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Originally Posted by heavychevy

LOL I appreciate all the attention but how the HELL can you tell me when my car is faster and when it's not when I'm the one driving it.

I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is that if your car your was slower around a road course(which I believe)..it's only because YOU failed to set it up properly. Therefore, it's not the fault of the RWD conversion, it's the fault of Des for not doing it the right way. Period.

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The tire argument is B.S. because my car is just as fast now with the AWD and Hoosiers as it was on the street tires. Not to mention I can watch my traqmate and see my car exit turn 7 faster in RWD and watch the laps with AWD come and walk it down, and that's because of tires????

If your car was slower in the straights, and you weren't spinning your tires...than that's an issue *entirely* seperate from the RWD conversion. Either your car was running poorly, or it more hot/humid that day. Could have been a dozen things, but it certainly was NOT the RWD conversion. As far as tires; did you not read my post? I blamed the fact that you never installed an LSD for a car that is used on a road course, and you never corner-balanced your car. I then find out that you only removed the front driveshaft and not the half shafts and front diff guts.

If you half-*** the conversion, how can you possibly turn around and blame the conversion for your problems?

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I dont know the most about cars but I'll be damned if someone in another place is going to tell me what's going on with my car when I'm the one driving it.

Again, I refer you to the GT2 and GT3. They are essentially the same exact cars as a 966TT in regard to the chassis, sans the front driveshaft and a different suspension setup. Both differences can be easily remedied.

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Since we all have legs let me liken it to running with a 50 lbs vest on, can you run as fast with it on as not, no the same to a lesser extent applies to the rear engine car with power to the rear wheels, the wheel have more weight on the thereby making the power delivered to them LESS helpful.

Okay...not trying to be an *** here...but that's just silly. Makes no sense whatsoever. The lighter the car, the easer it is to accelerate. The less drive train loss, the easier it is to accelerate. I'll say again; GT2 and GT3.

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With there being very little weight and even less under acceleration, as long as the front wheels have traction, they can use power more efficiently, (than that same weight being transfered to the rear wheels) because they have less weight bogging them down (something like a lotus adding 50 hp and a bentley gt adding 50 hp, the lotus gets more out of it because the local hp/weight ratio is affected more). Yeah the motor may be making the same amount of power, but that power is LESS efficiently being used by way of physics and maybe moreso by way of robbing hp by drivetrain. Does that mean that the car should be FWD now, NO #1 because of traction and #2 because of handling, but there are merits to have the front wheels turning when it comes to acceleration, especially in rear engine car.

Now you're just talking nonsense. Pure and simple. If all of this were true, Porsche would NOT have made their track cars RWD.

The front wheels are hardly used at all during acceleration. The reason the car feels more stable with AWD is because when you converted to RWD with no LSD, you were running on only one tire that was receiving torque in the corners (that's what happens with an open diff). With AWD, you were running with two (one up front, one in back...alternating wth available traction). With a RWD conversion and a LSD installed, you receive torque to both rear wheels in the corners, have less drive train loss, and less weight (just like the GT2 and GT3).

Sorry Des, but the problems with your car are your fault, and your fault alone. NOT the fault of a RWD conversion.

I'm going to use an exaggerated analogy here. Assume someone installed a new aftermarket air-intake system on their car, but failed to remove the plastic bag on the new air filter. Then, when they made less power because the car couldn’t bring in enough air through the plastic bag...they blamed the air-intake system and went around posting all over a car forum how air-intake systems are “bad" and “make less power”. They even put in their signatures; "air intake systems are bad..mmkay"....like some sort of badge of honor.

It's actually pretty ridiculous if you think about it.

 

Plastic bags in air intakes are bad....mmmmmmmkay.

 

Love the analogy
Robert

 

But guys, you need to stop confusing Heavy with the facts (his rwd wasn't set up properly)...his mind is already made up.

 

Opps. Didnt mean to start a war LOL.

 

LOL..you didn't Nigel. Sorry for the major thread-jack, bro.

 

[QUOTE=Divexxtreme]






Now you're just talking nonsense. Pure and simple. If all of this were true, Porsche would NOT have made their track cars RWD.


I was under the impression that Porsche made there gt2-gt3 race cars rwd because that was what was required for the cars the run in the various classes they wanted to compete in?? AWD could not run with out a weight/power handicap. (ie some audi's) I may be wrong though ??

 

LOL, ole bag on the air intake huh?


Well I'll put it this this way since it's my car to make my own decision. The Rear Engine is old and outdated technology, EVERYONE knows that, it's bad for handling, it's bad for acceleration, just bad, ask anyone who knows real racing, not drag, it's not a secret. Porsche has just done an awesome job of engineering around it. There IS a reason that Porsche are just about the only RWD cars left around(ever think about that). And having them as RWD is much bigger than just acceleration, it's about wieght, handling, balance etc etc etc.

You are looking past the simple basics of acceleration and adding traction etc into the equation when my point has no relevance to traction. MY CAR IS FASTER AWD, whether you like it or not, and that's the way it's gonna stay, until I decide I dont want it anymore.

The fact of the matter is that none of us are Pcar engineers and you dont know for certain that taking out part of a drivetrain that was designed to be in place affect the car, yeah there are obvious advantages but there are things we couldnt know because we didnt design the car. You may think you can outsmart the engineers by taking out the stuff they put in the car but unless you done an analysis of the complete drivetrain you just never know how that AWD was engineered into the developement of the turbo. I mean we arent talking about vipers here that they took the vert and threw a roof on it without redesigning the chssis accordingly, we are talking about Porsche, the only people good enough to engineer through a bad design.


With that being said, I have an opinion based on my experience and if I want to post it it's my perogative. I will admit I dont know for a fact why my car is faster AWD, but I know for a fact that it is, I have theories as to why that involove physics, but they are just that, theories. I hope the RWD on the AWD car groupies can understand that at least since this forum is about input AND experience of Porsche. I have just posted mine and it wont change for anyone. With that being said, I probably got a little more out of character yesterday than what's my norm, my apologies.

 

HC, I was going to stay out of this , but a statement that a rear engined car is bad for acceleration is just plain wrong. Think weight transfer. As you accelerate the front becomes lighter and the rear heavier. You want as much weight over the rear as possible during acceleration. For pure acceleration, rear engine is hard to beat ,but I will agree that it makes too much of a compromise in other areas that you mentioned such as handling. Kevin

 

You are looking at it as a traction/acceleration coefficient, but my statement was based on traciton not being a factor. Yeah it helps traction, which affects acceleration, but acceleration pure and simple it does not. Let's say the car was on rails like a rail car where traction wasnt an issue, would the rear engine help then, with the weight transfer and all?

 

Sorry Chevy, I was assuming we were talking about a car on the street in the real world not on some Burlington Northern rail spur. Kevin

 

Open your mind a little bit and you'll see past the "put all the weight in the back" theory.

 

Now you have shifted your argument to rear engine vs front engine....I thought we were talking about the 996 turbo AWD vs RWD and in which configuration it would be the fastest.You said your AWD was faster on the straights than the RWD which simply cannot be true unless there is a traction disadvantage.Scott and I both gave you very good reasons why it was not faster,which you disregarded,that is fine,I don't know everything,but it appears to me you are the one being close minded.Joe

 

My mind is open and I am in total agreement with you on the whole RWD thing. I tried it and hated it, although I didnt go all the way like some of these people did, but I like AWD and AWD is where I am staying. On this one point, you cant take coefficient of traction out of the equation...you just cant. The engine in the trunk is ideal for pure straighline acceleration. When you need to stop or turn then I agree there are better solutions. Long live AWD!

 

I thought stopping wass supposed to be better with the engine in the trunk. you keep all the rubber on the road vs. all the weight on the front wheels with a front engine car.