Really stumped as to why Ferraris have some crap specs

Modern Ferraris have a very fast and direct steering unlike the 80's or older cars and the turning circles are much reduced too, now a u-turn is an easy task unlike before.

 

"Snap" oversteer is often a geometry issue. If the suspension binds up at a certain point (which is not unheard of when you start hanging race tires on a street car), effective spring rate goes up fast. It's like your rear bar getting larger all by itself. The shock hitting the bumpstops under load gives the same ugly results.

 

Pikeman (almost used your two letter acronym, which would not have sat well)- You are concentrating on all the wrong stuff. Basic engineering says big wheels and big tires equals big turning radius. Unless you want huge wheel wells with the wheels and tires looking teeny inside all that space. Plus all the weight that goes with those huge wheel wells.

Mid-engined and rear engined cars have weight distributions somewhere between 35/65 and 45/55. The engine and transaxle weight pretty much guarantee that.

Front engine cars with rear transaxles will help weight distribution on front engine cars. 55/45 to 45/55. FWD cars with engine and transaxle up front have weight forward distributions. 65/35 to 55/45.
The physics of engine and transaxle weight and location give you a window of weight distribution. Engineeering lets you fine tune that weight distribution, but only within limits.

It helps to think of cars as dumb-bells with variable size weights, with the engine and transmission/axle/transaxle as the weights. The weights vary in size and also in distance from the car's center of gravity. A 4wd Porsche has a big weight way in the rear and a small/medium weight (front axle) in the front. A Maranello has a big weight in the front, but fairly far back, and a small/medium weight in the back. A mid engine car has a big weight in the middle and a smaller weight behind it. The more concentrated the mass is towards the middle, the lower the car's moment of inertia (weight times the distance from the center of gravity) and the more maneuverable a car will be. The lower the moment of inertia, the faster things happen, which is why front engine cars tend to be more forgiving to the average driver, assuming it does not understeer so badly it pushes/understeers/plows off the road.

The elegant engineering comes from suspension design so weight distribution does not make the car plow or try to spin on you in every corner. Look at a late 911, for instance, as a rear engined example (60/40 without looking it up) or a Maranello (~51/49) for a front engine, rear transaxle example. On the Maranello, the front springs are 50% stiffer than the rears and the rear anti-roll bar is 33% thicker. The 911 is the opposite. Result is both handle pretty much neutrally through a corner.

Using simple numbers like weight distribution and turn radius as denoting engineering elegance masks the issues. Four door sedans have a weight distribution advantage over coupes because the body and wheelbase are stretched (usually) and the rear axle is further to the rear. It does not mean they handle better. Plus the better weight distribution, due to stretching the wheelbase/body, actually increases the turn radius.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

Yup, you got it. The GTVs from '78 onwards had the rear transaxle (along with inboard discs if I'm remembering correctly). Nice car with good balance, no doubt in part due to this placement of components.

Cheers!

 

+1 Exactly right. Oversteer or understeer is less to do with weight distribution (although weight distribution is an element) than it is to do with suspension geometry and tuning. Most passenger (non-race) cars have compromised geometry, at least compromised from ideal, for packaging reasons to allow for more room for occupants. Said another way, a '70 Plymouth Roadrunner drives like crap on the edge not just because it has a big V8 parked up front, but also because the suspension geometry and tuning of the street cars is poor.

 

Almost all street production cars are designed/set up to understeer. For safety reasons.

 

My '82 GTV6 was a lovely car to oversteer. Very nice balance. Had a great time on the gravel roads of South Africa.


Onno

 

I agree, except leave off the ABS & the power windows too - & make them perspex while you're at it....