Nick250 said:
Sheep, which end the drive wheels are on is not much of a contributing factor for understeer vs. oversteer. Where the weight mass of the car is located is the biggest contributing factor. All things being equel, most front engined cars will tend to understear and most rear engine cars will tend to overstear because of where the weight mass is located. Mid engine cars have the most neutral handling and for me the most fun to drive quickly through the twisties. It is a bit easier to build in neutral handling in a front engine, rear drive car because the front wheels don't have do as much work, but there is only so much you can do with all the weight up front. Just about all American cars made in the 1960s understeared as they still do now, though the modern cars understear less now becasue of improvements in suspension design. The imports understear now as well, but less so back then because a lot more of them were rear engined and therefore more likely to overstear. Examples, VW Bug, Corvair, Porsche.
Now, if you took a 1960s muscle car and had the balls to toss it into a turn sideways at a high rate of speed and then punched it, some very exciting power overstear would be the result. It was kinda drifting, before drifting existed.
Regards, Nick
While I agree with your above post, traction, and weight over the wheels are the biggest factors in over/understeer. I'll also argue that a rear drive(front engine) car is easier to ballance then a front drive(front engine) car.
From now on, front engine, front drive cars will be FF.
Front engine, Rear drive cars will be FR.
MR is... you guessed it, mid engine, rear drive.
Then porsche, and corvairs can be RR.
Example: A FF car has an engine, transmission, and most of the electronic parts of the car, on the front half of the car. The only significant weight on the rear tires is the gas tank. To make the car balanced, you have to over-design the layout of the heavier parts so some are in the back half. My friends BMW has the battery in the trunk so it can have a 50/50 balance(BTW, its a FR car).
In a rear drive car, you have the engine and the bulk of the electroncis over the front wheels, while the gas tank and drivetrain remain in the back half. That gives a FR car a significant advantage in balance, and requires less enginieering in a balance perspective. Thusly making them more suseptible to oversteer due to traction "issues" (see: heavy foot) then weight issues, or understeer at all.
Also, traction. Most 1960s cars were not balanced. Because the front tires had most of the weight, they simply spun the tires going around a turn (if they had sufficient power, which some had in spades). A ff car will over steer only because of a weight issue, but that only happens at significant speeds, and it has to be quite a turn(or a traction issue from poor design/improper maintanence). FF cars have a significant amount of weight over the tires, and would require copious amounts of power/extremely poor traction to spin the tires creating understeer. I am willing to say that a FR car would rather oversteer then udersteer.
Porsche cars (the RR ones) suffered from oversteer simply because of the weight. They didn't need to spin the tires, or go extremely fast(we agree on this, just getting it out there).
Corvairs are death traps.
Good talk,
SheepStar
