Perfection, in this case, depends on your goals for the car. Moving weight rearward on a front-wheel drive car improves handling, but reduces grip under acceleration. If you're building a drag car, you want the car as nose heavy as possible. This is why you see wheelie bars on front-drive drag cars these days. The car will never do a wheelie, but when the bars touch down under acceleration, they take weight off the rear wheels and shift it to the fronts. Big-budget British and German Touring Cars, on the other hand, need cornering grip more than straight-line grip, so they shift weight rearward as much as possible, even going so far as to move the engine back until the drive axles are in front of the block instead of behind it.
When considering weight distribution, the amount of weight on each end isn't the only important thing, though. You can get 50/50 distribution by hanging lead weights from the rear bumper, but this is a no-no for two reasons. First, of course, extra weight is always bad, no matter where you put it. Second, adding weight to the extreme ends of the car increases the polar moment, or rotational inertia, making it more difficult to make the car rotate, and more difficult to stop it once it starts sliding. Nimbleness, ultimately, comes from even weight distribution and keeping weight near the middle of the car.
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Staff E-MailJay Chen, Engineering Editorjay.chen@primedia.comJames Tate, Associate Senior Editorjames.tate@primedia.comTi Tong, Art Directorti.tong@primedia.comDave Coleman, Geek-at-Largedave@eyesoreracing.com
This month's winner is Brad Lenox.For his troubles,he'll receive enough Mothers car cleaning goodies to satisfy the most anal, white-glove-wearing, concourse-cruising flock of showcar weenies anywhere. Mothers' new FX Line of car care products is among the most sophisticated, state-of-the-art wheel cleaners and waxes available today.
Brad will receive:* FX SynWax * FX Tire Shine* FX Wheel Cleaner* FX Spray Wax
Don't just sit there. If you want the honor of being chosen for Burnout of the Month, get off your ass and destroy some rubber. E-mail proof of the rubber-roasting destruction to us at sccnews@primedia.com. Or you can mail a slide or print to SCC Burnouts, 2400 katella ave. 11th floor, anaheim, CA 92806.
Dear DaveDirect "Dear Dave" tech letters to dave@eyesoreracing.com. Coleman will share mind-numbing details, earth-shattering revelations and technical nerdisms in this space each month.Can you stump the geek?