Guest

FWD vehicles tend to handle better, not because of where the drivetrain sends the power, but mostly by the weight of the car. FWD cars are lighter and more compact. The other thing to remember is having a good weight distribution a 50/50 weight distributed car will handle like a dream compared to a 60/40 or a 70/30. Doesn't matter what the drivetrain is.

True, FWD will have slightly worse traction problems under full acceleration, but a good amount of the weight is, in fact, over the drive wheels. People who have driven FWD cars know that the only real way to spin is to not have enough traction... ie broken suspension, bald tires, too much power, etc. Aftermarket suspension components such as stiffer rear springs, tight front suspension (to prevent bound and rebound which causes wheelhop), traction bars, and slicks help keep the weight over the center of the car.

Now see I have a problem with the last sentence. If the power is getting to the tires, it's getting to the ground. Sure every piece of the drivetrain takes a certain percentage... but the power that makes it to the tires vs the power that makes it to the ground is going to be so insignificant that comments like this are unnecessary.

If you have a FWD vehicle and a RWD vehicle making Identical horsepower numbers at the crank, the FWD vehicle will always out dyno it.

bahbahblacksheep

depending on the car...your hp to the wheels will be about 15-20% less than the flywheel hp. Automatics will suffer more driveline loss than manual tranny cars.

For example is is estimated that the there is a 15% driveline loss in the '05 manual transmission gt's (autos are around 20%). So if you dyno at 260 hp at the rear wheels, your hp at the crank (flywheel) will be 260/0.85 = 305.88 hp

Another thing to even confuse you more...Mustang or Load Dynos generally get lower numbers than a DynoJet or Chassis dyno. They estimate 8-10% higher numbers on a dynojet. If you look around on websites that sell performance products, they usually will give you dynojet numbers because they are higher.

redass02gt

what I meant was that the fwd will not get traction as well as the rwd, therefore not putting the power to the ground as well. You can put 1000hp to the wheels, but it won't get to the ground as well in fwd as it will with rwd. all other things being equal.

ByPopularDemand

Wait so how can an auto rwd car beat an auto fwd car if they have the same hp rating at the flywheel

redass02gt

blackout -
the rwd vehicle will get better traction off the line and it will be less likely to have a poor launch. during any acceleration, the weight shifts to the back. a fwd car would have be ridiculous to drive on a street if it had a suspesion setup severe enough that it would get similar traction to a rwd car.

Guest

an Auto rwd will have more drivetrain loss over a manual rwd car. Same with fwd auto vs fwd manual. But the fwd auto will still have less drivetrain to go through to get the power to the wheels.