Great topic Mort, highly contentious.
I am from the Rear wheel drive clan, and will guard its values till
death, or until I drive an Mi 16 because everything else front wheel
drive does not compare to my rear wheel drive Pugs!
I consider myself a very good driver, and I push my cars incredibly
hard. I am cursed by living in an area with no organized motorsports
to compete in what-so-ever, but blessed with some of the most
incredible forest logging roads that would easily be fit for an honest
to God Rally race. These roads are my playground in the off season.
I haven't driven an excellent FWD (re: Peugeot), but even a "good" one
in snow sucks when driven hard. Granted your disclaimer of it being
better "for the average driver" is totally correct. The coin flips
when the front wheel drive is pushed to it's limits. I find driving
fast (snow and ice) to be frightening. I can drive quickly (7/10 ths)
and be fine, push any further and its scary. Once you lose traction,
all you can really do is back off and hope to God it grabs as you plow
through the corner.
My rear wheel drive cars are driven in SEVERE winter's (Saskatchewan
is famous for winter's), and would not trade them for anything but AWD.
I drive the cars with very good winter tires on all four corners,
(Canadian Tire XGS, made by BFG) and the grip is phenominal. I find it
easier to drive this car than any front wheel drive, even when
puttering around town. U turns done on a dime are particularly handy,
and at a slow speed. (Rockford's in a front wheel drive are fun too!)
With real drive, the words "throttle induced oversteer" say it all.
I would love to race an Mi-16 on a race course, with an equal power to
weight ratio (even just close), similiar tires, and put the debate to
a rest. I would put my money on the 505. (This would make for a Great
PCNA meet). We should partner up with another car club (that rents
race circuits), and have a race day! We could safely test the cars
abilities as well as our own. Even if we did our own autocross, and
raced against the clock, it would be interesting who get's the quickest
time? This type of race may suit the Mi 16 more, but I'd like to see
the results. If the race were a rally, the 505's would spank the
405's!
Just for some bench racing, any body have the stats on the Mi-16?
According to R&T an 86' 505 Turbo is as follows:
Test weight 3320 lbs
lb/bhp 69.7
bhp@rpm 150@5000
Torque(ft*lbs)@rpm 181@2750
0-60 8.9s
60-0 155ft
I have more specs, but this should make an interesting comparison if
anyone has equivelent 405 Mi-16 specs.
Rabin James
PS. Sorry if I got carried away, I like my RWD's a lot!