Which kind of car will corner (handle) best... Front wheel drive or Rear Wheel Drive?

 

Depends on what you mean handle best??? What is your criteria?? What are the rules??

 

Stock for stock... Will a front wheel drive rice go through a curve at a higher mph than a rear wheel drive car?

 

Boy, tough one, but my answer..... NO!

 

This will vary from car to car. If you are comparing 2 stock cars and only the cars themselves, the skidpad number is the best indication.

Any comparison beyond that will be specific to the mods and capabilties of the drivers...

IMO, if fwd, were so great why don't any of these companies or organizations use it:
1) Ferrari
2) Lamborghini
3) Porsche
4) Mercedes
5) BMW
6) NASCAR
7) Formula 1
8) CART
9) IRL

 

Here's why I say that.

In a steady state turn a front wheel drive car is not only using the front tire for the cornering but also for maintaining speed (acceleration). Because the front tire is so heavily loaded with no way to shift any of that force to the rear tire, the car cannot get enough grip (equally, front to rear) to achieve high cornering forces. The rear wheel drive car can use the throttle to balance those forces out and therefore corner at higher speeds.

We are assuming stock for stock....

 

Depends on the car. The Acura Integra and RSX Type S would probably outhandle many rear drive cars (say it happen a couple times in the Speed Touring Car and GT combined events). However, ultimately the rear drive platform is going to be the best and when you reach the upper levels of it (Corvette, NSX, 911, etc) there will be no front drivers that can outhandle them.

Now to what you're probably really asking, can a front drive car outhandle an f-body. Yes, I'm sure there are probably a few that can, Integra, RSx, and Miata might be able to but it's really going to depend a lot on the driver. Your specific question: Yes, I have seen a few front drive cars (listed above) carry more speed through a corner than an f-body. However the f-body was faster around the track due to more power down the straights. I've never seen any front drive car carry more speed through a corner than a Z06.

 

There is not a definite answer.... Years ago there was a team running the IMSA series in GTU with "Dodge Daytona's" They had two cars, one front, the other rear wheel drive. Both won races. Generally the bigger and more sweeping the corners, the less disadvantage a FWD has. And in ways, can be better as you can drive it more to the limit (usually) since the front end will slide first. That's nice and stable. Also, FWD is easy to correct if the tail twiches since you just point it straight and stay on the gas to pull it straight.

RWD is overall better balanced, and can get power down better too.

Some FWD cars will kick the s*it out of some RWD cars, and vice-versa. An SVT Focus will kill a 1st of 2nd gen RX7..... A Camaro will not kick anything out of a Type R in most cases, stock for stock.....

 

MAN,
You guy's are good!

 

Somewhat unrelated, but neat comparison of two different cars is the Lotus Elise and Corvette Z06. The Elise is about a 170 hp mid rear engine car thats RWD.. It only weighs in around 1700 lbs though.. The Z06 is a front engine rwd car.. about 400 hp, but about 3000 lbs. I believe road and track did the mag comparison.

In the test, the Elise would charge in and maintain at a faster speed than the Z06.. but Z06 will make up the defecit by rocketing out of the turn and actually come out with a higher exit speed. End result on their overall times of the whole test, were practically the same, although the breakdowns per sector were dramatically different..

 

There is no US version of the Lotus Elise yet. There is a US tuner version that has the 200HP Honda engine, bu the US version due next year will come with the Toyota 4 cyl with approx 170HP, but will weigh in around 2000lbs. I've never seen a head to head comparison of any Elise with a Z06 by one of the major car mags, but it would definitely be interesting. Both are rear wheel drive, and have excellent power to weight ratios. I'm really hoping they hit the target price of $39K so I can get one.

 

Thats about close to what i've heard its suppose to be about 190 hp and about 1900-2000 lbs.. They estimate 0-60 in 5's and 1/4 in 13's. The Rover engine it uses in the UK is about 170 hp. They supposdily use the toyota 6 speed too.



Actually, if you really want to get one, you should sign up now.. goto Lotus's website and find the closest dealer on you and talk to them about getting your name on the list with a deposit.. Supposdily they are only making 3000 or so for the US. The common theme that I heard from the dealer up in Washington, and from my friend is on the list to get his on Sept, that goes to this Elise website, is most dealers will give you it at about the $39k MSRP, or whatever it finally is.. But if you give up your spot, you get your cash back, and they'll still order it, and just charge an extra $15k on top of it for anyone that walks in on the showroom then and wants one.


I was really tempted to order one.. but then I thought about it objectively (heh) and decided I could get it, but I could never really enjoy it, at least without alot of worry and cost... $39k is doable.. but insurance on the sucker would have to be expensive.. and if anything happened to it, especially body wise, it would be real expensive to fix.. Plus I heard a rumor? the softtop wasn't very good in actual rain, which it always does in the NW.


The mag comparison was actually done with a whole bunch of other cars too. Ferrari's, Porsche's... The Z06 got #2 in overall performance, and the Elise got #3.. I think a Ferrari got #1, but just can't remmeber which one it was. They were all really close up there on their total times.

 

A miata would be front wheel drive, if, say, it were traveling in reverse

 

I guess i was not the only one that cought that one

 

Then what will a Corvette do against a Viper?