9:08 Seconds!..
Around the Nurburgring!..
In my Crazy Pinto! 
I finally broke the 10 minute barrier on the NBR, and had a BLAST doing it, in my Ford-Pinto-Shaped-Race Car, I mean, let’s be fair here, the only Ford Pinto original parts on it are the sheet metal body panels, the headlights, taillights and grille, oh, and the windows, so the body shell is the last remaining original part
I did perform some strategic upgrades and tweaks before hitting the Ring (My Precious!..)
I upgraded Little Crazy Horse (heh, I like that name, I dub thee Little Crazy Horse!) with an AWD drivetrain, what’s this? I hear you say, MacTech, the Rear Wheel Drive fan has modded a car to AWD, who are you and what have you done with MacTech!
Calm down, let me explain, yes, I dearly love RWD cars, they have a balance and poise missing from front-drivers, but I also had one major problem with Little Crazy Horse (LCH from now on), and that was major torque steer and wheelspin from the rear tires, mat the throttle from a standing start and LCH wants to go sideways, or starts to do donuts, at the very least, he starts burning rubber like mad…
…yes, smoky burnouts look cool, no argument, but they’re also a sign that you’re wasting power, prematurely wearing your tires out, and that the car is not able to harness all it’s power efficiently
By putting the AWD drivetrain in, I was able to send all 797 HP from that monstrous Supercharged and Intercooled 5 liter V8 to all four tires, instead of simply melting the rears off their rims
However, I didn’t want LCH to lose his tail-happy, powerslide-ey (is SO a word!) character at the expense of grip, so I tweaked the AWD mechanism
factory AWD settings are a 50/50 power distro, and 50%/0% Accel/Decel lock on the front tires, 75%/75% Accel/Decel lock on the rears
I wanted to retain as much of the tail-happy character as possible, but not waste power smoking the rear tires, so with a bit of fiddling, I came up with a set of numbers that seem to be working, but still need fine-tuning
90% rear / 10% front power distro
20%/20% accel/decel lock for the fronts
75%/75% accel/decel lock for the rears
With those settings, I can still kick the tail out in corners, but the front still has a tad of understeer that was introduced with the AWD system, I’m trying to tune that out, the way I figure it, what I want is decent grip and acceleration in the straights, but I want the sharp, crisp, refined handling and tail-happy-ness that comes with a RWD platform, basically, I want the AWD to deal with the straight line acceleration, and to go away in the corners, as I prefer to steer big powerful vehicles trough the corners with the rear wheels anyway…
And since I’m a glutton for punishment…
a bone-stock Pinto does the Ring (Gollum!) in 12:41 agonizing minutes!
and more Ring goodness, yes, precious!..
Darth Aygo (my “Darkside” Toyota Aygo with all the racing upgrades and Celica engine swap, as well as supercharging and intercooling) did The Ring in 10:12…
A bone stock Aygo did it in (hold on, be back in a few weeks…) 12:51, a full 10 seconds slower
One thing I discovered from these little asthmatic Gutless Wonders?
The Ring actually has hills, they’re subtle, but there, thing is, most cars are powerful enough to be unaffected, not so with the GW’s, the three “Wheeze-Points” on the track are the approaches to the first two Carousels, and the final straight, of the two, the Pinto, with it’s more powerful, torquey motor (Dear Og does it feel weird using the superlatives “powerful” and “torquey” when it comes to the Pinto… 
) was affected far less than the Asthmatic-Dwarf-Hamster-Powered (Asthmatic Dwarf Hamsters, Band Name! ) Aygo…
(this post sounds better if you read it with the voice of Jeremy Clarkson in your head, I just realized that happy fact, and so, to close on that note…)
[Jeremy Clarkson Voice] More POWWWAAAHHHH!!! [/JCV]
