The Front-Wheel Driving High-Performance Advantage [Paperback]

Jack Doo (Author), Carroll Shelby (Foreword)

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Motorbooks International (July 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879382988
• ISBN-13: 978-0879382988
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,401,209 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A basic introduction, September 11, 2003

By 

"miko528" (Adelaide, South Oz) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Front-Wheel Driving High-Performance Advantage (Paperback)

I found this book a little disappointing. It is a collection of different drivers views of the handling of front wheel drive vehicles in different conditions. It gives one drivers view on tarmac, one on rally, another on ice and so on. It is interesting to see how each driver sets up their car, but that is something that varys from person to person. I didn't find it too objective, I was hoping for something that would give more tips about setup, weight distribution etc, so maybe if a few drivers had been included it would have allowed me to make more general assumptions about FWD setup that could be applied to my car. This is a good book, and is a starting point for learning to setup a FWD car, but I was personally hoping for a little more depth.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interviewed Champions, March 27, 2005

By 

Maxim Masiutin (Chisinau, Republic of Moldova) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Front-Wheel Driving High-Performance Advantage (Paperback)

This books points out the differences and the similarities of FWD vs RWD race cars in the following aspects: driving style or line, differential selection, front/rear weight balance and downforce distribution, brake balance, suspension geometry, torsional stiffness, tire heat transients.

The authors have interviewed the FWD champions in road racing, autocrossing, rallying, ice racing and drag racing, and expressed their opinions on car setup and driving techniques in these different competition driving areas. For example, you will find pros and cons of left-foot-braking in this book, as expressed by the champions in respective areas. All the interviewees have agreed that trail braking is much more important for FWD cars, or even unavoidable.

There are also good chapters about FWD cars in the following books:

- Competition Driving (Alain Prost, Pierre-Francois)

- Race Car Vehicle Dynamics (William Milliken, Douglas Milliken)

What the book lacks is a clear conclusion, an outcome (probably a final chapter) based the on the data gathered by the interviews.

2.0 out of 5 stars could everything have changed in 20 years?, December 3, 2010

By 

miataboy - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Front-Wheel Driving High-Performance Advantage (Paperback)

Received the book and dove right in, as I was planning to drive my newly tweaked 2000 Honda Civic hatchback in an autocross near future. I set up the car as the autocross national champion (woman)suggested (e.g. ~40# pressure front, 34 back, and high tension coilovers front, soft rear). I thought it sounded strange, but who am I to challenge a national champion. When I got to the autocross to drive a front wheel drive car in an autocross for the first time (other car is a RWD Miata), the regional champ also driving a Honda Civic told me that that setup was exactly backwards. After changing to 34f/40r and soft shocks front/hard rear, the car drove great. Could things have changed that much???