Re: Weight a minute...here we go!

[Josh Pinkert <flush@us.net>]

At 10:45 AM 4/9/98 -0400, QSHIPQ wrote:
>
>the 740 shows tail to the A8.  And a major reason the "tire" comments arose.
>If you look further into that reference and plug in the numbers of weight
>shift, you can see that the 300lb weight differential to the aluminum A8 is a
>gain to the 740 in terms of weight shift in braking and accelerating
>

So you're saying that the 740 with rear drive...coming out of a corner,
will have the weight advantage accelerating?  Very true.  But in this case,
the weight issue won' t matter because the AWD advantage (which you accept
and deny?) takes over.  Torsen issues aside (you know my feeling here), the
A8 has "4 wheels" to put its power to the ground.  So the A8 can be at full
throttle sooner.  Plus, if both cars were accelerating from 30-70 out of
the corner onto the straight-away, the hp/weight of the A8 would put it
even further ahead.  Of course, the A8 would have to be on the brakes
earlier because of reasons already mentioned (weight bias disadvantage).
Seems, though, that the 740 advantage isn't so huge after all.
 
> 
>To fwd maybe, this is a reference book to awd.  Most of the pix are of
>prorally cars and the history of awd, and great basic understanding of
what it
>is.  Superior?  Where?  In prorally sure.  On the street?  Well, not proven,
>only extrapolated.  Too many time slips shows that's just not objective
>thinking.  Have things changed?  You betcha they have.  Blizzacks all but
>killed quattro as a advantage, traction control killed it in objective
>numbers, so documented.  So yes, things have changed.  So has the torsen
>center split.  Is it enough?  Well, when the S4 hits here, let's find out.
>Sure would like to see audi make quattro rule, cuz it doesn't now.
>

Dropping the Audi flag, let me pick up my AWD flag.  Here I go...waving
away, but maybe I'm not.  Hmm.  Take one low cf situation (prorally) and
say that AWD rules.  But in another low cf situation, it doesn't.  Traction
is traction.  Right?  I havn't been to Steamboat with you.  And I probably
will never go.  But if we talk apples to apples, it seems really clear that
AWD will outperform FWD or RWD.  Blizzaks on an AWD car vs. Blizzaks on a
RWD car...AWD car can outaccelerate the RWD car any time.  Drag strip?  RWD
loss.  In a corner?  RWD loss.  Is that a tasty apple?  Definitely sweet
apples for AWD.

<picking up my Audi flag>  I don't have all the reviews handy, but I
remember reading countless articles of commentary about how quattro
equipped cars feel so surefooted, silent and stabile.  I would never use
those descriptors for traction control...whoever makes it (even Audi).  I
would describe them as jerky, noisy, and obtrusive.  For low cf street use,
I'll take quattro, thank you.


--        
Josh Pinkert 
flush@us.net 
'98 A4q 2.8 
ISO '70-'73 Porsche 911 
--