Take it from a former 350Z owner whose driven his car in snow and ice. Snow tires, and you're good to go. Seriously. Get dedicated snow/ice tires, and you'll be amazed at how well the car handles crappy winter conditions. Having said that, you can't be a jackass behind the wheel even with the best winter tires, because the RWD nature of the car in that weather will hand you your ass. The benefit of the tires is that you can drive the car at all in the winter. With anything other than winter tires, a RWD car in snow and ice becomes about as useful as a porn DVD without the computer to watch it on.

Sorry quick Q.
Why did you sell your Z and got WRX? I always wonder that. My friend sold his 350ztt (bolt on twin turbo) and bought '09 Impreza and he always regret selling his Z and previous '04 STI.

Did he get a 09STI? If not then I would say that was a bad trade unless he had to get rid of the Z.

no, back then Subie didn't have STI released yet. He should of wait for STI to come out. I think, only reason he bought Z was to revenge the one guy who had 350zt (single turbo) on the track, which he lost w previous STI. He only had his Z for less then yr and sold it.

Ah dang, there was a TT350 around here and it was downright nasty. Loved the sound of it.

Oh not only made mean sound was it was mean. Freak, driven it once, and OMG, so much tq! Me & other friends cried when he sold it.

Guess i'm a bt late to it, that reminds me of crazy bowl in crazy taxi

For reference : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE629wQZpYk

I guess I"ll also be investing in a pair of snow tires once I get this baby.
Rocking a pair of all season's on my fwd and that soft touch is required all the way into 3rd gear in my celi (sorely underpowered) fwd, then again i do have a lead foot.

I sold the Z and got the WRX because I wanted more diversity from my DD. The Z is a great fun car, but it's damn near useless at anything else. It was useless out of the city during winter months, couldn't take it snowboarding, couldn't pack much in it... and the kicker: too damn expensive to modify for power (NA mods are useless on the original DE engine) and any other way I wanted to.

The WRX was the perfect substitute. Nearly as quick, holds more people and stuff, AWD, and factory boosted for cheap(er) power mods. And before anyone asks why I didn't get an STI instead, they need to understand Canadian auto economics. The Z33 and GD STI were around 50k new (yes, new) before taxes. However, the Subarus hold their value MUCH better than the Nissans, so a WRX was actually worth more than my Z with similar mileage. I would have loved an STI, but it would have meant getting a VERY high mileage (and therefore likely abused) model, and I didn't want to do that.

If you're going to go RWD through snow and ice, you need 3 things:
- Good new snow tires (micheline x-ice or goodyear nordics)
- an LSD (open dif is useless for launching in snow)
- lots of practice in an empty parking lot

i really like the Bridgestone Blizzaks. studless snow and ice tires that do wonders. an open diff with good tires and a reasonable driver should work fine (maybe even toss a couple sand bags in the trunk), but LSD is obviously better.

-Mike

I highly suggest having some weight over the rear tires, it won't help in all situations, but definitely when it comes to the corners and predictability the slight extra weight will do wonders.

nice ragdoll physics! :popcorn:

and back to reality! :eyebulge:

i've never driven in ice, but I can tell you rain in south FL can be tricky sometimes with a RWD

I'm just checking up on this old thread. It wandered around a bit after I left. :)

I read the link about F1 cars in the response to my last post and I think there were a few key words that the poster didn't notice. The first thing is that All Wheel Drive was BANNED in F1. If you changed that rule you'd see AWD Formula 1 cars on the track as soon as the race teams could build them. Forget the antiquated AWD systems of 50 years ago. Forget the "about 100 pounds" nonsense. You could even forget about having three differentials and two driveshafts. There are MANY ways to have AWD...and more importantly energy recovery and torque vectoring. :)

HALF WHEEL DRIVE is more simple, however. I'll give it that.