FixedWing

Or maybe some references to anyone else who writes about it? I have found absolutely nothing on this topic.

I am guessing that relative to summer settings, it will need less camber, similarly aggressive toe settings, softer damper settings, milder anti-roll bars and softer springs.

But that’s just a guess. Anyone have any thoughts?

I want to get my Audi S4 set up specifically for snow and I want to take it out on the lakes for a little fun this winter. :-)

Stephen

Darren

Ice racing sounds like a lot of fun.

Just as a total guess, since noone else responded (bump), I'm thinking maybe just a tiny bit of negative camber (maybe even 0?), 0 toe front and rear, and stock sways/springs. I'd try that and see how it feels...

RedlineMan

Hey;

Unlike in the dry, body roll is your friend on ice. You need to shift a ton of weight to the outside rear wheel for accelerative grip. Ever watched the boys in dirt late models or modifieds? Same kind of setups generally work for ice. You also need to be able to tighten up the rear to get it to rotate. A truly worthy setup for ice would be a bit of a pig on the street, but there is likely a medium somewhere.

jrgordonsenior

If you've never seen this.......

http://www.embedded-speedstyle.de/me...e05/deuzHQ.wmv

Acropora

Some serious cajones to do that surrounded by trees!

Kurt R

An S4 on the ice? Well, OK.
Find a totalled base A4q. Use the springs and struts, and swap the brakes so you can fit 15" wheels. Pick up some 15x6 or narrower wheels, and some 180-70 or if you can find them 165x15 tires.
More camber than stock can help, as the car will lean quite a bit. Don't run sway bars, or run the ones from the A4. I'm not sure of the torque bias of the S4, so you may have to adjust depending on if you spin a front or rear wheel more. Disconnect the ABS if it is anything like my A4's abs, which is to say useless on ice.

Really, really try to get about 1000-1500 pounds out of the car - those Audis are just too heavy to be very competitive on the ice.

Me? Give me an old rabbit, welded diff and menard tires with umbrella studs. Good times.

FixedWing

Thanx Guys..

I think I’ve pretty much followed the formula mentioned here. I raised the ride height which reduces the negative camber and will increase body roll. I have substituted the front anti-roll bar from an A4 which will also increase body roll and reduce understeer. I have kept the rear S4 anti-roll bar. From playing in the rain, think the combination might be enough for me to be able to get the car to rotate a little in the snow. And finally, I have softened up the damping all around. What I haven’t done is to reduce the spring rate which would require my buying a new set of spring all around. That also limits how soft I can go on the damping.

I am using narrower 16 inch rims with 205/60R16 studded Nokian Hakka 2’s. The stock wheel size for the S4 is 17 inch with 225/45R17. This is the best I can do without changing the entire brake system.

The one thing where I cannot make up my mind what to do is setting the toe. A really aggressive street setting for this car would be zero toe at the front and 0 to 1/16 toe out at the back. I cannot make up my mind if this would also be good in the snow or if I would be better off with a less aggressive setting. My gut instinct is that it would work well.

I agree with Kurt about using a dedicated snow car. This spring I will modify the S4 further and I think at that point it will no longer be practical for me to make these sorts of temporary changes for winter use. Then I’m thinking a dedicated winter car might make more sense. My only question is .. why a FWD Golf/Rabbit? Surely AWD would be better and RWD more fun??

Stephen

sjanes

Or, you could by a Chevette and join these guys: http://www.mco.org/cms/modules/coppe...tteIceRace.wmv

JoelG

With sanctioning body we're running with, AWD puts you in a different class, which doesn't seem to generate a lot of entries.

Most folks go the route above, FWD, light, cheap. I suspect even the lowest econobox has more than enough HP to spin the wheels anywhere on the course. Remember the famous quote from Mark Donahue when the Porsche engineer asked him when he would have too enough HP? "When I can spin the wheels all the way down the front straight". A rabbit can probably do that on ice, at least in the street stud class, which we run. I dont know a lot about the menard class myself, except they go quite a bit faster and are required to have safety equipment.

There's also have a weight limit. 3200lbs I think.

We're racing a celebrity. Its a crappy choice but the price was right: free. we did spend about $200 on tires though. For us ice racing is kind of like ice fishing. Its a reason to get out of the house and drink beer with the guys in winter.

FixedWing

This is one thing I really like about driving in the winter. For most people, driving is usually a summer sport. It is nice to be able to get out and do it in all sorts of conditions including conditions that terrify most of the population. And I really love the idea that for the price of winter wheels on a Porsche, once can have a car that can run circles around said Porsche.

For the moment, I just want to get out on the ice and learn something. But if I enjoy it -- and I think I will -- then maybe I will consider some sort of racing like you are doing.

Stephen

Kurt R

I picked a fwd car over awd for two reasons, weight and complexity. awd typically adds 200 - 300 lbs to a car, and I could get a VW down around 1600 lbs before it gets packed with snow. Second the awd cars seemed to always have some sort of mechanical problem. Maybe they're better now, I've been out of the game for a couple of years.

RWD is a lot of fun. There's two local cars that are a blast to see run. One is a 1st gen RX-7 with about a 1000 roofing nails in the tires, it just shreds the ice when it takes off. The other is an old 60's Plymouth, yes, with a hemi, with bolts in the tires. He runs ice drags and will run some of our events too. I might head out again this year, we'll see. Right now we're getting so much snow I'm afraid the ice won't be very good.

Noel

The Boston chapter of the BMWCCA is starting its ice autocross series on Jan 15, 2006 in NH. Check their website for more info.

I'll be there in my A4.

Nordschleife

experienced Audi ice racers often run with locked differentials.
the EDL is not an effective substitute in snowy/icy conditions.
An old Audi is better at this than a newer one.
Some of the the most opinionated SOBs the world has ever seen are successful Audi ice racers. They favour the 5 cylinder motor.

R+C

Bob D..

Setup depends on what you want to do.
If you want to use your daily driver to fool around on a lake, then get a really good set of tall skinny snows ( I use 195/65-15 Nokian NRW's on my '95 S6) and have at it. For fooling around on the ice, you could lower the pressures some, but be careful - a tire coming off the rim and deflating out on a lake is a very cold experience.
If you are going ice racing, that is a whole different ball of wax, and setup will depend on class (rubber to ice or studs) In either case a streetable Audi is way too heavy. And, in studs, it doesn't have enough power.

Proper rubber to ice preparation is, as mentioned above, dialing in as little roll stiffness as possible, including softening the shocks. In rear wheel drive, some ballast is handy - we hung about 250 pounds on the axle of a Fiat - that way it didn't bottom. Finally, and most important, you need to take a set of ice radials and tractionize them, by running them for about 10 minutes on a pair of rollers coverd with short spikes. Sort of shreds the tread to provide a lot more edges, and substantially increases the traction. However, it will last a few minutes on pavement, and so it is not really something you can do for the street.

Locally, a bunch of Audi S-car owners plow a tack on a lake and do time trials, drag racing, etc. a couple weekends each winter. A couple of years ago my nephew showed up with his beater Subaru studded class ice racer, and made complete fools of our expensive street cars.

Hope you have fun.

FixedWing

Thanx for the info. I will check this out. Maybe I'll see you there!

Stephen