If I took a locost chassis and removed the engine bay region so the front axle was 6 inches in front of the pedals, how would the handing change?
Obviously it would be less stable and the ackerman angles would be out, but would it have any catatsrophic effects?
Cheers
It would be very slow.
Where would you put the engine?? I would have thought that relocating the engine would have more of an effect? Front Engined / Middy / Rear
Engined.
Mike
There's a "golden ratio" range of track and wheelbase supposedly. In general though the longer the wheelbase the more stable the
vehicle will be at high speed - the shorter the wheelbase, the better the vehicle will turn (for a given track).
Out of interest, where would you be fitting the engine if you remove the engine bay...?
Bike engine in the passenger seat area maybe?
It wouldnt go anywhere without an engine!!
lol,I was waiting for that....
The plan is to cut up a spare chassis, hang a bike engine right behind the firewall, run trailing arms from the rear crossmember (appropriately
stiffened) and run the standard front setup.
The weight distribution would be similar, but the whole thing would be shorter. Just curious what changes when you move tha axles closer together
My first though on reading this was, did you see that W12 Golf on Top Gear? Very spin happy, supposedly because of the short wheelbase
Ackerman angle in steering geometry.
Wiki
It would swap ends for fun
above plan with a 400cc bike engine and quad tyres in a field, fun, or fundamentally flawed!
Ratio required wheel base to width is around 1.6
A locost with sierra axle is already a bit short in this regard, as above make it shorter and it will try and swap ends, that's partly why drag
racers are so long.
My old 80" wheelbase landrover with range rover axles was a hoot to race under hard braking, easy to induce oversteer and get the arse out.
Not convinced you really want trailing arms on it, unless you enjoy going backwards on wet roads.
whats wrong with trailing arms?
Keep the wheels upright, nice and simple, good articulation...
this sort of idea:
[img]http://www.blitzworld.co.uk/images/joyrider-12b[/img]
but with better coilover positioning.
http://www.blitzworld.co.uk/images/kr3sportsuspension3
quote:
Originally posted by alistairolsen
whats wrong with trailing arms?
Keep the wheels upright, nice and simple, good articulation...
i got halfway through building one like this, with a zx9 in the passanger fotowell (still left room for a small passanger), and the front end off.
Never finished it though.
You could make a nice simple frame to keep the front wheels in the right (original) place and then have a very aerodynamic body over the front as it
would be fairly low/sleek.
It would be quite nippy, I imagine.
The new Toyota iQ offers also a ridicoulous track/ wheelbase ratio (1,48m on 2,05m IIRC.