...still saves u from an expensive hedge - car interaction tho'...

 

Oh, don't get me wrong, I've driven lots of cars round Millbrook, and the benefits ot T/C were felt, even on dry tarmac. They tightened up the handling a treat. The fact is though these particular cars couldn't handle the power.

It's just I think it's not good engineering to design a chassis that can't handle the power and then bolt on some electronics to manage the power.

I also got driven round by the late Roger Clark. When I asked him about T/C (which he had switched off), he tapped his forehead and said 'this is the only traction control I need'.

Cheers
Tim


[Edited by NBW - 12/28/2001 2:51:09 PM]

 

Yeh it reduces the power, it doesn't cut it completely.....and as i said i can dial in how much i want it to slip before it kicks in

Don't get me wrong i think 4wd Is better but in most driving conditions its not necassary

In Gary's car with the equal length drive shafts, adjust koni's etc (probably better 224 45's than mine) i could hardly feel it kicking in and thats with 280 bhp and 310 lbs of torque compared to my 235bhp 245lbs torque

Go check the web site www.racelogic.co.uk - i'm not a sales person
it just does what it says on the box......

 

My Tuppence worth.......

Living in Aberdeen where it is very very slippy at the moment, I could not imagine for a second driving about without the AWD, now that's probably cos I'm too lazy to concentrate really hard on driving in the slippy conditions, but the scooby just goes and goes.

This afternoon 2 RWD beemers caused the longest tailback I've ever seen in the city centre cos they couldn't go forward on almost level ground, and on the same piece of road I never slipped once or even got any ABS kick and it was damned slidy!!.

Bottom line is that AWD does help progress on the slippy stuff big style, but if you hit ice then it doesn't matter if you have 2WD, 4WD or 10WD you're gonna slide, you've just got to hope you stop before having an expensive car to wall/kerb/ditch interface, so just don't get too confident with 4WD it doesn't make you invinceable.

I had great fun yesterday demonstrating lift off oversteer to my unsuspecting passengers on a big open space, put the boot in until the rear steps out then lift completely off the loud pedal causing an immediate 180 slide , second run I kept the pedal to the floor and the car crabbed sideways (at about 30 degrees) right down the road

By the way, a lot of the big 4x4's only have lockable/automatic centre diffs and LSD/lockable at the back like the UK impreza, the old model Range Rover used to only have a lockable (or LSD?) centre diff, it was funny to see people stuck on grass verges

Stuart


[Edited by sasim - 12/28/2001 10:16:44 PM]

 

TCS on the other half's motor = changing rear pads quite often. I assure you it is because she drives it like the wind, and not from my short stints as the driver Seriously though, after living with the luxury of not worrying too much about traction, the FR is surprisingly easy to break traction (and it is an auto, too).

She is starting to like awd after a couple of advanced driving courses when her car was doing a great impression of a top on low grip surfaces, and my Legacy was sailing trough with narry a wiggle

Her car does have a lot of grip though - but in corners it is NOT as stable as a Sube.

 

hehehe.... seems like a good time to re-open this can of worms, as 4 inches of snow lies @ my door...

9000RPM... just wanted to reply. Your point about traction makes perfect sense. To quote my boss who ran a Sierra cossie for 10 years.. "when you do lose it with 4WD, you lose it spectacularly"

Should have been clearer about the BMW... only in the WET does it slip everywhere on a dirt road. Probably also because of steptronic auto. Has to be driven to be driven in poor conditions to be believed: I have never experienced a car with less grip.
X5 here we come (not!!)

 

P.S. The Nevis Range car park was mother of all skid pans today!!
(runs not open yet though)
Lots of fun losing traction!!

 

AWD is a big advantage as far as grip goes but it is more unpredictable on a very slippy surface like packed snow or ice . My previous 3 cars were all pug 205's and you knew they would always understeer and you could control them nicely using the throttle and handbrake . My scoob is a nightmare on packed snow as one minute it is understeering and the next it is broadside . Happened me today , much to the amusement of 2 kids watching . I could go far harder in the pugs in snow ( and have more fun ) than I can in the scoob due to its unpredictable nature .
Mate was going up this steep snow covered hill in his 4WD scooby . Half way up 2 cops had got stuck in their mundaneo . Tried to wave my mate down for a tow . Did he stop ? Did he hell for 4 reasons -
1 They were cops .
2 If he did stop he probably wouldn't have got started again and got stuck himself .
3 He could barely get up it himself , never mind tow another car as well .
4 They were cops .
Apparantly they brought along a range rover to pull the mondeo and it nearly got stuck too . Had to get the gritting lorry which had snow chains fitted to tow them up the hill .

Derek

 

While we are on the subject of 4WD, I think it is worth comparing other 4WD systems to the Impreza's. How about Audi's torsen, or Porsches 4WD or BMW's 3 series x?

 

The merits of different AWD systems were well covered in the link John Banks posted on page 1:

http://www.fortunecity.com/silverstone/lancia/58/technical_school/traction/tech_traction_4wd.htm

Please let's not make this another 'x car is better than y car' thread.

Getting back to the original point, I think AWD drive does have some pretty big disadvantages - drivetrain loss, fuel consumption, refinement, weight are obvious ones.

However, especially in a country with weather like ours, I think it makes perfect sense on a car like the Scoob - provided the driver is sensible enough to realise that AWD vehicles cannot disobey the laws of Physics (even though sometimes they feel like they can!).

IMHO the limit (under power) may be higher in an AWD car, but once that limit is exceeded.....then KAABOOM....it is YOU, baby puppy, who is in trouble!!!

Also, without trying to turn this into a 'Wheel, tyres, brakes' thread, the interface between the vehicle and the road e.g. the tyres is a very important consideration. Since owning my Scoob I have been STUNNED at the difference between various tyre designs.

Tim

 

Actually Tim I think that discusing the handling of different 4WD systems is pertinent to this conversation, however it would seem that very few have ever bothered to actually compare these- on road. (Only in German mags do they do such articles)

 

Interestingly I was at Glenshee in my RB5. I tried parking beside a Range Rover and as the snow was too deep and my front bumper was acting as a snow plough decided to come back out. My rear wheels were on the road. With both my front wheels spinning the back wheels pulled me back onto the road.This does not support the original postings.

My model year 97 did exactly what was stated at the beginning of the thread in the same circumstances. i.e. it spun one wheel and didnt move.(However a gentle push was all it took to get it moving) Clearly my MY 99 is quite different and has different characteristics in the dry never mind the snow. The MY97 used to push me out of corners when applying power,(necessitating more steering lock to correct the attitude) whilst the MY99 pulls me into corners when applying power.

Just to add more fuel to the fire!

Beastie

 

Just to add extra fuel to the fire, I managed to lay a nice 20ft black line in my Forester S-Turbo yesterday, IN THE DRY, on tarmac!! I was accelerating hard uphill round a bend from a dead stop. I didn't spin the inside front wheel until about 3500rpm when it just lit up until I straightened out the wheels. I couldn't tell whether I had drive to the other wheels or not as I was concentrating on the road etc. So yes, you can spin a wheel easily! This isn't normally a problem, because your car only becomes 0WD once you have broken traction with the other 3 wheels which is pretty damn hard.
Further to what everyone else has said:-
4WD divides the engines torque/power between wheels, assuming they all have equal grip (standing start straight line acceleration) then a 4WD car WILL out accelerate/grip a 2WD car as long as the power produced is too much for 2 wheels to put down. I doubt anyone with a standard UK turbo has spun the wheels from a standing start on dry tarmac, how many of us have done that with 2WD cars?
On the 3WD theory, won't the centre diff lock once the front wheels spin faster than the backs? Even though only 1 wheel is spinning surely that means that the propshaft to the front diff is spinning faster than the one to the back, thus locking the centre diff?
Also, the other posters are correct in saying that 4WD doesn't help you slow down or steer any better than a normal car. The only exception might be when you are using engine braking, in which case the scoob will brake all wheels instead of 2. But who loses traction on engine braking? I can do it on an unladen bedford rascal by downchanging and coming off the clutch hard, but I wouldn't do that on my car!
Ps. you can also do 'endos/stoppies' on a rascal by braking hard when the back wheels go over a speedbump. Errr....not that I would do that of course.


[Edited by Toerag - 1/4/2002 12:02:12 PM]