Lowering engine

[arrowhead]

First of all, I applaud you for looking for some new and innovative ways to improve your car!

Here is how I would approach this: first take some corner weight measurements (which suck on a front heavy DSMs ). Then shift the weight of the engine around to see the difference that it makes (this should be easy to do with Excell spreadsheet).

When I mounted the 4G63 engine inside of my TR7, I used the same basic idea sticking it as far back and as low, as excising sheetmetal would allow me.

My gut instinct tells me that you will not be able move the engine enough to make a noticeable difference, but I have been wrong before .

Thanks but this is not new, maybe for this platform it is as you mentioned you did it already, I know I will be limited by many of the factors that already have been mentioned, I have a set of scales available to me and will mock up something eventually and see what can be done.

Again thanks for your input and keep the ideas coming.

New crazy thought: if you're going to go through all this hassle, why not build the new subframe for a 4B11, instead of a 4G63? It's lighter and as time goes by, there'll be more and more support for 4B11s.

Or am I now going to get kicked off this site for suggesting this?

I know you are not crazy?, I am surprise at your poor choosing of words, these are not hassles but mental excersices which I enjoy and I am sure you do too.

Your idea on the subframe will be work on together with a new suspension set up and, how about that with just the motor you mentioned but I will leave that for future when I get to it.

Thanks

New crazy thought: if you're going to go through all this hassle, why not build the new subframe for a 4B11, instead of a 4G63? It's lighter and as time goes by, there'll be more and more support for 4B11s.

Or am I now going to get kicked off this site for suggesting this?

I know you are not crazy?, I am surprise at your poor choosing of words, these are not hassles but mental excersices which I enjoy and I am sure you do too.

Your idea on the subframe will be work on together with a new suspension set up and, how about that with just the motor you mentioned but I will leave that for future when I get to it.

Thanks

I have been considering doing just that.........

Well how about that, great minds think alike.

Another mental ..................

 

[bjones18]

A couple things:

you want the trans-side CVs lower than the wheel end CVs for minimizing torque steer. Also if your inboard (trans-side) CVs are significantly aft of the wheel-side CVs you may also get additional torque steer. I cannot say how large of an effect this will be.

If you are building a road race car, how about putting the engine/trans in the back where God intended it to be? A few years ago I saw where someone swapped a 4G63 as a rear drive in a Lotus Elise. Now your braking & throttle traction loads are more split F/R.

Have fun with your project. Like I said I do not know how big the torque steer effects will be, but generally speaking inners need to be lower than outers (CVs).

 

[arrowhead]

Thanks for your reply

I have also seen motors in that location. also mid engines,.
Torque steer is something that has not been discussed much. but it does have a lot of influence comming out of turns,

 

[bjones18]

Any time your outer CV is running at an angle between shafts there is a resultant torque. It has been seven years since I have looked at this. The resultant torque may be reacted by your UBJ/LBJ separation (good), or may create a moment about the king-pin-axis (bad). if I recall correctly the resultant torque-vector is in the plane which contains the both shafts, dot-product between the shaft angles. For the most part torque steer was resolved years ago by using the "lay-shaft" such that L/R half-shafts would be equal length.

In moving the engine down/aft/angled I would try to "mock-up" your intended design before welding up a new concept. High-HP and torque steer sucks.

I've always been intrigued by a "FWD" powertrain built into a RWD vehicle. Cooling system, Fuel tank, and interior noise/heat might be the challenges. The rear biased weight will be good for braking. You would have to watch the Understeer/OS change with fuel level if the fuel-tank is moved to front.