3 or 4-gear?

[Richard Lowe]

Originally Posted by Paul_Sinclair

No, the position of the motor relative to the rear axle doesn't matter when considering the weight transfer effects of the motor's rotational inertia.

I think I'm going to side with Elvo and Roger (!) in that the position of the motor in the car does change the magnitude of the weight transfer.

Bear with me here as I might not use exactly the correct terms as I don't study/work in engineering...

The force the motor exerts on the chassis on acceleration/deceleration is a twisting force, trying to alter the pitch of the chassis, which pivots at the rear tires. If you think about it the closer the motor is the the diff the more pronounced the effect will be. Imagine if you had a car with the motor a foot further back than normal, but it magically had normal weight distribution and pitch inertia, is it going to want to wheelie more or less than normal?


Back to the 3/4 gear question... I'm not a big fan of 4 gear cars, the drawbacks outweigh the benefits IMO. The good bit is you get a lot more forward drive, but the bad bit is... you get more drive Every 4 gear I've driven has had almost no on-power steering, and had quite bad lift-off oversteer as the weight is thrown forward and backward again. I'd rather have the consistency of a 3 gear car and change the overall balance as needed