MOD MAX vs SUPER GRAMPS F.A.Q

 We got an awesome response to our video of racing Super gramps and Mod Max at Sydney Speedway recently. It happened by luck that a friend of MOOG's invited us down the day before they were due to resurface their track for the upcoming race season. We knew MOD MAX would be a lot of fun on dirt and clay so loaded up a trailer and took it down there.

We got so busy running down mannequins in the finale to our Build Series of MOD MAX, that we decided a proper car review of the V8 Silvia was in order:

With the lure of Kebabs at the shops and Supergramps in the car park high, next up it was time to battle two of our most popular project cars.

Going in we had no idea which car would come out on top. 280kw at all 4 wheels in Supergramps would mean it'd have the power to win IF it could put the power down. While the Silvia is RWD, it also has Mud Terrain tyres fitted and bulk power down low - and was built to drift on dirt.

As expected, this video generated lots of conversation and lots of questions, so here we'll attempt to answer the most frequent ones:

Q: Did you know who would win?

A: We're a bit too competitive to agree in advance that someone should win or lose. And we were genuinely interested to find out which car would have the advantage on this surface. As we discovered in our Tyre Test Video, whatever interfaces with the ground makes a massive difference to how fast you will go. There were no stakes here, just bragging rights to be won!

Q: Was the video a montage?

A: Technically it was a multicam video, there were 5-6 cameras running at any one time that were sync'd together and cut between as the action unfolded.

Q: Why did Super Gramps win the first race easily but then get slower?

A: As the mud built up on both the tyres and in the guards, the tyres had less and less grip on the muddy surface. It's mostly clay that is dryer on the outside and wet in the middle, so you may get more grip around the outside, but there is less margin for error because if you get it wrong, you're in the wall.

Q: All Wheel Drive should win on dirt, right?

A: Tyre grip is a huge factor, as is the kind of all wheel drive you have. In some Subaru's you can adjust the torque split between front and rear. Supergramps doesn't have this system (known as DCCD) and is setup as a road car so while you can see it grip up and boost hard on the straights when all the tyres are pointed in the same direction, AWD doesn't particularly help with steering the car in this particular situation.

Q: Why didn't Marty fit snow/mud tyres?

A: We were interested to see how a car in full road trim would compare to MOD MAX as well as the fact SuperGramps has brembo brakes on the front which means very few wheels will fit over them. Mechanical Stig offered us some JDM snow tyres but they wouldn't fit the car so we went on with our Potenza RE003's instead!

Q: Was it hard to drive on Mud? Why did MOOG get faster?

A: Yes! Our driving improved and by the end of the day MOOG could loop the whole track in 3rd gear. The track also began to dry out making it easier to get traction, with less mud sticking to the tyres.

Q: Why no video from a drone?

A: The track is next door to a Heliport, drones and helicopters are not friends

Q: Will there be any more videos from racing at the Speedway?

A: Keep an eye on MCMTV2, we had some special guests there on the day who might make an appearance soon.

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