Actually, I wasn't, but I drooled enough to moisten the textbook for a little osmosis action

 

 

Excellent.. .love these article.

 

Couple of points:
1) 50/50 is not "perfect" weight distribution. For a decent power/weight rwd car, rear weight bias is better for performance. 50/50 is pretty good for a rwd street car, 45/55 would be better for performance.
R&T screwed the pooch on this again when they compared the Caliber SRt4 vs. MazdaSpeed3 when they referred to the Calibers ~59/41 weight distribution as "better" than the MS3's ~62/38 (don't remember the exact numbers). WRONG! It is the MS3 which has the superior f/r distribution for performance (which is actually borne out in their acceleration testing, in which the inferior power/weight MS3 pulls ahead of the SRT4 from 0 to about 40 or so, and MS3 killed it in the slalom). 50/50 would be HORRIBLE weight distribution for a front-driver! The car wouldn't be able to get out of its own way!

2) There is no "front mid-engine" layout. Generally, FR cars will much have the engine placed somewhat aft. Nothing magic happens when the entire engine is aft of front wheel centerline (assuming that is the arbitrary point at which marketers are deciding the car becomes "front mid engine).

FF => engine in front of passenger compartment, generally situated largely in front of the front wheels
FR => engine in front of passenger compartment, generally situated largely behind front wheels
MR => engine behind passenger compartment, in front of rear wheels
RR => engine behind rear wheels

Adding a "front mid" layout at some arbitrarily chosen engine location relative to front wheel centerline is pure marketing. Sure it's better to have the engine more aft in a rwd car, but nothing "magic" happens at the above mentioned arbitrarily chosen engine loction (just like nothing "magic" happens at the 50/50 weight distribution the mags always refer to as being "perfect).

 

hehe ok i could actually make an illustration and try to make my point clear, but it would require time and thought, and it seems like it would be more fun to let everyone else argue semantics until nobody understands it, so i'll just see if i can open a can of worms instead.

RWD car below, where x is CG and | or \ are wheels, is turning, yanks wheels almost instantly to the left. what happens while he has forward momentum and no rotational momentum? what happens when he starts turning, but hasnt reached steady state? and what happens at steady state?

car 1 (50/50 weight)
\-------\
-------
---x---
-------
|-------|

car 2 (suppose 40/60 weight)
\-------\
-------
-------
---x---
|-------|

and why not, car 3 (suppose 60/40 weight)
\-------\
---x---
-------
-------
|-------|

MOI for cars is not defined, so how would a small vs large one would change things for a given car?

I'll start: initially, the MOI governs acceleration, but the unequal forces and resulting moments due to the force normal to the tires.... then inertia.... head hurts__havent_ gone __to_ work__yet

 

and i forgot to mention where the moment of inertia is centered--at COM, in front, behind, or even skewed a bit left/right (time for a diet?) if people care anymore ill start trying to add bits of truth, but it will contain occasional unintended bad assumptions or errors.

also, if the engineers could discuss physics almost exclusively, the armchair engineers could jeer us when some of the effects are negligible or tuned out with springs and dampers.

maybe this will be a 3-D discussion in the end with 2nd order equations at each wheel. anyone have access to a simulink license? we could make a c++ program out of our banter and have a basic handling software package out of this.

 

so in simple term, you're not overloading the front or back, so car handles better.

that's all that was.

 

I'd say you missed the point of the article. It's not about weight distribution on the wheels, it's about having as much weight as possible near the Center-of-Gravity. This makes the car easier to turn.

Try reading it again...

 

Didn't miss the point of the article, just addressing the misconceptions of other respondents in this thread.
I totally appreciate the importance of mass centralization.

 

Get a baseball bat. Swing it holding the handle. Swing it holding the head. Think about which was easier while sipping a cold beer. Wait for enlightenment.