How much standing water are we talking about? Its almost worse here up north. Instead of lots of standing water, Infineon with its hills and poor irrigation means we get rivers, right at the apexes! In those cases ABS certainly provides a good safety margin. Should just means driving up to the limit much slower than normal though. AWD isn't a magic bullet, neither is ABS.

 

Think 3 lane wide straightaway, walls on both sides, 0 drainage. I've come around turn 16, got on the gas and wondered why i wasn't going anywhere.... I was spinning all 4.

Normally though, you shy away from that much rain, and let the downpour let up, however, it is a blast and a rush to be out in it

 

I've run in the rain and it's fine as long as you aren't the kind of person to whomp the brakes in the braking zone. A quick squeeze will let you find the edge and back off if needed.

Much worse than pools of water is when you have a line of water running at an ange to the track. There's a river that runs diagonally across the exit of the carousel at Sears Point that has eaten a lot of cars.

 

I run an 04 RS, as mentioned previously. I've been very happy with the decision for three reasons:

1. Standard front LSD saves $$$

2. NO ABS...I prefer no ABS because having full control of the brakes is more important than a occasional wheel lockup...sometime I don't care if one wheel locks a little, and sometimes you can get really ****ed by the ABS not wanting to lock the wheels and lowering brake force all around...it should be noted that I use the brakes to make the car turn often, and ABS isn't always on the same page with this technique.

3. NO ACD...its a lot easier to make the car handle well without the complexity of ACD. This became apparent when we tried to transfer my race car setup to an ACD equipped car, and everything became a bit more complicated because of the dynamic nature of the ACD control. Not to say ACD isn't good, just not for me.

 

+1...but there is another reason to NOT get the RS...Electronic Brakeforce Distribution (EBD). Without it, you'll be fiddling with a crude manual brake bias knob if you don't want to smoke your inside rear tire trail braking into a corner.

 

On #2 -- I'm a recent convert to LFB coming out of the rally school, and I can see how I might be happier without ABS now. I haven't started applying the technique to the Evo yet, but would support this statement in general. Only real risk is if you are racing somewhere where corner entry conditions may change over time (be it different corners or same corner in foul weather), where ABS would let you be more consistent. That said, you can learn to modulate your foot.

As for being without ACD, I'm inclined to agree that that might make sense. The diff behavior on my car seems inconsistent at times, and I'm hating the additional variable while trying to set up the car. After driving an Audi 4000S with a locked center diff and a Subaru with a fixed distribution front-to-rear, I'm thinking that something similar ont he Evo would be the right answer.

All that said, I wouldn't go with an VIII simply due to the MIVEC head. The flatter power curve makes the car easier to drive and it should ultimately be faster. Just got to figure out an answer on replacing the ACD..