Wouldnt it be best to have more weight in the front? Both my cars sure have handled better when I gutted the trunk. But I always hear/read that 50/50 is the best. Anybody know why?
Ben
we also have FFWD
I’m thinking that has ALOT to do with it.
I think the BEST would be:
50/50 MRWD or MAWD correct me if I am wrong here people.
just my $0.02
Chado
But no matter the drive wheels dont you still want a majority of the weight on the wheels that actually point the car in the direction you want?
Ben
No.
If there’s not enough weight on the rear end, the rear tires lose grip. When they lose grip, you oversteer. Oversteering (as well as understeering) do not lead to good handling.
(Neither does spinning out and off the track)
what is it called when the front tires start skidding and you need to straighten it out to pull through? or is it my imagination and the rears are the ones losing traction
ive heard of hunting for truffles heh
50/50 weight ratios are generally best because they allow an even amount of weight to be used at both end of the car… usually for foward to rear weight transfer under acceleration and braking. IE drag racing. different performance vehicles will require some sort of weight ballast wether it be front to rear or side to side, to obtain the optimum or desired handling characteristics for each individual car. 50/50 is a much desired weight ratio that most if not all enthusiast’s strive for…
Lower polar inertia, uneven weight leads to instability once it begins to rotate!
Ah yes…the wise one speaks…
This is why mid engine cars handle the best, Most of the weight is in the center of the car, which lowers the rotational inertia. If your washing machine has an uneven load, it’ll develop a bad shake. Same in a car, but less rotational speed…
Marc, let me know if I’m not on the right track here…
Originally posted by DB2-R81
Lower polar inertia, uneven weight leads to instability once it begins to rotate!
Marc, I knew you are going post something here, you rule!!
PS. Thanx for painting those Konis, hopefully I’ve gotten your money by now 
I see. So a better way to go about reducing understeer would be to try to get the car close to 50/50 and then changethe suspension (springs, sways etc.) to compensate, right?
Ben
Has anyone cornerweighted their car here? Id like to hear the numbers people are getting. I was able to get a 52/48 in mine.
Hey Shenrie,
Here are my numbers from most recent scaling session.
Most NA Honda’s are left heavy so in order to get your cross weights correct the right side will commonly be higher.
My 93 GSR is over 100 pounds heaver on the left side @ a total weight of 2496 lbs including 175 lbs driver.
825LF/776RF 475LR/419RR.
Cross weights LF/RR 1245 36.5%, RF/LR 1251 35.0%,
Left side 1300, right side 1196.
On 650 lbs front and 800 lbs rear ERS springs with Advanced Design dampers.
Originally posted by DB2-R81
[B]Hey Shenrie,
Here are my numbers from most recent scaling session.
Most NA Honda’s are left heavy so in order to get your cross weights correct the right side will commonly be higher.
[/B]
We found that out. I dont have the exact specs on my weights, but we have them at the shop. Any idea why that is? We were kinda suprised at that. Most of the numbers look close too mine with the exception of the rear numbers. Im carrying a lot more weight in the back than yourself, but as long as the car is balanced right?
The cars were originally designed as right hand drive vehicles. NA got a quick design change to make them left hand drivers. In order to balance the weight the right side needs to raised up. If your cross weights are equal corner to corner this is the best you can do for equal balance in right or left turns.
Thier pretty close, but I have to run one side of the car higher than the other, no biggie though. Most people dont notice, and I could careless. I mostly lower or lift according to contact patch anymore. Or pictures I guess. Thanks for the info as always Marc!
I believe for FF cars you’d want the weight in front to be a little more then the weight in back. to reduce understeer, removing weight at the rear is a good start. when the car is lighter in back, the rear tires will lose traction before the fornt tires do - making the rear end swing around. this will help you make those tight corners at a higher speed. but make sure you don’t over do it cus too much of either understeering or oversteering is a bad thing. 50/50 weight is ideal for FR, MR, 4WD cars I think.
just my 2cents…
Having more weight at the front can actually increase understeer. This is for the same reason that the older porsche turbos, with the engine behind the rear axle, are so well known for oversteer. The more mass there is, the more inertia, or resistance to change in motion, there is. For example, in a front engined car with the weight biased towards the front, the front end will have more energy(momentum if you want to call it that). Although there is more vertical force that increases the force of friction between the road and contact patch, there is also more mass that has to change direction. On some cars more frequently than others, the force of friction is not enough to change the direction of travel of the front. This is understeer. Back to my example with the 911. Let’s say a driver is heading for a sharp turn at the end of a straightaway. At turn in, the front has enough traction to change direction. However, the rear tires have more traction, but also a high polar moment to deal with so the rear contnues in its original path. The front easily changes direction, the rear doesn’t. The driver encounters sudden, violent oversteer putting his 930 into a guardrail, tire barrier, gravel trap, tree etc…
Taken from the article I posted above.
"If the car is heavier at the front, that is, the CG is near the front, obviously the front tyres shares most of the centrifugal force thus they have to generate larger slip angle thus larger frictional force to counter the centrifugal force. As a result, the front slip angles exceed the rear’s, and understeer occurs.
On the contrary, rear-heavy car has larger slip angle at the rear, thus introduce oversteer. Similarly, we can find a 50/50 balanced car having neutral steer. This is our choice for optimum handling. We don’t really need oversteer in this case, because such oversteer is not controllable, unlike power oversteer which we have found in RWD cars.
The result favours front-engined, RWD cars (FR), which is easiest to achieve 50/50 F/R weight distribution.
Mid-engined, RWD cars (MR), with its slight rearward weight bias at about 40/60, is slightly inferior in here. But remember, its superior steering response, steering feel and dynamic balance are probably more than enough to compensate.
Front-engined, FWD cars (FF) is the worst in here, and far worst. As all the heavy mechanical parts - engine, transmission, differential - hang over the front end, the front axle normally takes up to two-third of the weight. This tends to create heavy understeer. In addition to the understeer generated by the FWD configuration, the result is even worse. This require a lot of work to do in the suspension geometry and steering mechanism for compensation. And there must be some trade-off. Take an Alfa GTV as an example. It has to install an ultra-quick 2.2 turns steering to counter understeer, thus requires quite a lot steering effort. If power steering were increased, steering feel must be deteriorated. The multi-link rear suspension was also probably chosen for compensating the understeer because the geometry is more tunable than the original MacPherson strut."
Ben
archivethis
this is good stuff…