More power, or better weight distribution?

[RomanV]

Which would you rather have in a front engined RWD car?

Would you rather have 50/50 balance, or 60/40 and 50% more power?

Personally I'd take the better balanced car, but a lot of people seem to like the idea of shoehorning the biggest heaviest most HP engine into the front of their car.

[Punter]

Why not both??

In my old mans rally car (datsun sunny) we shifted the firewall back about 2 feet, gave a good ballance for the nissan V8.

[RS13]

POWAAAA! Having a car that handles well is all good and well, but being smoked by gran in her Daewoo just isn't on. My vote = power.

[Cahuna]

Balance, you can have all the power in the world but if you can't get it to the ground then it is worth stuff all. Sure you might get dicked by Granny in her Daewoo in a straight line but you'll leave her behind at the first corner

When prospective/new car club members ask what they should do to their cars for competition I always suggest suspension, brakes, diff/gearbox then motor, in that order. I started out competition in a Mk1 Escort with a near-standard 1300, even on fast stuff it was able to beat cars that it had no right to be ahead of and on tighter stuff it often won events outright because it could use every one of its puny horses.

[Silent Knight]

Well I'm driving a whale so it's fairly heavy all over.

Whether you redistribute the weight or not the handling characteristics is going to be fairly fairly similar than what it is currently...

So more PoweR for me please.
If we were to talk about a silly little car like an MR I'd go for weight distribution first...

[CozmoNz]

power, its just more fun

and whats better piss up bragging rights, i can take a corner at 140 instead or 35, or i have 237403289043284932hp

[Akane]

If I wanted balance I'll drive my MRpoo.

For FR I'll use it strictly as skid duty.

Skids = powah!

[Lith]

Power is nothing without control - but 50:50 doesn't automatically mean control. 50% is a heck of a lot more power!

[no_8wire]

power...

I mean just throw some sandbags in the back...weight problem solved!

Or fill up the wheel well with concrete...

[UZZ30]

Well I'm driving a whale so it's fairly heavy all over.

Whether you redistribute the weight or not the handling characteristics is going to be fairly fairly similar than what it is currently...

So more PoweR for me please.
If we were to talk about a silly little car like an MR I'd go for weight distribution first...

Exactly. Ive found my Soarer handles pretty good any way so Im not to worried about the weight balance, In comparison to my old joke of a Honda its fantastic, very direct and responsive plus body rolls not even that bad.

More power any day for me, anyway its a cruiser so its not meant to handle perfectly - but Im more than happy with it. However it depends on the car very much so just like the MR2 example you mentioned which obviously suits better handling...

[Adamal]

Depends on the situation. Tight and twisty, balance. Loose and long corners, power.

[RomanV]

Exactly. Ive found my Soarer handles pretty good

Have you actually driven anything else?
I drove my mates soarer around in the weekend, brilliantly comfortable and luxurious car, but it sure as hell didnt handle well.

any way so Im not to worried about the weight balance, In comparison to my old joke of a Honda its fantastic, very direct and responsive plus body rolls not even that bad.

You guys know how percentages work right?
60% of a soarer is more than 60% of a 900kg car.

More power any day for me, anyway its a cruiser so its not meant to handle perfectly - but Im more than happy with it. However it depends on the car very much so just like the MR2 example you mentioned which obviously suits better handling...

Actually, an MR2 is IMO one car where you DONT have to worry about weight balance.
I've removed a shit load of weight from the front of mine, and a bit from the back too, and it handles better than ever. I wonder what the actual weight distribution is now, but I'd imagine further rearward than most.
Personally, I'd say that an MR2 is one car that can handle a crap load more power than it comes with from factory, without needing any upgrades.

A front engined RWD car is a different story, if you're trying to accellerate 100% of the cars mass with only 40 or 30% of the cars weight over the drive wheels, you're going to go a whole lot of nowhere, especially with 50% more power.
It's like that joke: "What's the difference between a 400hp supra and a 600hp supra? Nothing, they both run 12s."
Having more power doesnt mean you can get it to the ground effectively, especially when you're trying to take off in a hurry in a big heavy car!
And all of the other handling effects, like an inclination to sledge into corners, needing a further fowards brake bias, (When the front gets worked the hardest already) etc.

I recall a few examples of where the 'lesser' model of a car was actually quicker, because it had the smaller engine and handled so much better.
I recall some example of in England back in the day, where theives were stealing the V6 version of some car (IIRC, Cant remember exact details) rather than the V8, because despite having less HP it was a better car all round, and it could outrun the cops which actually had the V8 version of the same car.

I suppose it depends on what you want from a car, if you've bought a soarer you're clearly not all that interested in having a sporty car anyway, may as well have some more HP.

[Silent Knight]

Me being a Soarer owner myself I'd have disagree with the above.

Soarer in stock form handles like a boat.
Actually no, I've been in boats that more stable in waves than a Soarer is.

Although if you spend some money on a good set of TEINs, Whiteline front and rear adjustable sway bars and some bling bling new bushes all round you will definitely have a killer combination of steering & power.

Since I'm getting all of that slapped on to the gud ol' Soarer along with some fairly hefty power increase I have no doubt that it will be able to put all the power I plan to throw at it down to the ground more than sufficiently.

[bluemaumau]

depends on the situation,

your carina, id go power
ae86 id go balance

if you dont have any power why do you need balance?

[RomanV]

Well it makes sense for it to have boaty suspension from factory, seeing as how it's a luxury oriented car. In fact I actually enjoyed how smooth the ride was, it was part of the appeal.

Could you whack supra suspension into a soarer? Are the the same chassis with another shell on top, or completely different?

[Silent Knight]

Yep basically the same front and rear subframes as an MKIV.

Fronts are interchangeable but the rears have some tiny wee thing that's different however I don't currently recall what that was.

The rest is all basically hot swappable.

[Distrb]

You want balance. The engine weight, positioning, desired power output all needs to be added into the equation to achieve the best balance possible.

So IMO you can have both (within reason)

[matt dunn]

Well, i said power.

I had to add 60kg of lead to my car to achieve minimun weight for my class and guess how much difference it makes.

didn't even notice it.

but the fact that i'm 1600 turbo, and all the cars around me are 1800T or 2000T ( or one's 2600TT), makes a shitload of difference in a straight line.

and a 60/40 weight split doesn't mean RWD front engined car can't handle either.

Matt

[Dell'Orto]

Read the Targa website...it says to go for balance and brakes. I'd tend to agree.

[Lith]

Read the Targa website...it says to go for balance and brakes. I'd tend to agree.

Balance and brakes isn't what the comparison is though - a car with 50% more power and brakes and a 60/40 split andwill be faster in many situations than a car with 50:50 without the added power and brakes. 50% more power is a shedload more