kaikai114

I just have to bitch about this...

Honda, comon, get with the program already and stop saving costs at the factories with FWD. Start owning the auto industry and make some RWD and V8 damn it!!!!

V8s aren't truly better, in fact, a lot of the smaller V6 punches better performance, but it's an IMAGE and Impression for the general public/market. Where the hell are you guys spending the marketing analysis money Honda?!

The other thing I gotta bitch about is service, damn it Acura is a prestige brand, start looking up to Lexus for the quality service they give.

Conclusion: I still love my Acura TSX, just need to bitch and vent once in a while

KC

Beoshingus

Uh... they ARE working on a V8 that will be going into the next-gen Legend and Ridgeline.

And supposedly a V10 for the NSX, from what I've heard...

JTC05

Is it safe to assume that with LWD there is no hump in the middle because it is belt driven?

Beoshingus

Of course. But the doorsill is higher on the left side.

mrdeeno

Why would the doorsills be higher? The front left wheel can be driven straight from the engine shaft.

The rear left wheel will need a driveshaft from the front to the back, but this driveshaft will be under the driver's side seat (or belt traveling under the drivers seat), not out near the doorsill. So the driver would straddle a hump, but the doorsill would still be the same as the right side.

Beoshingus

What, so now YOU are suddenly a LWD expert?

mrdeeno

I'm not bullshittin when i say that I probably spent more time thinking about LWD than you guys, so I probably AM the expert now.

Beoshingus

See if you can parlay that expertise into a patent and try to sell it to an automaker.

mrdeeno

screw that, i'll try selling it to one-armed wheelchair bound people.

aaronng

Your bowling ball example doesn't take into account my ASSUMPTION that both cars have suspension tuning so that they have the SAME handling characteristics.

Anyway.... Unless you have the engine behind the front axle, you're still having 55/45 weight balance, which is close to FWD's usual 60/40. The difference is small, and therefore there are many FWD cars that exceed the lateral Gs if RWD cars (TSX, Mazda6 2.3L). Lateral G skid pan tests are done with very little throttle application just to maintain the speed.

mrdeeno

You can tune a car and equip it so it can pull the same skidpad numbers and even OUThandle a well handling RWD car, but it will still NEVER be the same "neutral" feel.

You can't argue with the laws of physics. The reason a FWD car can handle like "its on rails" is because the suspension and wheels and tires have to be tuned and sized so that it is less likely to understeer. But this does NOT change the fact that the car still DOES NOT rotate around the center of mass in a turn. It will still "feel" like it wants to understeer. The handling is NOT "neutral". The best a FWD car can hope for is that it handles like "its on rails".

A RWD car, even a 55/45 RWD car, won't handle like "its on rails", because it doesn't have too. It is inherently more "neutral" because it rotates closer to the center of mass. It just feels different, even under normal everyday driving.

I'm not saying that all RWD cars will handle better or even feel more neutral, but its just impossible for a FWD car to handle "neutral" like a well tuned RWD car. Unless you put in SH-AWD, but then the topic goes to RWD vs. AWD, and we're not talking about AWD. Even if it pulls the same or BETTER numbers on the skidpad.

mrdeeno

I take that back. If you have a 3000lb FWD car with 60/40 weight distribution, you can throw 400lbs of cement or gravel in your trunk, then maybe it'll feel more neutral around corners.

jpt

wow, i came back to this one way too late.

Honda makes FWD cars for its mass-market models because they are easier to drive, and thus, for most people, safer. The enthusiast market, vocal and visible as it may be, is a teeny tiny market segment. Every boy racer has a mom, but not every mom has a boy racer.

Honda makes FWD cars for its upmarket models because, in case you hadn't noticed, they cost a lot less than their competition. The "value luxury" market is a niche to be sure, but it's a real one and Honda is not doing the wrong thing by filling it, even if they are about the only ones who do.

Good tuning CAN eliminate understeer in a front driver, but a little understeer doesn't actually make handling worse than oversteer does; it's just different (in fact Carroll Smith claims that a little understeer is NECESSARY in a true race car, because this allows you to accelerate much earlier out of a corner). Most RWD cars don't have "neutral steering" like you claim deeno; they oversteer significantly at the limits of traction.

Complain about Honda's lack of truck and V8 platforms all you want, but the Ridgeline is a revolutionary piece of work. Today's light truck market is full of people who really just want big, tall cars -- not leaf-sprung body-on-frame monsters. The Ridgeline has a load and towing capacity that's low for the compact truck segment but not too low to be useful to the vast majority of today's suburban pickup truck drivers, and the fact that it's on a car platform means the ride is significantly better on- and off-road. And the Ridgeline's V6 produces more power than some much larger V8s (the 4.6L on the F150 comes to mind).

Honda may be more specialized than some of the other manufacturers -- in cars, at least. Toyota doesn't make lawnmowers. Nissan doesn't make boats. BMW doesn't make motorcycles... oh damn, okay switch those around a bit

JTC05

I know GM is hardly the authority on FWD, but they put wider tires on the front of the new Grand Prix GXP and narrower on the rear. This was because they stuffed it with a FWD V8. The magazines said that this trick worked and caused less understeer and actually would let the tail slide out a little.

mrdeeno

I agree and disagree...most RWD cars don't have neutral handling, and I never claimed that they all do.

What I AM claiming is that it's impossible to tune a FWD car for neutral handling unless you throw weight in the rear to even out the weight distribution. So given a RWD and FWD car, the RWD can be tuned for neutral handling while the other cannot...which is why I said all is NOT equal in a previous post. Whether they have identical skidpad or any other method of measuring handling doesn't matter, they will NOT handle the same due to physics.

And most RWD cars don't oversteer either, most understeer. But depending on the application (family sedan vs. sporty car), the car can be tuned to understeer less or oversteer more.

stogie1020

Oh, God, please make this end at 6 pages....

mrdeeno

If you don't want to read anymore...


DON'T CLICK ON THE THREAD!!!

jpt

The weight distribution can be overcome with suspension tuning. You gonna tell me the RR Porsche Cayman S (45/55) has worse handling than the FR 325i (51/49)? Perhaps it is somewhat more expensive to tune the suspension for neutral steering with an FR layout but then again it's harder to tune for good performance on ice. The world's full of tradeoffs; nothing is ever "always better".

Mm, a magical unmeasurable difference due to "science."

Point. I was restricting my view to the more sports-oriented segment we've been talking about. It's true that rear-wheel drive's oversteer tendency can been largely eliminated and in fact replaced by oversteer in modern cars when the manufacturer wishes to (wishes most of the time, in mass-market or luxury cars). Electronic yaw control has also made them a lot safer. But this should only go to help argue the point that the handling "deficiencies" of front-drivers can be overcome too.

jpt

By the way, a left-wheel drive vehicle WOULD be drivable, if it had a lockable or limited-slip differential on the one axle.

The locking differential on the "drive" axle helps transfer force to the right wheel and the other wheel can be geared separately and made to push backwards when needed to cancel the torquing effect on the car.

I don't think you'd want to put a lot of power through that transmission, though.

mrdeeno

1) you are mis-reading my posts. I said that a FWD car tuned to handle EVEN BETTER than a well tuned RWD car will STILL FEEL different due to the fact that it is front heavy.

nothing I said has anything to do with whether a Cayman will handle better or worse than a 325i...because I already conceded the fact that a FWD car can be tuned to handle as well as a RWD car. Handling can be improved even without ideal weight distribution. But the fact still remains that their handling characteristics and "feel" will be DIFFERENT.

Will a cayman feel different from a 325i, MOST DEFINITELY!


Yes, it's a subjective thing called "feel" that many many people can percieve, but can't quantitatively measure. And yes, this feel can be attributed to physics. When people say their FWD car feels like its "on rails", it can be attributed to "physics", but this may be too much for you to comprehend, so let's just say it's "magic" since that's YOUR word.

Adding CT sways to my cl-s made it handle slightly better than stock, but it felt like it was "on rails". My M45 Spt doesn't feel like it's "on rails", but it handles much much better than my cl-s did. I could've tuned my cl-s all I wanted to outhandle my M, but it would feel more and more like it was "on rails", whereas my M45, because of "physics", doesn't need this "rails" feeling to handle well. And this is normal everyday driving and cornering, not even 8/10ths.


Yes, I agree that with technology and suspension advances, deficiencies of front drivers can be overcome, and many companies and individuals have proven this.

But this does not change the fact that a FWD will still feel different than a RWD due to physics. Is this a deficiency? It depends on how you look at it and what you expect or are accustomed too. but in the end, I still stand by my point that no matter how you tune a FWD car, whether for the same or even better handling than a RWD car, IT WILL NOT BE THE "EQUAL"...unless you add weight to the rear end of the FWD car.

jpt

All cars feel different. You might as well say you only like 1966 Camaro SS's. You've been pushing the concept that RWD is better for a sporty car through this whole thread. Obviously when you change anything, the result will be some sort of difference in the whole system. This thread was about whether one is inherently better or faster.

You said unmeasurable. Steering turn-in time and on-center feel (what I assume you're talking about) are both measurable... and they both respond to more than one parameter in the design of a car.

I think you need to be looking at front-end alignment and front suspension design. A bolt-on inch-thick piece of metal ain't gonna completely change the steering feel of a car!

The second part of that there sentence is what a big chunk of $13k extra will buy ya...

I must not quite understand what you're talking about. Suspension and steering improvements wouldn't make your car any harder to steer in order to improve handling. If you mean something other than that by "on rails", is it something bad?

mrdeeno

I am not pushing that RWD is "better", i am pushing that it is easier to build a better handling car with RWD. RWD IS inherently better, which is why it is a better starting point than tuning a FWD car for better handling.

this is verifiable proof that you don't read my posts before responding. not once did i mention "steering" or "on-center feel" which is a component of steering. We are NOT talking about steering, we are talking about handling and handling feel/characteristics while a car is turning/cornering. Steering is just a means to make a car turn/corner and has its own "feel" that I didn't know we were discussing.


Again, you misread my posts. My post said "Adding CT sways to my cl-s made it handle slightly better than stock, but it felt like it was "on rails".

Again, where did I mention steering feel?


Yes, you don't quite understand what I"m talking about.

What I mean by "on rails" is that there is no body roll and understeer is reduced/minimized, so the car goes where it's pointed without "slipping".

from PERSONAL experience, this is how it goes: On my cl-s with stock sways, the car was "wobbly" and not very confident around corners, even without accelerating. It wasn't extreme, and most people wouldn't even care since it was a nice balance between comfort and sport.

Adding CT sways, the car was much more confident around the corners with much less body lean. the car felt like it "understeered" less. This is the feeling I'm talking about. I can accelerate until the traction in the front wheels give out and understeer comes back. I can fix this by getting wider rims and more aggressive rubber, so I can get to a higher speed before understeering.

With my M, the car feels as wobbly as my stock CL-S, but without the understeer around normal constant speed corners. If I take a corner fast but at a constant speed, there's a bit of understeer...but giving it throttle cures this. That's another difference between FWD and RWD...in a FWD car if you start to feel understeer, you have to back off on the throttle before totally losing traction in the front wheels. In a RWD car, you can give it more throttle and it "hooks" the car back in, then understeers later on once you're going really fast or cornering really hard.

But all this applies at much less than 8/10ths driving, which is what we're all talking about. I can tell this difference taking a 35mph off ramp at 45mph, which is much less than 8/10ths driving.

Again, this "feeling" is attributed to the physics of the way the car is set up. it is not "magical" or quantitatively measurable.

CarbonGray Earl

So who wants to start a thread on Torque vs. Horsepower? You know just the stuff they never argue about on any Honda/Acura forums....

JTC05

Does anybody know where I can find a 1966 Camaro SS? It is sure to be a collectors item. Also, What's the chance of it being the even rarer LWD model? As far as torque vs. horsepower, Horsepower always wins. If the amount of HP difference is about the same as TQ difference, Then horsepower takes it. 200hp&166tq > 166hp&200tq. except maybe in the 0-15mph race.

jpt

I saw one on the highway (US15 in Dillsburg, PA) last weekend. It wasn't LWD though.

jpt

I was just trying to infer what you meant by a car "feeling like it is on rails." I assumed that meant that it would be unresponsive to steering (like a train).

So, you made ONE easy suspension change to a CL-S that had both bad body roll and bad understeer, and it fixed both, whereas the designers of the (much more expensive) M45 made a completely unrelated suspension that understeers less without reducing body roll. You could have done a host of other changes to the CL that would have reduced understeer -- dropping the front end, using stiffer front shocks, changing the alignment (toe in particular), and overinflating the front tires all spring to mind. All of those would have reduced understeer without reducing body roll -- but normally, reduced body roll is considered a GOOD thing for handling!

Yes, a 50/50 weight distribution is one way to get neutral steering. Yes, RWD cars tend to have closer to even weight distribution. But they make tradeoffs to do that (reduced interior space, worse winter handling, more difficult to drive safely at its limits); it's not automatically a pure improvement. Tradeoffs are what engineering is all about!

By the way, the reason you SHOULD be arguing in favor of RWD is not "better handling" but that it eliminates torque steer -- this is a real consideration that as far as I know cannot be overcome in high-powered front-drive cars and is IMO much more likely than weight distribution or handling to be the reason most of the sports segment is RWD.

jpt

Oh, that plus the fact that in an RWD car the backwards weight transfer when you accelerate (resulting in a distribution that is temporarily far off 50/50) improves traction, whereas the same weight transfer in an FWD car hurts traction. But that's pretty much only important for hardcore race cars.

mrdeeno

The "usual" intent when someone says that their car feels like its "on rails" is complementing their car's handling. This is the first time I heard "on rails" describing "unresponsive" steering, like a train....but I guess that would be described instead by "my car steers like a train".

But I see you're point how you can misconstrue the term now.


A lot of those changes you propose would reduce understeer, but would also reduce body roll. Lowering the front end usually entails new springs/shocks, and stiffer springs/shocks would decrease body roll as well since stiffer springs would cause the suspension to be less likely to compress in a corner, hence less body roll. The sway bar was the cheapest and easiest way to decrease body roll and increase handling, but for those hardcore gearheads, they would also change out suspension parts as you mention.

If I kept the cl-s suspension and sways OEM, the only thing I could change to increase traction without decreasing body roll would be the rims and tires. But again this would only take the handling so far, probably not even anywhere close to my M's stock handling. So any significant changes would make the car feel more and more on rails, which is a good thing for handling in a FWD car.


I don't think torque steer is a deficit to normal everyday cornering/handling, just a side-effect that affects acceleration and steering feel. True "hardcore" sports enthusiast frown on anything that decreases the "communication" between the steering wheel and the road, but again this is off the topic of the way the car "handles" itself and how the car/driver as a whole feels during cornering.

mrdeeno

I think we are not looking at the whole picture enough and getting down too much to the details to argue our points that we are missing the big picture.

My position on the big picture is this:

Given 2 Identical cars (identical weight, tires, wheels, wheelbase, engine power and engine weight, identical suspension spring rates, suspension travel, etc.) but with different drive layouts (FWD vs. RWD, different weight distribution), the RWD car will handle better out of the box at moderate to intense driving. by moderate I mean taking on/off ramps a little faster than the speed limit, taking curves a little faster than "legal" limits, but nowhere near 8/10ths driving.

And at moderate to intense cornering, the RWD car will also feel different than the FWD car, not only in steering communication (which may or may not be true depending on how it's assisted), but the overall feel of the car due to the weight distribution differences and the drive layout.

The FWD car can be equipped/tuned to handle as well as the RWD car in moderate to intense driving, but the "feel" of the car will still not be the same. The FWD car can be further equipped/tuned for even better handling, but again the overall feel will diverge even further from the RWD car.

And in the end, comparing a FWD car with MAXED OUT suspension tuning vs. a RWD car with MAXED OUT suspension tuning, the RWD car will be better.

jpt

OK i'll concede a "probably" there. But the RWD car will be making other tradeoffs to pay for that handling: it will be more expensive (since it has more parts overall and the drivetrain can't be assembled as a single unit, increasing manufacturing costs), interior room is reduced especially in the back, drivetrain losses will be higher, it will be heavier in total and hence get worse gas mileage, it will be more prone to lose traction on slippery surfaces, and steering feedback is worse since the steering wheel is not directly connected to the drive wheels.

mrdeeno

I agree with all those tradeoffs except for this one since I"m not understanding it.

Are you talking about when the drive tires lose traction, or road feel?

In a RWD car w/o stability or traction control, it's DAMN easy to tell that you lost traction as I have experienced with my aunt's torque heavy MB w/o traction or stability in the rain. The rear end just steps out like nobody's business.

But for road feel, RWD is better because there's no torque steer or a bunch of suspension components to dampen torque steer.

jpt

In FWD the steering wheel begins to feel noticeably lighter at the limits of traction, before you start actually skidding. The steering force goes up and up as you twist the wheel and then it slackens and you know you can't steer any more than that without slipping. It's pretty marginal but noticeable.

here is an interesting comparison of two nearly-identical super-tuned Dodge Daytona racecars but one has FF layout and one FR. Notice that each of them is better at some things than the other -- the FR car brakes better, for instance, but the FF is more stable, and the FR is better in slow (tighter) corners but the FF can go through fast corners faster. And because it doesn't need as big a spoiler, the FF racer can actually achieve higher top speeds in the straightaways. These are ALL things that you can notice in any kind of driving and some of them are better in FWD and some in RWD.








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JTC05

If you look at he two cars and also note in the article that the ff car has wider front tires. This follows what I stated about the Pontiac GTP with the V8. This helps eliminate most of the understeer.