Re: So what's good about FWD?

[dmiller@iea.com (Doug Miller)]

>> The Beetle is the classic example of this layout, so it has been done
>> successfully in the past.
>
>Should have thought about that -- yes, that's an excellent example.
>
>> Factors against it today are fairly straightforward.  Where FWD is safer
>> due to its inherent understeer, the RWD/R. engine is the opposite.  I speak
>> here of the average citizen (John Q. Public) and the typical slippery
>> condition crashes, *not* a track setup, where even RWD/R can be made to
>> understeer. So that advantage of FWD is lost.
>
>Ok; what is it that would cause a car to understeer on the track that
>would be absent on the street?
>--
>Shields.


My point was that a production RWD/R car would be set up with a soft
streetable suspension, and in slippery conditions would typically oversteer
in the classic civilian crash scenario (John Q. breaks the rears loose and
can't cope with the vicious spin).  I mentioned the track situation to
avoid flames since a RWD/R CAN be set up to understeer (ex. weld the two
rear axles together and try hustling through a sharp turn at full throttle
- the rears will fight the fronts for directional control, and probably win
due to the engine's weight providing them better traction).  Actually, in a
track setup (meaning lots of tuning and customizing) you can make almost
any car understeer or oversteer though these would be strange goals if you
want to win.

Doug