How does DSM handling compare to other cars?

[NDgsx]

I get so sick of these broad undefined questions. What is good handling? There's transitional response, turn in feel, composure under braking, progressivety of breakaway, balance (under/over steer), long sweeping turns, short turns, hairpins, rid comfort, I could go on forever.
YOU CAN'T SAY "HANDLES BETTER", everything is a tradeoff, a certain design will almost never do better in EVERY catagory. You have to specify what aspects you want it to do better in.

Originally posted by DaveDSM




RWD is the best for ultimate handling, but AWD can do a damn good job in it's own right.

Have you ever heard of a car Nissan makes called the skyline? It happens to be awd and guess what it dominates japanese road courses.

How about Archer Racing? They won tons of titles in SCCA roadracing during the early 90s with awd dsms. In fact they did so well that the AWD drivetrain was outlawed.


A properly setup AWD car will be able to apply power earlier in a corner than a RWD car all things created equal.



All you guys that think DSMs "handle like crap" are going to crap your pants when the USCC results come out for the road course

 

[ecugrad]

Im glad you saw this thread Nick. Alot of mis-information is being tossed around on this thread.

In the handeling department there are NO ABSOLUTES! There is no "BEST".

I think theres a guy somewhere in Canada who has won a few SCCA Autoxes with his 2G Talon too.....

 

[DSM1gnub]

From what people are saying I definitly should not get one of these if I want to have a track car? Or am I misinterpreting. I am not thinking stock either full suspension.

 

[abrxy3]

maybe the reason why so many people think that rwd is better than awd on the road course is because the best handling cars in the world are rwd. yeah ive heard of the skyline of course, have u heard of the nsx? how about the 360 modena? oh and what about formula 1 cars? if awd was the ideal system for road course handling then why arent formula cars configured for awd? not saying that awd isnt great for actual courses, just saying that its not the best.

 

[NDgsx]

Originally posted by abrxy3
maybe the reason why so many people think that rwd is better than awd on the road course is because the best handling cars in the world are rwd. yeah ive heard of the skyline of course, have u heard of the nsx? how about the 360 modena? oh and what about formula 1 cars? if awd was the ideal system for road course handling then why arent formula cars configured for awd? not saying that awd isnt great for actual courses, just saying that its not the best.

Do you know the skyline regularly beats the NSX?
No I've never heard of a 360 modena, please So what specific touring car races has the 360 regularly run faster times than an awd competitor? Honestly.

Ok that's just a stupid example. Have you ever heard of a sanctioning body and rules? It's called the FIA jackass.
Article 9.1 of the FIA formula one 03 technical regulations clearly states:
"Transmission types: No transmission system may permit more than two wheels to be driven"
If you don't believe me look it up:
http://www.fia.com/homepage/selection-a.html

What you're saying is you don't actually know what you're talking about. If your idea of "best handling" is peak G numbers during a corner then guess what that is the tires lateral cornering ability in a basically static situation. What determines tire grip? Well pressure and camber angle aside WEIGHT. Total weight transfer is determined by the weight of the car, the center of gravity, and the amount of lateral force acting upon the car. Guess what if two cars are set up identical the AWD will weigh more, and it will cause more total weight transfer to the outside tires and reduce total net grip. Yes the AWD car will produce a lower peak G number all equal.
Peak G numbers DO NOT WIN RACES. The time wins. All things equal AWD cars always win in any racing. AWD is outlawed in many racing classes, and if it isn't there is always a pretty large weight or HP penality.


DSM1Gnub IGNORE EVERYONE IN THIS THREAD. Honestly the internet is the worst place for information and these people don't know dick about suspension, handling, or actual racing for that matter.
Repeat after me Archer dominated SCCA road racing in AWD dsms.
RRE wins all the time with their crew of road racing dsms.
Dennis Grant won the SCCA solo II street modified national championship in a 2G awd.

DSMs are not a "bad handling car", it's just that only about 15% of DSMers know ANYTHING about suspension at all, and even few of them road race or autoX seriously.
My last track day I staid ahead of a S2000 (a car most of these people would say "handles great") that had Michelin pilot sport cup race tires on and I also hung with a ZO6 vette (using traction control and ABS no less) for a couple laps, WITHOUT GOING OVER 3/4 THROTLE. DSMs can be made to corner great, it's just that most dsmers spend so much damned time focusing on power they never learn any real information on suspension.
At Portland International Raceway my friend Sam Elmore routinely runs the same lap times as the faster M3s and 911s also.

Bottom line, most people don't know as much as they think they know,
the internet is full of BS, don't trust anyones opinion without some empherical data.

 

[Addict]

Perhaps he's not running autox? Maybe he meant it as a 'generalization' and not into the specifics? Dunno. Just a thought since he didn't mention autox at all.

No need to get all bent out of shape about it.

 

[bigfoot]

Get em Nick. The Skyline GTR held the track record at Nurburgring (one of the worlds most tight, twisty tracks) for 10 years or so. It won the class it was built to run in so often that they banned it. In the Trans Am races of the eighties, (I know, your too young to remember) the Audis used to whip up on the Mustangs and Camaros, and that was with the extra 1,000 lb. weight penalty that the SCCA forced them to carry, trying to slow them down. If it was a rainy day it wasn't even fair. I wasnt even sure why I kept reading this thread, now I know. I wanted to see Nick slap em down. Ya dont like AWD cars? Cool, sell it.

 

[Fryguy]

A nissan skyline is one of THE nicest cars to drive, period. A motor with the strength and ability of a supra (800+hp on stock internals) with amazing handling characteristics is a VERY tough combination to beat.

Also a minor correction, the ATTESSA system isn't full-time AWD, since it defaults to RWD, but gives power to the front wheels when necessary. It's not full-time AWD like you see on STIs etc.

 

[igs]

Originally posted by abrxy3
if awd was the ideal system for road course handling then why arent formula cars configured for awd?

Do you know what downforce is?

 

[igs]

Originally posted by abrxy3
oh and what about formula 1 cars?

Straight from the F1 web site:

A modern Formula One car is capable of developing 3.5 g lateral cornering force (three and a half times its own weight) thanks to aerodynamic downforce.

Name one single street car that can hold 3.5 g. Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Lotus? Name one you ####.

Go read and educate yourself before posting.

http://www.formula1.com/insight/technicalinfo/11/468.html

 

[leet]

Exactly, the ONLY reason a formula 1 car is able to sustain such aggressive cornering is due to the fact of its SUPERIOR tire technology, extreme light weight and the radically bad ass amounts of downforce they can/do use. Hence the reason when one of those cars loses a spoiler, it suddenly lost a very large amount of high speed cornering ability. Correct me if I'm wrong, of course.

If you do your research an AWD DSM will handle fine.

 

[1LE]

AWD is nice when you've got tons of power. 2wd is a good option for lower powered forms of motorsports as they tend to weight a bit less. I like AWD, but I don't like having the engine in front. Oh well, I can't afford a Diablo VT

 

[bryan_tberry]

I hated the way my eclipse cornered back when it was stock. My best friends 5th gen Prelude owned me in all aspects or cornering. Then i got my new wheel and tire setup and that helped a whole lot. Those wider tires loved to grip. Then when i got my coilovers with the 2 inch drop, a tad bit of negative camber in the rear and a little more negative camber in the front, it handled like a mofo. Now i ask him why he brakes so much through the twisties. My mom also has a Lexus IS300 and not only does it corner like my eclipses new setup, but the ride quality is a hundred times better. Not fair.

 

[a_scobel]

You guys need to take it easy..This thread sounds like it's bout to be locked

 

[1LE]

Originally posted by a_scobel
You guys need to take it easy..This thread sounds like it's bout to be locked

Yeah, it is starting to get interesting and even off-topic now. Back to our regularly scheduled, unlocked spewing of completely incorrect information

 

[dsm81]

NDgsx is absolutely correct. (Except that I don’t believe Dennis Grant actually won the SM national championship at Topeka, but as I recall he did win either a pro solo or national tour event. )

And to expose another great illusion related to AWD that goes something like this “I can take that turn faster because I got AWD”. On a road course, AWD comes into play only on corner exit when power is being applied. It basically distributes power to all four wheels, instead of just two and as a result more power can be put down. It does not “create” more lateral grip for the tires, helps the car brake better, or anything else, simply because it can’t.

The only time where it is actually an advantage compared to a FWD car everything else being equal, is on corner exit if power X is applied to just the front wheels there will be a maximum limit of adhesion reached by the front tires that will result in two things. Either power needs to be cut back to maintain the desired line, or steering input will need to be cut back to maintain the same power level.

The only time where it is actually an advantage compared to a RWD car everything else being equal, is on corner exit if power X is applied to just the rear wheels there will be a maximum limit of adhesion reached by the rear tires that will result in two things, again. Either power needs to be cut back to prevent the rear tires from breaking traction and causing oversteer (loosing time and cooking your rear tires in the process), or the turning radius needs to be made wider in order to maintain the same power level.

Since on a road course turns have a fixed radii, both of the above second alternatives for 2 wheel drive cars is not applicable, which leaves only a reduction in power as the only solution. If properly setup, the goal of the AWD car is to be able to better distribute among all four tires this same power X, so that it does not overload either front or rear tires in order to maintaining the same turning arc. From the driver’s perspective this will result in being able to get on the gas slightly earlier in an AWD car than a 2 wheel drive car (all else being equal) as you exit a turn before encountering either understeer or oversteer. In reality this difference can vary from nothing to being quite significant based on many factors, one of which is the amount of power available. Given two equally well setup racecars of moderate power, this can gain for the purpose of this example an average of a tenth of a second per turn due to a faster corner exit. This added up may be as much as a second or more per lap, or a 30 second lead after 30 laps. Also all that rain will do is to further magnify this difference in corner exit quite substantially. Again contrary to what some people think, AWD does not/cannot produce more physical lateral grip out of the tires than a 2 wheel drive car.

Bottom line: all that AWD does is to distribute the power being applied among 4 tires instead of just 2, which consequently results in better distribution of the four tire’s total available grip for keeping the car driving the line. Also, I can only speak from personal experience that 2G AWDs make excellent autox/road course cars, I have no reason to doubt that 1Gs are any less effective. To answer the original post, yes DSMs handle quite well when compared to other cars.

 

[DG-FNR]

You could always, y'know, look it up:

http://farnorthracing.com

This is instructional too:

http://www.scca.org/amateur/solo2/prosolo/2003/peru/results.html

DG

 

[dsm81]

Dennis, my talon is exactly like yours in its dreams. Good job taking Bob T down at Peru.

Question for you since I see you have both. Which quaife diff you feel makes the biggest difference, the front or the center? Thanks.