went out to get some food earlier and decided to have a play as i had just been discussing the portsmouth RR day with swmbo and brother, what i did was remove the fuse for the haldex to see how the car behaved in its current state of tune and FWD with the ABS/ESP out on open water with no paddle.

and my reaction was :eek: :eek:

2nd gear foot welded down from tick over, all went swimmingly until i hit about 3Krpm and full boost when things suddenly went all funny with horrendous torque steer, crazy wheel spinning and general madness!!

how do you FWD boys with 300bhp+ cope for heavens sake??

thank god for 4WD is all i can say

wasn't there thread a while ago where everybody was saying how much they hated 4WD??

yeah, apparently its not any faster and infact slower due to the loses created by the extra transmission parts. i know which i prefer with a decent chunk of power though

in my car with the 4x4 working i never get torque steer, i vary rarely get any wheel spin(only really get it on full chat launches in the wet/damp) and it drives like a little angel. yet tonight it was a torque steering pig of a thing.big to 4WD

....but the slowest car of all is a non-operational 4x4 with all the weight of the transmission to drag around and no power from the rear to balance up the handling.

i agree but not sure how that affects putting power through the front wheels of either an actual FWD car or a 4WD with the rears 'turned off' :confused:

all i was trying to say is how mad and how much of a hand full the car was without the 4WD

If I compare my old (216bhp/standard suspension) vRS with my new (337bhp/KW3) vRS then these two are a world apart. In my old one I'd get torque steer a plenty, but in the new one... well... hardly any.

"all i was trying to say is how mad and how much of a hand full the car was without the 4WD" - yes agreed, as even a standard cav/calibra turbo owner could vouch. Front wd/4x4 suspension geometry etc. is optimised accordingly is it not?

not on the octavia as far as i know as i think they both use the same suspenion parts apart from where ride height is concerned.

and Q that does surprise me as i am running KW V2 coilovers and recently polybushed front end and have a poly dog bone mount so in essence our two cars shouldn't be that much different other than turbo/power output with yours being the more powerful one of the two.

2s are quite a lot different to 3s.

Just proves that the 4x4 is for people without the snse to be able to control something linear like a throttle pedal :haha:

HTH

More power - then you really need LSD. No wasted power to 4wd tranny losses.

my 2p.

Cheers

Bas

how do you FWD boys with 300bhp+ cope for heavens sake??

We have learnt how to drive.

2nd gear foot welded down from tick over, all went swimmingly until i hit about 3Krpm and full boost when things suddenly went all funny with horrendous torque steer, crazy wheel spinning and general madness!!

how do you FWD boys with 300bhp+ cope for heavens sake??

thank god for 4WD is all i can say

In the world of Saab Areo ownership that's what the fun is all about

What you describe there is exactly what used to happen when I floored it in my Dad's old 95 2.3t in sports mode ....... now matter how many times you did it, even after 3+ years of ownership, it was always a case of :eek:

this is the reason i say a 4x4 is quicker even on the move, i can use the full potential of my engine where the FWD with the same power isn't able to use anything like full throttle in perfectly dry clear conditions on a smooth flat road.

I have KW2s - no torque steer for me

and i have lead boots

this is the reason i say a 4x4 is quicker even on the move, i can use the full potential of my engine where the FWD with the same power isn't able to use anything like full throttle in perfectly dry clear conditions on a smooth flat road.

I'd tend to agree with you - but then again I don't fall into the "driving god" catagory that a lot of members on here obviously do

Bengie, for reference you can put the handdbrake on a couple of notches and it does the same

I liekd the 4x4 but it was too vanila, I wanted double choc interaction with my driving, as Jon says, develop a control of the throttle.

I can use full throttle on mine on wet days, so long as I turn the esp off But awd and 4x4 will be better in the wet there is no doubt. But I know which is more fun from a learning to drive and handle the car. my 4x4 days were brutal, I've learnt alot more about power delivery and control since having 200+ in the fronts alone.

i need to admit bengie i love my 4wd compared with the octy for getting power down and day to day driving, pulling out of junctions etc

not to say one is better than the other just 4wd helps so much on the roads where i stay and the scottish weather :(

Must admit there has been a temptation to look into retrofitting 4x4 on mine but it would just cost FAR too much, shame really

Now if you think the Octy 4x4 (or non-4x4) appears to be able to put its power down better than the Fab vRS in general, you can understand why an LSD is such a great upgrade/modification