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So.. I understand in a rally or something, a AWD car has great advantage.

But... is it THAT big of a difference. I mean, I know people that would not even consider a car because it's not FWD.

Curious.. a 160hp AWD car vs a same 160hp FWD.. big difference?

 
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There's a pretty huge difference off the line....

Click Here (400k wmv)

 
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wouldn't awd be glued to the ground more so than the fwd?

 
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MUCH better traction, which means you can go faster on corners and you will own off the line.

 
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awd ... take it any day.... my next car after i sell my baby.. will be an S4 all-wheel drive .. bi turbo ill be takin right hand turns doin 95 .. YEAAH BABY...

 
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Not glued to the ground more but you just have all 4 tires turning so more traction. AWD will own off the line. Though I think ultimately the FWD will win because there is more loss of power from engine to wheels in AWD cause it's moving more parts than FWD.

 
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I don't get why some people think AWD cars magically have more cornering grip than 2WD cars. They've both got 4 tires which can only supply a certain amount of grip. AWD doesn't change this fact, and given equal tires both cars will have more or less the same limits of the tires.

 
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The main detractor from AWD is wieght. All the parts needed to implement AWD tends to make cars a bit heavy, but it's certainly a minor downside.

 
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AWD is the SHIET....you can launch at much higher RPM's and not even slip...and it doesn't hurt the have a turbo under the hood to go with that AWD...most rally cars uses turbo's

 
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It is true that tires ultimately give you the limits of adhesion, but AWD is superior to 2WD in cornering because in certain AWD systems (e.g. Quattro, Subaru) it redirects torque to the "wheels that have grip, away from the wheels that have slip", therefore making it a dynamic system.

Moreover, you're more likely to lose grip on two of the wheels than all four. If you lose grip on all four, it wouldn't matter what you have since you're totally out of control. But what happens more often than not is two wheels loose grip or one. In this case, AWD will take power out of that wheel that isn't gripping and put it to the other wheels that have and pull you out of that situation. In a FWD or RWD car, you lose grip on the front (understeer) or rear (oversteer) and you either lose direction or forward drive respectively.

After driving various Subarus and Audis, I am convinced that AWD is a great handling system. The downfall like others have mentioned is the added complexity (more chance of things going wrong) and weight.

 
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Obviously you haven't driven both cars in the twisties. There is a huge difference in cornering ability because you can accelerate more in the turns since more tires are providing the traction. In a FWD car you can pull yourself into control, in a RWD car you can correct and power yourself into an opposite spin and regain control that way but, with an AWD car you don't have to do either, just hit the gas and steer. If you ever try driving in the snow you will see what I mean!

 
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AWD is superior in FWD. In the snow, track, and maybe drag. As someone mentioned before, AWD gas some drivetrain loss. However, on track, powering out of a corner and not powering out of a corner can make a difference. Both dont corner as well as most RWD cars, but a well tuned AWD can keep up with a RWD entered and exiting corners. [IMG]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/IMG]

 
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A RWD vehicles still owns(on track) though... Most AWD cars tend to understeer more-so in corners, not like a FWD understeer but it's still evident. AWD requires a lot of suspension tuning to help balance the car. Also, the drivetrain for AWD is in-efficient and a lot of HP is lost due to drivetrain losses. For instance, a WRX makes 227BHP but only 168HP makes it to the ground. That is around a 25-30% loss! In comparison, FWD vehicles have a 15-20% loss.

Now, if you think that the R34 is AWD, you're only half right. It's a RWD configuration but can divert up to 50% torque to the front wheels when needed. However, at highspeeds, it's a RWD vehicle. The R34 AWD system allows drifting. If you compare it against the AWD of a WRX, there is a lot of difference. The WRX is a FWD vehicle majority of the time but can divert power to the rear wheels when needed. This is the most common configuration of AWD in production cars but is not superior. At highspeeds, the WRX is a FWD vehicle.

Personally, in a drag race, I would take an AWD vehicle. However, on the track, I would still prefer a FWD car. I'm not an experienced track racer and I wouldn't be able to drive to my limits. Thus, I would rather learn the basics and my limits better on a FWD vehicle.

 
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AWD vs. FWD, well that depends on what type of race. In a drag race all things being equal (Driver, Hp ect.) Id take AWD, Fwd has many Disadvantages when accelerating. The biggest one being, when you accelerate weight gets transferred to the back of the car which lightens the load on the front tires giving them less traction. In a road race AWD. FWD cars have way too many disadvantages on a road course. It takes much more tuning to make a good racecar out of a FWD vehicle vs. AWD. This isn't to say that a FWD car cant be a good drag racer or road racer, it just means that you will spend more time tuning out all the bad habits of a FWD car then you would with an AWD car. The only reason FWD cars as so Prevalent in this world is that they are good at keeping stupid drivers safe. A FWD car is much more forgiving on the road then say a RWD car, mostly because of their excessive understeer while under power. Where an AWD or more pronounced RWD would oversteer under power. Try it some time, fly on to an onramp with your FWD car and gun it while turning. Most likely you’ll end up sliding an extra lane over. That’s understeer. Next try that with a mustang or some other RWD car. Actually don’t you probably end up crashing, due to the excessive oversteer. With a properly trained driver, AWD and RWD will almost always out perform FWD. With an Idiot driver (I’d say 99% of drivers on the road fit in this category) FWD is much more safer and easier to control.


I mean Idiot drivers as being not necessarily stupid but more along the lines of having no concept of how to properly approach and execute a turn.

 
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Zzyzx - I beg to differ about FWD vehicles... In adverse conditions, they tend to oversteer around corners, the back ends are quite light(I've learned this more than once). And with a little suspension work(stiffer springs, front tower brace), the car handles more neutral but in the extreme case, the rear end will still slide out. Now, the best thing about FWD is that during understeer around a corner, using the gas can help counter the understeer. Also, you can depress the gas fully at entry and use the brake to control the understeer. How much do you know about FWD racing? A FWD car is a lot easier to learn to race on than a AWD vehicle. And, when it comes to learning to drifting, RWD still owns all!

 
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uhh no, its not that high for AWD vehicles, it only appears that high because more energy is lost on the dynojet since there are 8 rollers instead of 2, much higher friction than a 2WD dyno and thus, higher resistance force which translates to what may appear to be a 30% drivetrain loss... its slightly higher than 2WD yes, but its lower than the numbers will state

wrong again hehe, WRX's have a 50front/50rear power distribution by default until slippage is detected, automatic WRX's and the outback VDC have a 45/55 power distribution, older impreza manuals also had a 50/50 distribution, only the older imprezas that were automatic had 90/10 power splits


AWD 0wnz FWD in every possible situation, at the track, at the strip, in the dry, in the wet, the ONLY advantage that FWD has is the weight, it ends there

 
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Having driven both I'd still prefer a FWD car with a limited slip over an open differential AWD car. Plus the FWD car tends to be a whole lot lighter. I totally agree that on low traction surfaces that AWD has the clear advantage, but handling on concrete or asphalt with sticky tires i don't think it has much advantage over the other drivetrain types.

If that were really the case, then why are all of the closest showroom stock classes FWD? I don't know of too many teams that road race an AWD car sucessfully to comment, and the RWD cars (we're talking stock miatas) tend to have a much wider gap between places. If RWD cars were so easy to set up, you'd think that there would be much closer racing involved.

 
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I've seen dyno charts from more than one type of dyno... So far, I know of only 2 different dynos they use to measure AWD vehicles. The first one connects directly to the wheel hubs(very little friction loss at all!) and the second one is only 2 sets of rollers, not 8. And, on both dynos, they measured between 25-30% power loss on the drivetrain.

My bad, I was wrong about the subaru AWD system but it's still in-efficient.

The only advantage an AWD car offers is acceleration through the apex and the exit of a corner on a race track. A FWD car tends to be lighter, thus, can take the advantage of late braking into the corner. Now, when both have race slicks on and a proper race suspension, the speed at which they can corner at is insignificant!

 
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Quote: If that were really the case, then why are all of the closest showroom stock classes FWD? :
what do you mean by closest?

as far as there not being very many Teams that race AWD, I'm not shure but one reason could be that not very many Manufacturers offer an AWD platform.

I didnt mean to imply that AWD and RWD were "easy" to tune, all platforms have tuning problems. It's just that FWD cars handeling problems are more detimental to racing then with the other 2 platforms. as you probably know, In racing a little oversteer is ok, where Understeer is bad.

I said before, all things being equal, In road racing AWD is first, then RWD and finally FWD.
to back this Grassroots Motorsports featured a test between FWD, RWD and AWD. The WRX sedan beat the BMW 330i and Acura RSX Type-S in dry handling and ate their lunch in the wet handling test. WHy did they use these 3 cars? Becaus they are all in the same class (G stock) so in an SCCA Solo2 event these cars would race against eachother.

 
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New S4 is V8, no biturbo [IMG]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/IMG]

Matt

 
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there are two differentials instead of one. Therefore there is more power to the outside wheels at the front and back as opposed to just the front when turning..This may help a bit. But i agree it's mostly the tires that determine the grip and tration...

 
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Enough with the WRX though... I went to purchase one recently and I hate Subaru altogether now. Those salesmen think the WRX is so godly and so invincible. It doesn't give them the right to charge whatever they want for them. The second dealership I went to had a $5000 markup on them. I'm going to wait until the Lan Evo VII comes before I consider an AWD car again. And, I'm never going to buy a Subaru after the way I was treated.

Zzyzx - I can understand how they fair in the SCCA but the WRXs aren't really given any real competition. Now, if you look at the Japanese series... Then, you can see where driver skill and FWD excel... In series racing, a Civic type R, Integra type R offer a lot better competition. Even the RWD cars are better handlers, such as a RX7. If I look at a WRX, all I see is a rally car... Something with higher ground clearance, very long shock travel, close gear ratio, heavy duty and viscous LSD all around, etc. Something that excels on dirt roads. I don't see a track car, something with 50/50 weight distribution, higher gear ratios, etc...

 
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doesn't weigh that much nore...something like 300 lbs ..is the diff between a awd eclipse and a ff eclipse but the AWD's owns the fwd....

If u are just talkin about N/A car then i am not sure but when you talk about turbo i am sure AWD is better than FF cause with a t3t4 turbo on a awd your car will shoot out like an arrow but with a FF your car will burn out for sure no tracktion i dun care wut kinda tires you have you can't launch like an awd..or on a track a awd can go into the turn at 40 mph there is no way a frotn wheel drive can go into a turn at 40mph without goin over the curb

 
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This is what i'm talking about!

What is it about the AWD car that allows it to do this? Going into the turn you're not accelerating, so where's the AWD coming into play here?

 
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well if u are going 40 mph hour into a turn u can still accelerate and not spin out...but with FW or RW your can can spin out or slip under you

 
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To put it very plainly, its the same argument that people make about autos vs manuals. Manuals give you more control over your car. So does AWD. Are you probably going to take full advantage of that control? Probably not, but its nice to have.

 
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You'd probably overpower the outside front tire and end up in the weeds alongside the FWD car if you tried that. Either that or you weren't going fast enough to begin with.

 
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" mean, I know people that would not even consider a car because it's not FWD"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAA! Those "people" need to be beaten with a tire iron.

 
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fwd cheaper