Rear Engine, Mid Engine, Front Engine???

I think you have things a little mixed up. Mid-engine cars and some front engine cars have a near 50/50 weight distribution. Rear engine cars have bad weight distribution.

 

The boot's in the front, and with the driver being so much closer to the engine, it sounds so much cooler!

 

in theory, a mid engined car will be a more stable, predictive and better handling car. Although this is not always the case in practice as porsche demonstrate, they did need many years of RnD to develop it to the car it is now though

 

Porsches are rear engined cars btw...

 

And it toook them 40yrs of stubborness to make that particular desiign work. Anybody else would have admitted defeat way before then.

 

IMO, the best goes like this...

1) Mid-engined, best overall.
2) Front-engined, nice balance, engines set further back are alomst on par with 1.
3) Rear-engined, usually to hairly and hard to drive smoothly.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the Boxster considered to be mid-engined?

 

No advantage... when you're parked or moving slowly.

But when you have the car at the limit, sliding the car, rotating the car... you want a car with minimum moment of inertia... that is, you want a car with the weight distributed as close to the center of gravity as possible.

Think of holding a 10' bar with 20# on each end and try to rotate it over your head... and then reverse direction. Now make it a 1' bar. Both are 50/50... but one is much easier to control.

 

Ya I'm pretty sure that the Boxster and GT are mid and 911 is rear. The cayanne is obviously front.

 

thats what i was implying when i referred to mid engined cars and then said its not always the case as porsche have demonstrated. In turn assuming you gathered i was reffering to the 911 and you already knew that the 911 was rear engined.....

And has been mentioned, not all porsche's are rear engined - the boxter, cayenne and CGT aren't....

 

I think we are all forgetting that in snow or icy conditions only one configuration will get you home in one piece........

 

I was referring to the 911, I should have stated that, but as for the GT and the Boxster, they are so much different to drive than the 911.

 

Huh? Given a 50/50 weight distribution, engine placement will be wholly irrelevant in ice or snow... until you completely lose control. Not sure your point.

 

I'm not sure I agree with that. The advantage to mid-engine is low polar moment of inertia, allowing quick changes of direction. In the hands of a competent driver, that is an advantage, but at the cost of some stability. Novice drivers tend to spin low-polar moment cars much more often than high-polar cars. Rear engine cars have a higher polar moment than mid and are thus initally more stable, but when they approach the limits of adhesion they are more difficult for the novice to control than front engine because of the trailing throttle oversteer characteristics.

Gary

 

IMHO, mid or rear engined could be considered better in snow, as the weight is over the drive wheels.

 

For most cars, front-mid is best. For two seaters only, mid is best. By best I mean handling.

 

I mean that FRONT engined is the best configuration for slippery conditions. Tell me I'm wrong...................

 

The theory behind a mid engine layout (or as the 612 mid engine weight distribution) is to get a slightly less front weight ratio (42% front 58% rear I remember reading is considered ideal) so that during cornering/braking when the weight is naturally transferred forward, this evens out the balance of the car (i.e ait pproaches 50%) and making handling ideal. When a 50% car at rest corners/brakes, the ratio is no longer 50% it shifts the balance forward. Secondary to that when exiting a corner the slightly greater weight bias to the rear helps grip when accelerating from the corner.

 

The magazines chant that 50/50 is "perfect" but if you look at very high performance racing and street cars (and karts, for that matter), you'll see that most are closer to 40/60.