4x4 freak
Is There any Record for the Fastest FWD Car?
Just to add to what opendriver19a said...
The general approach to high speed runs is to increase traction on the driving wheels, yet reduce overall downforce. With rear and 4 wheel drive cars, this is done by lowering the back/raising the front, so that at high speeds the front of the car lifts (unloading the front suspension, and reducing overall downforce), and putting heavy downforce at the rear to increase the traction through the driving wheels. I should also mention that the general way weight transfer occurs in a rear wheel drive car during acceleration also puts more load at the rear, thus further increasing the traction at our driving wheels.
Now, if we apply this aerodynamic setup to a front wheel drive car tho, then because the front suspension is unloaded, we will get very low traction through the driving (front) wheels, and high traction on our dragging wheels (rear). As a result of this we are not using the throughput of the engine effectively, and we will (probably) get quite dramatic wheelspin.
If we try to rectify that situation by reversing how we set up the ride height and downforce, then the aerodynamics will actually work to push the car into the ground, increasing overall downforce, and thusly slowing us down.
As a result, you need a lot more power to achieve the same speeds in a front wheel drive car. However, as the engine must be placed at the front, which will also need to contain the complex steering/drive combinations needed in a front wheel drive car, space is severely restricted, and so achieving that power is not possible.
Hopefully you can understand that. If not, question parts and I can try to clarify things.