC, poly bushes and 225 tyres. It went round the track very well. I drove it round the ring when it was about 230bhp and it was docile as anything I find the VR6 more of a handful than that!
See what the vortex guys say Lots are going back to NA (all motor) after finding out that 350BHP isn't really what they wanted from the car after all.....
Allot of those guys sound like they're just chasing bhp figures, waste of time if that's all you want from the car!
My point exaclty. SO many people make the mistake of tuning their car to get a huge BHP figure, only to find that they've totally ruined the driveabiliy and tractability of it. That's what I've been trying to say all along.
point well take mate, alex you are up around the 300bhp mark, still drivable? or is a valver more fun to "chuck around"
FFS I still haven't made my mind up engine wise I want an abf, but i want a 2.9, but i want a 20 vt. 20vt is too expensive and i cant decide between 2.0 16v or 12v vr6
Mine is driveable because I have built the car to be so, I also had a lot of input into the mapping of the car with Vince, he tailored the setup to my requirements, I've also fitted a switchable boost button so I have the choice of 0.7 or 1.4 bar, don't really want to go any higher as you start running into problems. As for the 16v, they're a world apart so you do have to adapt your driving style to suit. I'm currently building a high spec 2.0 9a 16v engine for my girlfriend's car, it was origally my project engine before I decided to go with the 20vT option. Just waiting for the block, flywheel & clutch to come back from the engineer and I'll fit it. Once that's up & running I'll have the best of both worlds. I still love revving the nads off a valver, always will. Who knows, I might even tinker with a VR6 in the near future! Edited by: alexc
ah you dont have to worry about this problem when you drive rwd *smug smile and looks down on the peasants * Edited by: lathamescortmk2
I remember it well! and since then I've done the corrado, and taken it around curbourgh. still getting wheelspin right through 2nd gear....both wheels.....
