I need help from somebody who paid attention in physics class. My question is, how would 100hp to all 4 wheels compare in "acceleration power" to 200hp to the rear wheels assuming everything else is equal.

 

200 HP wins, no question at all.

 

*slaps Apeiron* you should know more horsepower = way more fun!

 

Then tell me why anybody would even think that 100 HP would beat 200 HP?

 

I didn't take physics, so you'd have to show us some caculations to prove either case. Sense says that 200 to the rear tires will win, regardless. 200 AWD would win, though, versus 200 only at the rear. (this assumes that the readings were measured at the wheels, not at the flywheel.)

 

No, they'd be perfectly even.

In any case, this is probably a pointless discussion.

 

You guys are getting ahead of yourselfs. Are you assuming the cars are identical in weight, gearing, tire size, etc etc and such? If they are identical, the car with more power wins until traction becomes an issue. With 200hp I would rather have only 2 wheels driving me.

 

I should've said that, but yeah, I was assumming that both cars were pretty much identical in terms of center of mass, corner weights, weigh, tires, suspension set-ups - as far as an AWD and RWD car can get, really - so I would imagine that the AWD car would have an edge in traction over the RWD car, becasue it has twice the traction (roughly, I'm not forgetting about weight tansfer) - but I'm talking as if both cars had the same power ratings. For the original question, RWD wins.

But what ShiftyCapone said, I'd rather have RWD, less moving parts to break on me. Simplicity is a good thing, a lot of times.

 

Well I would want it with only 200hp. Traction won't be an issue. Now if the car had 500 that is a different story. You won't want AWD if your objective is top speed.

 

I apologize, what I meant was 100 to each of the four wheels, or 200 to each of the rear wheels....400hp either way
For example, for simplicity's sake, if you were to put an electric motor at each wheel which makes 100 hp, or if you were to put an electric motor only to each of the rear wheels which makes 200 hp

but it seems to me that traction is the only real issue here

 

It would depend on the distance or speed your trying to measure the accleration to, if its shorter i would tend to believe awd would take it, but longer distance or higher speeds i would believe a rwd will take it.

 

Drivetrain loss would be an issue with 4wd. Traction is an issue with 2wd. If the 2WD can hook, then it would win.

 

look at the audis in the touring racees on speed channel. most of the time there up front. a couple weeks ago i watched it and the track had some long strait sections and they were somewhere in the last 10 positions

 

Well Im not a professor or anything ,but I would say that 100 to the ground at all wheels is 100 to the ground and 200 to the ground at 2 wheels is 200 to the ground. and would do better. Unless traction is an issue. Just an oppinion

 

horsepower is a measure of heat. If this is going to be a physics test, at least use a unit that makes sense when talking about forces on wheels.

The bottom line is if you have an equal amount of power going to 4 wheels compared to the same amount of power going to two, the 4 wheel car assuming everything else is equal will have twice the torque capacity as the 2 wheel driven car. This means that they go the same speed until the torque output exceeds the friction of the road against the tires during acceleration.

This is what most people have already said in this poorly worded test case. I believe the thread starter wanted to create an example that would cause people to choose the obvious choice when in fact the answer would be the other choice. Since a 4 wheel driven car has twice the torque capacity as a two wheel before the tires slip, in a situation where the road friction is small enough to cause the torque produced by 100hp at two wheels to slip, the 100 hp distributed across 4 wheel car would beat a 200hp 2 wheel driven car, since the 4 wheel car wouldn't slip but the 2 wheel would. blah blah blah.


so what everyone said. If friction was involved, this car would win. If not then this car would win. And hp doesn't dictate it. Torque does.