[NESW20]

Originally Posted by aspera

All wheel drive is better than half wheel drive all the time. Just like brakes on all of your wheels is better than brakes on half of your wheels. One could argue that the weight, expense, complexity, etc...of rear brakes isn't worth it because front brakes do most of the work. If a person made that argument about brakes they'd get laughed at. But the two things are the same...apples to apples.

Subaru could easily modify the oilpan so that a driveshaft could go right up the middle to a front mounted diff. If you look at the way they mount the new engines, it would be a cinch. They moved away from a firewall mounted pitch rod to a mount on the front of the engine. The Lambo has an offset rear diff, but that allows them to mount the engine lower. A Subaru boxer has to sit up high because the exhaust ports point straight down.

Now, if Subaru went to a head design like Ford's latest diesel engine and made it a dry sump...they could drop the whole thing about SIX INCHES. Oh, and the turbo would sit right on top of the engine for perfect oiling, perfect exhaust port balance, perfect intake route, perfect downpipe route, and easy maintenance. My 2 cents.

are you drunk? AWD is only superior to RWD in low-grip conditions, all else equal. also, brakes are EXTREMELY simple and cheap compared to drivetrain components.

Originally Posted by Snaps

^ The argument about 2 brakes is completely wrong. If you only had two (front) brakes, every time you applied the brakes in ANY sort of hurry, the rear of the car would flick around and you would spin out. The same cannot be said about 2WD. If the brakes were on the rear, all of the weight would transfer to the front of the car under braking and you would lose a lot of braking power (meaning it would be more dangerous).

I completely agree with people that say FWD is inferior compared to both RWD and AWD - making the front tyres do all of the work is about the worst possible way you could design any sort of performance car. RWD doesn't follow this suit, as it (almost fully) evens the load between front (turning) and rear (applying power) tyres - i.e. it's about as close to perfect as possible. AWD IMO is *just* worse than RWD, UNLESS you have some sort of system like the GTR's where torque is only distributed to the front tyres when they start to lose traction. AWD is less efficient, has more drivetrain power loss and adds more weight, NONE of which are good for a performance car.

The ONLY exception to that, IMO, is when the car has too much power that it is uncontrollable in normal conditions (unheard of in a $20K production car) and is trying to apply that to either, or both, sets of wheels. Then driver skill comes in just as much as a good car setup or AWD system.

the part about the brakes is sort of right. agree about the AWD part.

Originally Posted by MatadorRacing_F1

You fail to realize no matter how much you bitch and moan, this car is going to debut rwd. You also fail to realize that the setup you are talking about is Expensive, and will not happen in a car at this proposed price point.

yes. mo diffs = mo money = mo problems.