Pretty freakin' funny Options

Your exaclty right William. We both agree...

BTW-Where were yo last night buddy? I kept looking around for you, but to no avail. Maybe next time.

Marcus
awd4kicks

Sorry man. We lost track of time. We were busy at the house.
Also, I was a little worried about the poor talon. Due to the cold weather the boost spiked way too high. No problem, only when I put it back down it was still bogging. It was fine the last time I drove it so hopefully it was just timming being pulled. Thats what it felt like. We must have gotton some really bad knock or something and pissed off the ECU.

Time for a walbro?


William

[scorp28]

I have owned all 3 types-AWD, FWD, and RWD. I have raced (on the street)all 3 types and they all have their distinct advantages and disadvantages as most everyone has been saying. Out of all of the vehicles that I have owned I would say that I like my AWD the best with my 79 Monte coming in a close second. As far as who wins when 2 cars line up I believe that the driver is the biggest factor, within reason of course. I have been lucky alot of the times that I have raced and have only been beaten once in my life and that was by Dan I believe at MRC a few months ago. I knew that I had no business racing him and that he would hand me my A$$ because my car is COMPLETELY stock, but I did it anyway hoping that he would miss a shift so that I could keep my streak alive. DAMN YOU!

To try to prove my point here are a couple that I have won that I should have lost big time: my 87 Grand Am with a stock 2.5 against a 3KGT N/A and my 81 Cutlass with a stock 4.3 against a 5.0 Stang.

[natedogg]

its good to see that everyone is still around. MRC didnt take off as I wish it would of. WE needto bring it back. Just a few of us who are outfor one common purpose..... not to stand around for 2 hours and circle jerk.

Geez Dan. Racing's fun and everything, you know I'm always up for it, but I think half of the reason everyone meets up is to socialize and talk cars.

[natedogg]

Oh I know AWD rocks.  I own one and I'd never get rid of it  any time soon.

I'm just saying AWD has it's limitations, thats all.  In stock form, or low level mods, it really shows.  I was just tring to point out that even tho AWD kicks ass out of the box, it might not be able to stay ahead of the RWD V8 in the long run.  

If you have a 12 second car, it really doesn't matter.

I love AWD in the snow and rain.  Hell, I love it on dry roads.  

We were talking about stock DSMs and the AWD gets it's 1/4 because of it's take off.  For a stock or slightly AWD TEL racing a Mustang, it would be  a short race if the AWD didn't get the take off right.  Not doging AWD at all, but it does slow us down.  Thats all.  Once you build the car up and add the HP, then you can take cars down from a roll and still keep pulling.  

In comparing with owning a FWD and a AWD, it did take a lot less mods to make the FWD move on top end.  If I could only choose one, I would go with the AWD because of it's all over advantage.  However there is one place the FWD is a blast and that is on the HWY.  Weather I'm racing someone or just tring to get away from a crowd of lemmings, I just have to mash the gas and the thing just keeps going and going.  Even with intake mods, MBC, and test pipe, I flew to 135 much faster in the Talon  then in the Galant with the same level of mods.  

Cars that would spank my FWD in the 1/4 would have trouble tring to get away from me on the HWY.  I know when I first raced my Talon at the track, I was beaten by a high 13s Mustang.  The thing just took off so much faster then I could, but I was starting to pull by then end of the 1/4.  It was just too late at the moment.  If we had gone for the 1000meter race, I might have won.  Point being, from a roll, FWD really looks good.  Anyone stupid enough to race a modded FWD from a roll will prolly get thair ass handed to them.  That being the stock V8 crowd.

So, both cars have a advantage.  It is just clear that AWD has the overall advantage.

William

I used to completely agree with you here William. In fact, it used to be my claim to fame as one of the few FWD drivers on here. But recent events have changed my mind.

I now own an AWD. I recently raced Josh's FWD with it from a roll. Our mods are almost exactly the same...16G, full 3" exhaust, and so on. Except, he was running about 4 psi more boost than me and he has a big ole' FMIC. I pulled on him from a 15 mph roll all the way through 4th gear until I had about 2-3 cars on him. I also recently raced a turbocharged Integra from a 50 mph roll. We all know how light those cars are. Marcus was with me when I pulled 2 to 3 cars on this Integra from a 50 mph roll and he even gave himself a little head start. In both of these races the AWD traction advantage was taken out of the equation, and my Tsi still performed beyond my expectations.

Now stock to stock, AWD may have some serious disadvantages at the top end. But once you start modding them, it seems the drivetrain losses become negligible. I'm only speaking from my driving experiences with modded FWD and AWD DSM's here. Theory can't hold a candle to fact. And what's better experimentation than 'spirited driving'!

Josh needs to log his car for knock or timming problems. This is kinda part of the problem talking about older cars. Also, we all know that some TELs are tight and some are not.

I raced a friend of mine after we just installed a 16G, EVO manny, and a ported 2G O2 housing on his car. This was on a 93 AWD auto. We thought for sure that the car would pull hard after viewing that 13b auto crap on the car. Aside from the turbo upgrade my friend had a full 3" exhaust and supporting mods. MBC, ext.

We both ran 15psi. I spanked his ass in my Talon FWD from a roll. I have a stock 14b 5 speed unported, untouched. Stock exhaust with a test pipe and magnaflow muffler. It might have been a closer race, but I know my custom IC gave the edge to pull on the car. However, my car is a very high milage car too and I was racing a 93 with a new motor in it, so take it as you will. Some TELs run like champs while others suffer. This has been a long know fact now. In this case, I knew that the 93 auto had knock problems. We think due to the tranny, but that car is long gone. It had a new engine and knock sensor and it was still cursed.

A good running FWD will always take a AWD (on top end speed) when they are truly the same level carand running the same. Also, since driver is such a huge factor, I'll say with the same level driver.

AWD is still better tho

William

[natedogg]

I agree that cars definitely vary in performance even straight out of the factory. My FWD is definitely a 'Wednesday car' (everybody knows fast cars are built on Wednesdays ).

Funny that you mention logging Josh's car though. Because that is exactly the reason I was out at his place. We tuned out most of his knock until he was seeing 17-18 deg. of timing throughout. There is no doubt it was running strong. He's the more experienced driver too, though when racing in a straight line from a roll I don't think much driving skill is required. I went all the way to 110 mph still pulling on him. Now maybe if we had shifted to 5th and gone to 140 he would have started reeling me in. I have too often heard that all things being equal a FWD will pull on an AWD from a roll. Well in this instance all things were not equal. Josh's FWD had mods on me and I still pulled on him from a roll. Hence my reasoning that drivetrain loss becomes negligible once an AWD DSM starts getting modded.

If you think about it, it makes sense. As you start modding a car you don't lose more horsepower due to drivetrain loss in proportion to the HP that you add. That would mean that though it took say 40 HP of drivetrain loss on a 200 HP AWD to get the tires moving on a stock car (assuming 20% drivetrain loss), it now takes 80 HP of drivetrain loss on a modded 400 HP AWD. I can't believe that drivetrain loss would increase linearly with HP. It doesn't make sense. I think the percentage of drivetrain loss decreases as you start modding a car. I think it remains a fixed number of 40 HP or maybe increases a little bit due to increased heat dissipation due to more power moving through the flywheel and drivetrain. So, accordingly, the 400 HP car would have say 10-11% drivetrain loss now.

Let do the same thing with a FWD car assuming 10% drivetrain loss. 200 HP * 0.1 = 20 HP drivetrain loss. With my reasoning the 400 HP FWD should still be seeing only about 20 HP or slightly more of drivetrain loss at 400 HP. That translates to about 5-6% drivetrain loss. So now on two equally powerful modded AWD and FWD the drivetrain loss differs between the two by 5% rather than 10%. This difference will continue to shrink as both cars increase in HP.