Depowering my Seven....

[Cropper]

1981Ford Capri
1983Ford Escort
1984 Opel Manta
1985 Lotus Europa, Kept for 11 years
1987 Dolomite Sprint
1988-95 Land rover & range rover V8's 4 wheel drive if that counts (working in Saudi)
Also had a fiat 130 saloon ( V6 Ferrari engine) & series 3 4.2 jag, during this time.
1995 opel manta
1996Merc 190, for 7 days, wrote it off!
1996 BMW520
2006 Porsche 944, restored.
2008 BMW 320D
2010 Lexus IS220D
2012 Bought Girlfriend a Merc SLK
Cant think of any more at the moment!

[MikeB]

My rear wheel drives were

1986 Volvo 360DL, worse car ever, dodgey in the wet
1990 Ford Sierra Saphire, pile of poo
1994 BMW 320 much nicer but not enough power to drive properly
2003 BMW 320 handles lovely still not enough power to exploit the chassis

Did all my limit handling driver training in a 1990 M5

[AshG]

Why didn't you just put a smaller turbo on it? Surely that would have been easier?

[rpjg1975]

I've only had a couple of rwd experiences

1987 Porsche 944
54 plate transit flatbed car transporter......yes it drift round roundabouts in York area and Cardiff/Bristol
1992 ford sierra 1.8 (donor car....drove from Sheffield to my driveway)

Russ

[jps]

I've only driven two rwd cars:
ford capri laser (aged 8 it was the car I learnt to drive in, puttering round my dads garage forecourt)
ford sierra , the donor car. drove it from bedford back to Colchester and probably did a hundred miles in it before the engine came out.

can't say the sierra handled differently to a fwd car but the 1.6 pinto is hardly over flowing with horses!

[thailoz]

1979 mk iv cortina
mk 3 cortina
mk 2 escort
vauxhall chevette
mazda 626 early model rwd fird transit
1991 Porsche 944S2

these were the ones I owned but have driven countless other rwd vehicles in my course of work

[TheArf]

The biggest difference between front and rear wheel drive is exiting corners, would most agree to that

Arfon

[loony]

Looks like I'm much younger
1998 (when I get driving licence) Fiat 126p 0,65 24hp +tuning
2000 FSO Polonez Caro 1,6 75hp
2005 BMW E36 325i 192hp
2009 same BMW E36 325i but turbocharged to about 280hp
2011 (and still) Opel Frontera 2,2DTI 116hp (snow drifter - in summer MT tires are also slippy on tarmac)

I had only one FWD car in my life - Ford Escort. I hope this was my first and last FWD car...

[Wynand]

Originally Posted by AshG

Why didn't you just put a smaller turbo on it? Surely that would have been easier?

Not really all that simple....

I disconnected the boost controller and connected the turbo boost directly to wastegate actuator and the actuator opens at 0.3 bar (5psi) which was low compared to the normal boost of 0.76 bar (11psi) the engine operates on normally, and still the power when the boost kicked in, overwhelmed the rear traction of this light weight car in any turn.

That said, to get the power down safely and the car to stick to the black top, much bigger rubber is needed than the 15x195x50 currently fitted - preferably semi or slicks which again calls for bigger rims, fenders etc. Not exactly road car friendly since I do not race my car.

Engine swop was easier and as I said before; the car is now bigger than the sum of its parts.

[TheArf]

Very light car anything up to 2.0ltr will give you massive grin factor turbo etc waste of time.
Just a personal opinion

Arfon