quattros and 1 G

[QSHIPQ at aol.com]

Back when I was auto-xing my 85 GLH turbo, I used (still have in fact) the
g-analyst to finely tune the suspension and wheel/tire combo.  Yes,
transition g's of hi magnitude are pretty easy.  What usually isn't are the
constant g's in a given corner.  C&D uses a 300ft radius skidpad to "grade"
cars.  As long as all cars go thru the same test, it's actually a pretty good
comparo.  To compare my dodge easily, I laid out a 300ft radius turn myself.
After all the tweeks, I could hit .98-.99 wth A008R tires (precursor to 001),
peak transition for bragging rights; 1.01g.  I also found out that small
gains in wheel width, made a bigger comparative difference than any gains in
wheel size or tire size.  In fact, going from a 15x7.5 to a 16in wheel/tire,
yielded lower cornering numbers.

No question a quattro can corner in excess of 1 g IMO.  I sat many times in
Keith Andersons urq, and my butt is pretty well calibrated to turning forces.
 With his 500in/lb springs and awesome chassis setup, there is no question
he's running over 1g.  If it really interests the crowd, I'd be happy to dust
off the toy and run some numbers.  I may just pack it up and bring it to
Grattan qclub event in a couple weeks

Scott Justusson
ex g-whiz
To: quattro at audifans.com
Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2002 00:38:13 -0400
Subject: Re: quattro digest, Vol 1 #4009 - E-bay musings and lateral G's
(mAC)
From: Larry C Leung <l.leung at juno.com>

I would have to side with Brett here. On the latest Road and Track
handling test, the range of cars was from a low of 0.9 for the rather
excellent Mazda Protege MP3 to a high of 0.98 for the Vette Z06.
Note, the majority of the top cars clustered from 0.97 to 0.98 G.
Also, note this is on a SKIDPAD. There is a combination of
factors here. The Lotus Elise (euro version) that was tested here
couldn't top the skidpad rankings (did 0.97) because it lacked
the HP to turn-in and gain the higher numbers it obtained on the
track. As they stated (paraphrased), the Lotus can corner MUCH harder
than any of the other cars in the comparo. To wit, the Lotus, which had
the same basic skidpad values as the top ranked Ferrari 360 Modena,
could make the hairpin turn on the infield section of the Streets of
Willow
(Springs, CA) at 40.4 MPH at the apex. The Ferrari, around 34.1. However,
being a timed section the Ferrari was able to power out and clear the
section
faster than the 140 HP Lotus. I'd be willing to bet (anyone have an
accurate
map of Willow Springs Raceway) that, at speed, BOTH cars may have
exceeded 1.0 G in transition. Heck, on streets, I'd be willing to bet in
TRANSITION,
my GTi has even occasionally broken 1.0 G (so THAT's why my tires only
last about 20K miles!).