Hi - it's good to be here and good to have my ph1 172! What I want to know is this: I've had powerful rear- and four-wheel drive cars and so I know what to expect with them, but I've never had a front-wheel drive with any power before. So when I accelerate hard with the Clio should it be as "twitchy" as it is? I've discovered, for example, that when overtaking, if there are cats' eyes on the road, I don't want to hit full throttle until I'm safely on the other side of the road. Even straight-line acceleration feels very twitchy (can't think of any other word for it). I just don't know if this is what happens when you have a small FWD with power, or whether it's not right. Any opinions gratefully received!
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hello mate
I;ve had mine 24 hours now and have also never had fwd before. It must be the way they handle the power as mines similar. I;m basically learning to drive differently by putting down the power whenI;m pointing in the right direction
I overtook a lorry on a a road today and as the car gets a big kick of power at 4.5k revs the steering wheel went a bit mid over take which was a bit mad
Great cars though, I;ma convert!!
I;ve had mine 24 hours now and have also never had fwd before. It must be the way they handle the power as mines similar. I;m basically learning to drive differently by putting down the power whenI;m pointing in the right direction
I overtook a lorry on a a road today and as the car gets a big kick of power at 4.5k revs the steering wheel went a bit mid over take which was a bit mad
Great cars though, I;ma convert!!
'01 Clio Grande 1.2
What you're describing sounds like torque steer.
You mean when you boot it the car wants to sometimes yank itself to one side?
That's normal for powerful variants of FWD cars. Luckily no problem for me in my 8v 1.2! Oh.
The techy bit:
It's a function of having unequal length driveshafts. Any shaft you apply a torque to will have an inherent springyness (for want of a better word). This varies with the length. Because the shafts absorb a certain but unequal amount of torque, one wheel (at the end of said shaft) will behave slightly differently to another on a hard launch. You won't have noticed it in a RWD car as:
a) the wheels that do the steering aren't hindered by also having to transmit the power
b) the driveshafts on a RWD car are an equal length (the diff is in the middle)
For what you CAN do with FWD you can't on RWD/4WD go on youtube and look for Jason Plato's save at the Brands Hatch BTCC race a couple of years ago. You'll know it when you see it
Dan
You mean when you boot it the car wants to sometimes yank itself to one side?
That's normal for powerful variants of FWD cars. Luckily no problem for me in my 8v 1.2! Oh.
The techy bit:
It's a function of having unequal length driveshafts. Any shaft you apply a torque to will have an inherent springyness (for want of a better word). This varies with the length. Because the shafts absorb a certain but unequal amount of torque, one wheel (at the end of said shaft) will behave slightly differently to another on a hard launch. You won't have noticed it in a RWD car as:
a) the wheels that do the steering aren't hindered by also having to transmit the power
b) the driveshafts on a RWD car are an equal length (the diff is in the middle)
For what you CAN do with FWD you can't on RWD/4WD go on youtube and look for Jason Plato's save at the Brands Hatch BTCC race a couple of years ago. You'll know it when you see it
Dan
