Caltrops - American McGee's Honda Civic

Forum Overview :: American McGee's Honda Civic

by CrackerBarrel 02/12/2003, 11:27am PST

Ray, of Light wrote:

Fussbett wrote:

RWD love spoken by someone who never has to drive on snow or ice. Not that I don't love RWD too, but the sensible part of my brain knows that come snow, the RX-8 is going to be not nearly as fun.

A popular misconception. What benefit you gain from extra weight over driven wheels is eclipsed, totally, by the traction penalties of steering, accelerating, and braking on those same two wheels, and the totally random way a front-drive will react if it loses traction.

I begin each day with a spirited run down a twisty half-mile of packed snow over gravel, in a pickup with leaf-spring suspension. Turns are negotiated exactly like that article describes: brake and downshift, steer, throttle, fishtail, reverse steering (into the slide) and reduce throttle until the tires bite. If I tried that with front drive, I may have time to say "shit" before the front end snowplowed off turn 1 and into a tree, business end of its 85/15 weight distribution first.

Ray!

I do much the same in a little Nissan FWD. Once you know the knack it isn't hard at all. In fact I will at times enter a powerslide on purpose just because I know I can pull out of it easily. The trick in a slide with a FWD is knowing when to use the gas. RWD if you enter a slide, you can only apply force in the direction of the nose of the car. This causes you to do the reverse steering (which can be ineffective if the road is so slick your tires can slide sideways) and to slow down until your tires regain traction. In a FWD slide, you need not regain full traction to your tires to infuence the trajectory of the car. You can apply force in any direction you can turn your wheels, back side be damned. Basically no matter how shitty your tires and how slick the road, you will gain enough friction by giving it a touch of gas that you can pull your car along. Added bonus is that it's not a reverse steer, you need only point the wheels where you want to go, maybe overcompensating for the inertia of the slide.