Latest news with #WyattKnox
Yahoo
01-03-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Can Quattro Make A 4,600 Pound Long-Wheelbase Diesel Luxury Sedan A Rally God?
There's no way that a 4,500 pound long-wheelbase diesel-powered luxury sedan from a decade ago could be any good at rallying, right? It'd be too big and heavy, plodding around the rally stage like a depressed elephant, though maybe its aluminum-intensive construction will give it an edge? Would you be surprised if I told you that this 2014 Audi A8 L TDI--a car with the same 3-liter diesel found in my Porsche Cayenne--was faster on stage than a Porsche Cayman S, a Toyota GR Corolla, or a 700-horsepower Ram TRX? Prepare to be surprised, and watch the video below from Team O'Neil for all the goods. As it turns out, the old-school Quattro mechanical all-wheel drive and Torsen differentials in this monster, paired with a good set of grippy winter tires, make all the difference. Read more: You've Probably Never Heard Of The Coolest Canadian Car Ever Built We didn't get the more powerful diesel V8s that Europe enjoyed, with its 346 horsepower and an impressive 590 lb-ft, but the so-called Clean Diesel Quattros got the North America-approved 3.0-liter TDI V6 which made a not-insubstantial 247 horsepower and 406 lb-ft of torque. That's enough to shift the big sedan from 0-60 on dry ground in just 6.2 seconds, so it may be a large machine, but it'll still get a little boogie on. Part of this car's speed comes down to Team O'Neil's driving instructor and the guy with the rally chops, Wyatt Knox. He might have been able to stretch even a little bit more speed out of it if he had been paddle shifting the car and anticipating the lag a little better. Might it have been able to beat a Tuthill-built rally-spec Porsche? Maybe if Wyatt ever changed out of his hiking boots. "Turbo lag is a real thing. It is often hunting between gears and that kind of stuff," Knox said. "But considering it was never really designed with snow rally racing in mind I'd say it did just fine." Read the original article on Jalopnik.
Yahoo
07-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Is A Lifted Tesla Model 3 The Perfect Car For Rallying?
Just under a year ago the Team O'Neil folks set a new lap record of their home course in a new Subaru WRX, a time which was deemed difficult to beat in anything on street-legal tires. This winter it was the team's goal to find something faster than the WRX around the short course, a goal of beating a 2:14.38 snowy lap. Could something electric be the right move? The team brought in a slightly modified Tesla Model 3 sedan, a dual-motor unit with four-wheel torque vectoring, to see if it could tackle the course. Wouldn't you know it, the damn thing was over two seconds quicker than the Subaru, and beat a Toyota GR Corolla by 18 seconds! Running a short course stage rally in slippery conditions is a difficulty that even the best cars struggle with, so what makes this Model 3 so special? Aside from the electric car's ability to modulate power delivery constantly and instantly to all four wheels, this one has been fitted with a few Mountain Pass goodies to give it a little more rally speed. It has a 1.75-inch lift kit, adjustable upper control arms, a front skid plate, and the 'partybox' motor controller to adjust some of the car's parameters to optimize them for rally. More than anything, though, it was the tires that made the difference. As with any winter driving, you need winter tires to go, stop, and handle anywhere near the limit. A perfect demonstration of that can be found in the first few seconds of the video where rally instructor Wyatt Knox tried to drive the car on the Falken Wildpeak A/T tires it came with, and it was immediately stuffed into a snowbank. Toss on a set of Nokian Hakkapliitta 10s with a bunch of studs in them, and boom, lap record! Keep that in mind next time you think you can make it through a winter without winter tires. It goes without saying that Elon sucks and his cars are poorly built at best, but the Model 3 is quick and electric torque vectoring is essentially unbeatable. Tack on the Mountain Pass Performance modifications and a good set of rubber and it was going to be an unbeatable combination. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
