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GM is not the only one who seems to do quite well on the track - Damien Shulock is known to do some giant slaying acts as well, for instance. The Porsche may be better at the tight stuff, but speaking as an 'average' enthusiast driver I can say that I would be able to push the Saab much closer to its limits and feel comfortable with that on the faster stuff, than a 911 with that big lump of metal hung out the back. The thing is, you can get away with a much more aggressive chassis set up than with an RWD car of the same weight/size where you would always have to dial in some stabilizng understeer, except when you are -really- brave... Just start with a good spring/shock combo, which will greatly improve body control, and then you find you can do away with that front sway bar. That alone will give a dramatic improvement in fore/aft balance (no more understeer) and traction out of bends. More aggressive camber and castor srtting at the front with minimal toe-in, and a set of quality rubber will just about do the rest. All other stuff you can do is merely refinement.
Tune your engine for improved throttle response and a wide flat torque curve instead of going for the highest possible peak torque and hp numbers, and the thing will fly! My new MINI is a great car and I love it to bits, but even the Cooper S Works version I drove for a week -which is widely regarded to be one of the very best driver's cars regardless of price- felt curiously inert next to Saabine.
The truth is, with a couple of chassis tweaks you can make a devastatingly effective track/point to point tool out of almost any decent car (be it FWD, RWD or AWD) provided it's not too heavy, simply because car manufacturers (even Porsche et al) won't unleash a vehicle that hasn't got a fair bit of reassuring understeer dialled in, to the general public. When I told a chassis systems development head honcho of Delphi (one of the biggest automotive systems suppliers) how I set up my Saab, he said words to the effect of "that should be lots of fun to drive, but we couldn't possibly do something like that for our customers. Car manufacturers won't want to get rid of the understeer for fear people might leave the road backwards when they lift the throttle at a moment that they really shouldn't." Which is a shame really, as the ability to make the tail 'come round' by lifting the go pedal is a good safety feature for the more 'advanced' driver - for instance when you misjudged a bend and your entry speed is rather too high to make it without divine intervention...
posted by 82.169.6...
, Tue, 4 May 2004 14:19:29
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