All-Wheel Drive

[pimrusis]

Why will you damage the clutch if you floor it in an AWD car? And what do you need to do to prevent it, get it into second?

[fedezyl]

Well the problem is that you have 4 wheels instead of 2 to put the power down, so you have twice as much grip, on 2WD cars you spin the tires if you floor it, on a 4WD car to spin the tires you need a lot of power, and usually what gives up is the clutch, now the clutch is just a disc with a special compound that is pressed against the Flywheel with a certain amount of pressure, usually that pressure is strong enough to keep the clutch from sliping, but in a 4WD car the 4 tires are not spining so something has to give up and that is the clutch, what happens is that the clutch slips and it's temperature rises and it gets burned..
To prevent this you can do to things, not floor the car until the car is moving a bit, or, get a super heavy duty racing clutch, that is really heavy and can withstand the high temperatures generated, now that solution is not very good for a street car since it would make the clutch really heavy and difficult to dose, it would be more like and On/Off switch..

Hope it helped a bit!

[maalox]

Fedezyl is spot on with his info. Even a 2WD can cook the clutch if you're doing vigorous enough acceleration runs. (For example, there's that Mastercard ad spoof of that Corvette burning its clutch up floating around the internet.)

[jpatino03]

It smells so bad too. I was at an intersection in LA when an RX-7 burned out its clutch in the middle of the turn. The poor guy had to push his car to the curb. You could tell the car was his baby too.

[mhn3773]

it isn't like a..oh woops i acidenlty dropped it at 5k once so now the clutch is dead kind of thing

clutchs are weak but not that weak to blow a clutch in one dump ud need huge power and an ever better clutch if u are nice to the clutch the clutch is nice to u

my grandpa gave me his 5spd car and i learned to drive on it..its the original clutch has 80 some odd thousand miles on it and it is still running strong so u have to really abuse it to get it to give out

and there are tell tale signs that the thing is going out so don't scare the poor kid making it sound like if he tries it once the clutch is gunna just spontaneously explode

but all the information in the precious posts IS something to think about and be weary of..think about it if ur head gets thrown back on a launch think of how much worse that was for the clutch and the drivetrain =) lol

[pimrusis]

Good call Fedezyl, Thank you much.

[fedezyl]

^^^ No problem mate, as far as how you notice when your clutch is worn out, well when you do full on accelerations, like you dump the clutch at 4500 rpm's, well instead of the rpm's dropping when you dump it and floor it, you'll notice that the RPM's go up to fast, you'll notice it sliping, like when you slowly get off a traffic light and you slip the clutch so you don't stall the car, the same happens when the clutch is worn out and you floor it at high RPM's...
Let me know if you have any other questions!!

[fedezyl]

well, I heard a good launch technique for 4wd cars is to rev the engine near redline then drop the clutch then floor it, this will allow for the car to get moving thus avoiding to much stress on gearbox, clutch and axles...
I've never tried this myself though, i've never driven a 4wd car but an old Jeep so that doesn't really count...

[draak666]

Hehe, never thought I'd say this but: buy an automatic. The computer will sort it out for you. I sure as hell floored an Audi A8 4.2 quattro a few weeks ago when I got the chance. Damn that's a fast tank.

[bmwfreak]

WHen Autocar UK tested the Audi RS2 (300++ bhp, i think, with 4WD) back in 1994 (there or thereabouts, dont remember the exact dates), the road testers didnt know what would be the best way to launch the car to get the quickest acceleration times for publication. So, they place a call to Ingolstadt, and through an interpreter, ask the engineers what was the best way to do this. The reply?

"Rev it up all the way to the redline, engage gear, drop the clutch, and hang on." To which Steve Sutcliffe replied "Are you f***ing kidding me?". The interpreter replies "They're German engineers. They dont know how to make jokes." Hehe.