Quote:
Originally Posted by Enabled
Removing awd would not free up any more power, nor give you significant acceleration. You are still carrying all the extra weight, and the friction losses are still there whether the front wheels are actuated or not.
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How can it not free up any power if no torque from the engine is sent through the drivetrain to the front wheels? As 100% is sent through to the rear there is no longer as much dissipation through the moving of the front drive train parts. Carrying the weight isn't what causes the ~20% power loss we see between xdrive and rwd. It's the friction and inertia from having to send torque through those parts directly. Once the tcase is disengaged you are only dealing with the external Friction of the road to move those front parts. The engine output doesn't take nearly as much of a hit from this since you measure power from just the rear two and only accounting for a bit of extra weight. On a dyno this is essentially neglible.