Preface: I've driven front wheel cars before, but not much. Not my cup of tea. So I buy a little 5-speed 2001 Civic that will trickle down to my second daughter in 6 months and I'm using it for a drive-to-work car for a few months to shake it down. Decent little car, light and relatively flicky. But.... Going into my office parking lot, turning at 90 degrees off the public road you cross a broad ridge as you have a lot of wheel dialed in. Usually the last fun thing I do each morning prior to seeing a procession of a$$holes (literally) is to hit this ridge with reasonable speed, enough to get the front wheels a little light...or maybe a little airborn. So, anyway, when I do it with this Civic, and I land, the front end gets all wonky and it's no fun. Is this inherent to front wheel drive cars or just cheap front wheel drive cars? Is it correctable? Cheaply?
I think what your describing is the fault all fwd cars have -torque steer, you get some air the tires are spinning when it comes down and pulls you in the direction of your tires, plus all the weight is in the front, thats the advantage of a better balanced car or mid rear engine, try it in your Miata for kicks but get some real speed up so you get some good air on this same bump and see how it does.
Works great in the Miata. As do the other cars as well. I thnk you are right on , it does seem to rev up a little before touch down and with the steering cranked to the left, the tires touch, instant pull to the right with engine bog, i.e. techically it gets wonky.
You are dealing with a loose nut behind the wheel..... FWD ya have to drive differently than RWD. They are better in many ways (snow wet etc) but not so in "Performance" you have to remember when your front gets light like that you are removing the friction contact from the driven wheels which will allow them to move without anything slowing them. When you then load them with the inertia of landing and load them with engine input it is all going to the same place. Quite natural also Honda Civics are among the best FWD cars on the market (try that one with a hyundai) just you don't know how to drive them... Nothing wrong with that. It is a learned thang When I sold cars some of my customers were coming from their old land yachts into Tourasses and Lincoln Conti's some didn't like the adaptation but the first snow (if they paid attention and tried to learn the car) they converted....
Man, I can't understand the ignorance of the people on this board. I think we've all made fun of "ricers" with huge wings, but who's laughing now. You better go rent fast and furious (both 1 and 2) now, so that you can see how you can 1) dial in your "sport compact" with wings and aero kit to settle your car at extreme speed and 2) learn proper vin diesel FWD driving skills. (or is that skillz?) (hehe, j/k hope you know. FWD forever... And for the record, I am a closet Honda fan to boot. I think you could sell your vasectomy video on DVD and use the proceeds to import a proper Civic type-R.)
My daily prayer: Lord, please allow me a life time's supply of RWD cars with manual transmissions. In return I promise to be a good boy. Your pal, Uro P.S. If FWD is where we're collectively going, I'll take the bus.
Thats really strange. My FWD celica isn't "wonky" at all in 3 feet of air. Yes it's a manual... Maybe you just really revved that thing up before it hit the ground? Or maybe you touched 1 wheel down first and the dif went crazy? Who knows.
It's called BUMPSTEER. Google it, should help you out. (It's what happens when you the dynamic toe goes ape****.) I suppose Ichiro isn't considering contextual dynamic toe changes for GungHo Johnny sailing over a crest, with full steering lock. As for the rest of your commentary re: FWD: Yippe.
