"while smoking a joint the size of your front axle. my joint would have made more revolutions than ur front drive."

best part of your argument, haven't tried either of my turbos in the snow but my e46 m3 with BLIZZAKS got me back from Canada in a blizzard, its all about the tire!

 

an m3 is a TOUGH car to drive in the snow too. blizzaks are the ****.
has anyone tried Nokian ? they have patented technology on their tires that no one else can use (they havent licensed it). ive heard they are unbeatable.

 

I got my 996 turbo stuck in 3in of powdered snow in my flat driveway. 996 turbo AWD sucks, period. Only works if you are actually moving...and the faster you are moving, the better the AWD is. I converted mine to RWD and bought a real AWD car....

 

^you have a 6 speed rs6 ????
what tranny does audi ake to handle that kind of tq ?

 

I drove an E46 M3 as a winter car for a few years. I ran Dunlop Wintersport M3s, 225s all around on 17s. It was okay, but inferior to a comparable rear-engined RWD. Having weight over the drive wheels is key in the snow, hence all of the RWD pickup trucks running around with bags of sand in the back.

I also have prior experience with Michelin Pilot Alpins, Blizzak LM22/LM60s, Blizzak WS50/WS70s and Nokian Hakka 1s.

My Outback used to run Nokian Hakka 1s. Hands down, they had the best snow and ice traction of any snow tire I have ever used, and that was even after substantial mileage, at least 30,000 miles. They are not as good in the dry as a performance snow tire, but that is an acceptable trade-off. They are expensive and sizes are limited, but worth the money if traction is the primary goal.

I gave up trying to find a set of Hakkas to fit the Turbo, but perhaps they exist. Probably not the Hakka 1s, but one of the more performance oriented models.

 

i was looking at the hakka 7's for 19" fitment. nothin available. i would love to drive a 911 with nokians. jsut to experience what everyone raves about.

 

I live in Evergreen, CO. I drive on I-70 all the time (both directions), and I drive in snowy weather all the time. My daily driver is a 996 C4S. I do put proper winter tires in place (Blizzaks on dedicated wheels) in the Porsche recommended sizes. I have found the C4S to be an excellent winter car. The traction is excellent in most conditions. Deep snow is an issue for obvious reasons. The only time I have ever experienced a traction issue was driving up a steep, icy driveway. I couldn't get the car up the hill until I deactivated PSM. This allowed the rear wheels to slip, which then activated the viscous coupling and allowed the front wheels to get some power, and I made it up the hill. No big deal.

If you expect the 996 turbo or C4S to behave like a Subaru or Audi AWD system, then you'll be disappointed. It's not the same kind of system and it doesn't work as well. If you want a Porsche to drive in all seasons, then I believe that the turbo and C4S are excellent choices.

My belief is that tires are the most important thing in making a car perform well in winter conditions. With winter tires, all the things that make a 996 a great driving car in the summer will apply in the winter. It has great balance, great brakes, great suspension, etc.

 

I tried to stay out of this. This must be said first, Drive your other car if you are home. I have opened up the Viscous coupling, in attempts to actually make it do what we think it should and not what it does. If it worked it would carried over to the 997 period! It did not though. But I will go further and tell you that the unit is sealed (does not share the oil the diff uses) and took quite some time to cut open on my lathe. Way more then I thought. There is nothing more then many very thin plates that rub against each other. NOTHING pre loads the plates, If you are knowledgeable about the lsd's you will know that once the discs wear they loose pre load then they stop working, so what keeps the pre load? Oh the oil getting thick? well if the plates do not produce friction because of lack of pre load how does the fluid get hot? The fluid smelled so bad. REALLY bad. 320 degrees till the fluid gets thick?? Is there a faster way to heat the fluid up then holding the front wheels still and spinning the drive shaft? I will answer that. NO there is no faster way. I have countless hours working on this platform, I have broken down every component to the last bolt/screw. This knowledge that I have paid for is free to the forum, learn from it or dont. Some front drives may work in 996's but I will bet that the plates are galled and are mostly locked by sheer friction from the galling then the fluid getting hot. Also in that case if you where to put down some heavy power threw that drive it would bust the housing.

I had a c2 that was on ps2's and lowered. I was caught in many snow storms. No problem as long as the snow was not high enough to lift the body of the car and unload the wheels. PSM off the whole time or the car would not move do to the brakes trying to control the wheel speeds front to back by pulsing the rear brakes. I DD bww 5 series x drives for the last 7 years or so, no problems with them in the snow.

 

01E. All rebuilt of course. Sourced everything from 2002 A6 2.7t. About an hour of tuning left next week and we're done...rusn awesome, MUCH more fun to drive.

 

please tell me you have a build thread.

 

Not too documented,,but I tried

http://www.rs6.com/showthread.php/25...ce-TC-for-sale

 

Taken from wiki

" The viscous type is generally simpler because it relies on hydrodynamic friction from fluids with high viscosity. Silicone-based oils are often used. Here, a cylindrical chamber of fluid filled with a stack of perforated discs rotates with the normal motion of the output shafts. The inside surface of the chamber is coupled to one of the driveshafts, and the outside coupled to the differential carrier. Half of the discs are connected to the inner, the other half to the outer, alternating inner/outer in the stack. Differential motion forces the interleaved discs to move through the fluid against each other. In some viscous couplings when speed is maintained the fluid will accumulate heat due to friction. This heat will cause the fluid to expand, and expand the coupler causing the discs to be pulled together resulting in a non-viscous plate to plate friction and a dramatic drop in speed difference. This is known as the hump phenomenon and it allows the side of the coupler to gently lock. In contrast to the mechanical type, the limiting action is much softer and more proportional to the slip, and so is easier to cope with for the average driver."

The problem with the 996 C4S/turbo is the lack of a rear lsd, this allows more frequent power transfer to the front when ever either rear wheel looses traction. Not so bad with psm on but with it off you will accelerate the wear on the center viscous couple. Add a rear lsd and both rear wheels need to loose traction before the viscous sees speed differential and begins to transfer more power.

My car has 80k miles and the viscous is still working strong, very easy to drop the center drive shaft and feel the difference, especially in the wet or snow.

Again, if you feel your awd doesnt do anything or very little you probably have a worn out viscous coupler.

 

Wiki?? Really? SMH.. "Add a rear lsd and both rear wheels need to loose traction before the viscous sees speed differential and begins to transfer more power." You need to learn a few thing about diff's and how they work, transfer power how they get connected.. Also I think you should take one of these cars apart before you make any further comments. The transaxle in the 996/7 tt/4/4s uses a simple spline on the pinion shaft that is extended out of the trans case where a yoke slips over and is bolted down. that yoke is now connected to the front drive via a drive shaft. That yoke sees 50% power ALL the time, direct connection rear pinion to yoke. Its one part #8 in first pic. In fact the input side of your "magic" viscous coupler sees 50% of the power ALL the time. A lsd has no influence on how the viscous coupler works at all. A lsd simply needs the viscous coupler work less do to both rear wheels providing power to the ground. Do you know why the front tires and rear tires are not the same run out? Check Wiki...


Turbo trans, black yoke right on top of the trans mount.



GT2/3 no yoke in that area.



Credit to Roger at CMS for the pics off his site.

Or from my own phone:

Gt2.. yokeless



Turbo.. yoke

 

Some more info.. With OEM tire sizing at 80 mph if your viscous coupler was locking 100% or giving 50% power to the front, your front tires would be 1 mile in front of your rear tires in one hour. haha..

 

Lol.