Had a Shadow with 174 ponies right out of the box (210ftlb torque too).
This thing could dissolve the front rubber in 3 gears after I finished with
it. It went through tires fast and clutches even faster. Destroyed the first
clutch in under 17k just getting used to the shift points on the turbo. The
fact that the clutch plate was the standard for all the manual Shadows, but
the pressure plate and transmission were Getrag, it just melted the clutch
plate at full power. A mistake in engineering, but you just had to realize
that about every 30K it was going to need a new clutch if you owned this thing.
As far as powerful FWD's go, the 300M has 230 ponies and soon the Intrepid
R/T will also. The Eclipse is even more powerful than that, and
smaller/lighter. You had to get the Talon just to get it in AWD so it could
handle the power.
The biggest problem with FWD's is the CG shift on launch. With the CG
shifting to the rear tires, the fronts break loose very easy. It's not too
bad because the engine is right over the wheels, but with lightweight aluminum
engines, there's really not much to hold the rubber to the road. A serious
advantage that FWD's hold over RWD is cornering and handling in the corners.
Power on too early with RWD and you spin, FWD pulls itself through the corners
and they usually "drift", not spin if too much power hits the ground and the
wheels come loose. It's easier to correct drift than spin by my experience.
FWD is also better in poor road conditions. This is why the Rally racers
liked it...
Shaun H.
---original message---
last time i checked most front wheel drive cars had about 150 to 170 hp
average and europe and japan gets cars we can only drool over
Rob
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:19:05 EDT