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MCoupe & TT Quattro - why to have both ?

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  • MCoupe & TT Quattro - why to have both ?

    Hello,

    This is mostly off topic but will revert back to comparing these two, even if they are uncomparable.

    Namely, I became a bit bored during the winter months with the MCoupe sleeping in the garage with its summer tyres on and thus without possibility for any winter driving fun during the Finnish winter.

    The withdrawal symptoms became even worse when they after Christmas opened an ice track on a small lake not too far from my house. Because even my motorcycle did not require any work during this winter, I started to look for some other interestig winter sports equipment.

    Any serious ice track vehicle would require the use of race style spikes ( https://v2tre.wordpress.com/#jp-carousel-4417 ) and with those you cannot legally drive on public roads. This then leads to having a heavy duty trailer to transport your toys to the track and in winter conditions to be able to pull the combination safely you would further need to have a 4WD truck or similar. This sounded a bit steep in order to have a few winter track days and I could not make up any sound explanations to missus to argument for such otherwise reasonable acquisitions.

    So I started to approach this challenge from the other direction considering what would be the "more economical" yet fun enough car to be able to enjoy the ice track and the Finnish winter and legal to drive also on public roads ?

    Quickly I came into conclusion that it really needs to be an AWD/4WD with good enough power to weight ratio. AWD/4WD is the only practical way to ensure good enough traction to make driving fun on ice with road legal winter tyres. It would further be preferable that the car would have some potential for easy adjustments and DIY improvements and the price of the car itself/spares should not be too high. Thus, anything really exotic is out of the question.

    Two potential candidates emerged : Subaru Imbreza or some Audi/VW “Quattro” (A3, S3, TT, VW Golf…).

    Looking into local www-based classified ads, I spotted one particularly interesting used individual : Audi TT Mk1 2000 225 hp 1.8 Turbo Quattro with total of 120 000 kms and with previous owner from some 35 000 km and 2004 onwards. In closer inspection it proved out that this car had been used mostly to enjoy summer days only and it was both inside and out a clean and solid car.

    The important features checked out in the following manner :

    - low enough chassis, relatively wide wheelbase and wheels very near the corners
    -driver sits basically in “middle of the car” relative to front and back wheels
    -healthy 225 hp with usable torque also at lower rpms (can be boosted up to ~ 300 hp rather easily)
    -Haldex based “computer controlled” all wheel drive system
    -good availability and reasonable prices of spares
    -a lot of tuning/racing parts available (same stuff used for Audi S3, VW Mk4 AWD versions)

    Because the car had just been taken through MOT and it had fresh winter tyres with only about 1000 km on them, I bought it just before Christmas without too much considering whether it makes too much sense to have both the MCoupe and Audi TT Mk1 in the same household. To all of my friends I have been since telling that this "TT is mainly for my daughters" and I may use it occasionally just to keep it going and despite that evidently it is a bit of a "designer style car".

    A quick overall service and everything else seemed to be fine but I was not convinced that the Haldex rear traction fully worked as intended. A closer look into this and it seemed that there was some hesitation how the rear wheel traction came on in different situations.

    There was however a quick fix for this : the Haldex pre charge pump had had it and needed to be replaced ( https://v2tre.wordpress.com/2017/01/...e-charge-pump/ ). At the same go, I did not feel confident with the rear lower horizontal control rods and decided to update them with Forge racing bits that have camber adjustment and heavy duty design that can handle power slides ( https://v2tre.wordpress.com/2017/01/...em-forge-wins/ ). The outer rear bushings were also updated with latest models ( https://v2tre.wordpress.com/2017/01/...aded-bushings/ ).

    After this quick service I was ready to have the first ice track day ( https://v2tre.wordpress.com/2017/01/...-carousel-4347 )

    All went well and the car worked as Audi intended it to work ! In practise this means that you need to persuade the rear wheel drive to hook on with rather heavy throttle usage and this also means that to get into a four wheel power slide in the corners requires rather determined way to push the car through the corner with the heavy throttle. The challenge is increased by the fact that if you lift the throttle or brake when entering into the corner (before apex), the Haldex clutch becames immediately disengaged. This leads easily to understeering in the corners which ruins the maximum fun. Well, thanks to the Haldex being computer controlled that can be surely taken care of ?

    If this kind of a story is of of any interest, I might write here some comparison how MCoupe and TT Quattro feel rather different and why the MCoupe is actually sooooo much more radical and uncompromising animal to drive and own :)

    However, Haldex 4WD has also some interesting benefits and I have now unleashed some of those with this nice gadget allowing to adjust and control the behavior of the Haldex unit : http://www.hpamotorsports.com/product_haldex.html

    If not getting flamed too badly here , I might write something more in the near future

    br, JuhaV
    Last edited by JuhaV; 27-02-2017, 01:48 PM.
    The older I get, the faster I was ...
    BMW HP2 Sport
    ex- BMW Z3 M Coupe - Cosmosschwartz Metallic

  • #2
    Interesting read, I would imagine the track M Coupe would be not great on the ice track.

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