Weight

[STEWART]

How much of a difference do you think weight really makes? I just recently weighed my B4 and it was 1670g or 60oz should i be concerend?

[Northy]

Can 'o' worms.

I think weight matters a lot, as does any other professional racing series. Others don't.

G

[Richard Lowe]

Yep, weight is a bad thing IMO. Adding weight means either the setup is wrong or the car's design is wrong.

[Lee Martin]

how do you wrk tht out thn?

[jimmy]

Weight is ace, give me MORE lead!

[Lee Martin]

indeed!!!!

and having to put weight in a car allows you to put it where its needed/wanted for the best performance

[spenner]

One thing i always found years ago was if you ran Associated then you added weight to your liking, i remember Dave Duggan filled the whole chassis on a B3 with weight. He qualified 2nd or something at Worksop with it.

In touring cars you used to cut and file away as much to lose the weight.

If you looked at most of the top 20 B4's, i would say 15 of them have added weight somewhere in the car.
Not everyone's liking but i found it makes the car more stable mid corner.

[Richard Lowe]

Originally Posted by pidge

how do you wrk tht out thn?

Adding weight to change the weight distribution will change the balance of the car, at the expense of reduced corner speed due to just having more weight to haul about. Generally tires will produce more grip if they have a heavier car sat on them but it's more than offset by having to change the direction of the extra weight.
When do you see full sized cars adding ballast to increase grip? The only reason it's used in WRC and F1 cars is because they have to use it to get upto the minimum weight limits.

If you are adding weight to a car to make it better over bumps then the suspension setup is wrong, it makes a lot more sense to match the suspension setup to the weight of the car instead of increasing the weight of the car to match the suspension for the reasons above

Originally Posted by pidge

and having to put weight in a car allows you to put it where its needed/wanted for the best performance

True, but only upto the minimum weight limit, once you go over it you are only making the car slower than it could be.

[Lee Martin]

i can see your point....but big cars need the power to weight our little ones can be way way way over powered anyway, therefore allowing us to be able to aid handle by adding weight

[Richard Lowe]

Agreed about the straight line performance, but the physics of it are still the same for the corners

[Swiss]

Originally Posted by Richard Lowe

Adding weight to change the weight distribution will change the balance of the car, at the expense of reduced corner speed due to just having more weight to haul about. Generally tires will produce more grip if they have a heavier car sat on them but it's more than offset by having to change the direction of the extra weight.
When do you see full sized cars adding ballast to increase grip? The only reason it's used in WRC and F1 cars is because they have to use it to get upto the minimum weight limits.

If you are adding weight to a car to make it better over bumps then the suspension setup is wrong, it makes a lot more sense to match the suspension setup to the weight of the car instead of increasing the weight of the car to match the suspension for the reasons above



True, but only upto the minimum weight limit, once you go over it you are only making the car slower than it could be.

Surely the change of direction comment will only be relevant if the wheight is at the extreme edges of the car.... not down the centre?

Also as I understood it, F1 cars are made as light as possible so the can ballas the car out... e.g. putting weight in the relevant places to tune the car?

[Richard Lowe]

Originally Posted by Swiss

Surely the change of direction comment will only be relevant if the wheight is at the extreme edges of the car.... not down the centre?

By direction change I mean the whole weight of the car going round a corner, the position of the weight on the car (to the side or in the centre like you said) will change how quickly the chassis can react in roll, which is a different thing entirely

Originally Posted by Swiss

Also as I understood it, F1 cars are made as light as possible so the can ballas the car out... e.g. putting weight in the relevant places to tune the car?

Yeah thats right adding weight is fine to change the balance of the car, but as soon as you go over the minimum weight limit you are potentially slowing the car down. Why do we have a minimum weight limit and not a maximum one? Because a lighter car will always be faster

Most B4's for example are overweight without any lead in them, so making them heavier is just reducing their potential cornering performance.

[Lee Martin]

mine doesnt seem to bad round corners.................

[Northy]

Originally Posted by pidge

i can see your point....but big cars need the power to weight our little ones can be way way way over powered anyway, therefore allowing us to be able to aid handle by adding weight

If it's overpowered, make it less powerful?

I'm with Rich on this.

Just one example: Remember the doubles at Bury, my S2 was about 3g over the minimum weight limit that weekend and I nailed them every lap from my first lap of practise. The lightness of the car must have helped that?

Someone much cleverer than me once said: 'light is right'

[Richard Lowe]

Originally Posted by pidge

mine doesnt seem to bad round corners.................

Thats because sOoper Pidge is behind the wheel!

[Lee Martin]

you do make it less powered brains,

the fact is we dnt need anymore speed...... back in the day it needed to be really light to go fast.....now its not so much of an issue.............you can put weight in the car to make it better...hence...why we do!!!!

[Lee Martin]

Originally Posted by Richard Lowe

Thats because sOoper Pidge is behind the wheel!

haha! dunno bout tht!!!!!!

[Northy]

Originally Posted by pidge

you do make it less powered brains,

Shirly.. your just altering the power to weight ratio, not how powerful it is?

[Richard Lowe]

I think the reason it doesn't effect overall laptimes as much as full sized cars is because we arn't sat in the car feeling what the cars doing, so we will never be getting 100% of the performance out of the cars. In a full size car it's pretty obvious if the rear slides 10" or so out of line, but can anyone really see the rear of one of our cars stepping out 1" from 50' away?

[Northy]

Not me, I can barely see the bloody numbers these days!

G - getting old...