Completely not going to happen but would be cool
 

Ok think about this:

Imagine if Mazda had developed the 8 like this....


-move cabin forward a few inches.
-remove back seats
-put motor in place of back seats


now you have a mid engined sports car with a tiny motor that actually generates power


imagine how responsive the steering would be if you removed the already light engine and put it right behind you. Plus the styling of the 8 with it's short overhangs and relatively short nose would look awesome for a mid engine car if you moved the cab forward just an inch or two.
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Haha ok i know this is completely pointless and probably a sin to even mention but I am curious if anyone else has had this thought cross their mind.

uhhhh NO....its already 50/50 weight distributed

it's already 50/50 balanced.

its already 50/50

lololol

:banghead: this is gonna go straight to the lounge

a two seater with more power would be cool though. but wouldn't that be an rx7?

the lounge is 50/50 balanced :lol2:

face + palm = this thread

you guys forgot to mention the fact that it's 50/50 balanced...

I'm not completely sure that 50/50 is actually ideal...

Remember that because the front and rear wheels are being asked to different things during cornering/transitions. They are at different slip angles, different radii lengths, etc.
Considering that the front wheels are forced to do a lot of work in any car, it might be better to have a little less weight up there being tugged around. maybe 45/55 would be better. Also a little rear bias allows for stronger traction under acceleration, and allows for nice, effective nose tuck with throttle lift off.

And yes this should be in the lounge. sorry :Eyecrazy:


Maybe I am just excited to think of a mid engine rotary, a la 787B.....

If a equally balanced vehicle isn't ideal then why did they work so hard to make it happen?

A production MR rotary... That would be bad ass. I'm sure most of us here love our cars just because it's different because of the type of engine it uses.

How much percent of cars are rotary on the road ? Like 2% or something ? How many cars on the road are MR ? I'm not sure but I know not too many. An MR rotary would stand out even further. It would be something else for us to be proud of.

Oh because if a front engine layout (or at least in front of the cabin i mean..) is already determined for the basic design, then of course the engineers want to develop it in a way which would shift weight back and away from the front axle line as much as possible, so a 50/50 for a F/R car is really good, but maybe not quite as ideal as what can be achieved with a M/R vehicle. Remember the radius for the front end is larger than for the rear during a turn, (unless you are already at a significant degree of yaw..) so there must be more force applied to it during transitions for example in order to pull that front weight back and forth. A slightly rearward bias would probably make it feel even more responsive than it already is.

There is a reason supercars/race cars tend to use the M/R layout, and even a fair number of F/R performance cars have less than 50 up front.

Also, even if 50/50 is ideal for a road car, moving a highly concentrated piece of mass, such as a motor, away from the front end completely might improve the cars handling feel/performance even if the total F/R weight distribution remains unchanged after moving the cab slightly forward.

Let me rephrase, if Mid rear set up is better than why doesn't every sports cars use it?

The Rotary is better and not every sports car uses it. :lol:

techincally our car is mid-engined becuase the engine is behind the front axle

Haha, well obviouly because it is extremely impractical. It makes it impossible to have more than 2 seats ( ok 3 seats for the mclaren F1) and luggage space becomes basically nonexistent usually. It is just too exotic of a layout for most sports cars to use, even though it its probably better for actual handling response and feel/performance.

ugghh- the car is already a midship mounted engine.

"zoom's gone nuts" you say? the engine is completely behind the front axle.

so moving it to the rear would only accomplish one thing- moving it to the rear.

of course cooling would be more of an issue and more complicated.

you wouldnt need to move the front seats forward at all. the engine is small enough to fit in the space of the back seats easily. unless you meant an overall shortening of the front end. so yeah then its not an RX-8 is it?

where would you mount the fuel tank since the engine would now be taking up its space?

oh on that 50-50 thing. the car is not 50-50 sitting still. its like 51 1/2-48 1/2. that allows for weight transfer under acceleration which brings the car to 50 -50 (not accounting for fuel usage while driving.

ew.... i cant even picture that.

I heard it was 52/48...I have no clue though. But yea we are FMR (front mid-engine rear wheel drive)

It would be nice if Mazda placed the engine right behind the front axle. Gas tank just before the rear axle. Installed a 1.3L 13B engine.

oh wait...

i do believe i became more stupid after reading renesisgenesis' posts.

I still like this idea:
http://i41.tinypic.com/11kjbmf.jpg

Why?

Because the idea I proposed is silly? (I already know i'ts silly but kinda interesting)

or because of the correct information I posted about weight distribution and its effect on handling?

How about a 13b on each rear wheel. How badass would that be?

Ya that would be awesome. You could have a computer control the power available to each wheel depending on cornering characteristics calculated out.

that's because you belong in a vw cabriolet.

speaking of VW cabrios, I saw one of these on the road the other day. Never ever remember seeing one before and I guess they have been out for a while. I think they're pretty queer and obviously they don't sell well and that's the end of my tangent

http://images.forum-auto.com/mesimag...2/vw_eos-L.jpg

because of statements like this.

ask yourself this... if a 45/55 weight distribution were so beneficial why do sports car companies try so hard to make it as close to 50/50 as possible? in fact, why has porsche gone through such great lengths to try to even out the weight distribution in the engine-hanging-out-the-ass porsche carrera?

question to ask yourself. what weight distribution do race teams strive for?
another question to ask yourself. do you know more than professional race teams?

:banghead::rant::uhh::spank:

Race teams don't strive for 50/50 weight distribution. In fact, any race team worth a damn adjust weight distribution depending on the track. High powered rear drive race cars benefit from rear biased weight distribution to put power down out of corners.

And anyhow, 50/50 weight distribution is just a stupid marketing gimmick.

wouldn't that rear design catch wayyyy too much wind?

My mom has one.. it has a turbo.. it sucks, its slow, sluggish, heavy. I hate it. Plus it smells like rank McDonalds in it. Seats feel cheap as hell and aren't comfortable at all.

decnalab 05/05 ydaerla sti

Ah. The reason the rotary so cool is because the smaller packaging means you can position the engine lower and farther back in the chassis. To build a mid engine rotary would mean youre not exploiting some of it's fundamental advantages.

If you going to go mid or rear engine, just use a boxer or some other transversely mounted piston engine...

Ya that is a good point. I was surprised to see that actually the entire engine block of the 8 is at least a few inches behind the front axle line, and it's so impressive considering it still seats 4 and has a nice length nose; not too long at all.

Well, I would agree that porsche tries to move the weight forward, because it is far too rearward, probably more than 60 percent rear, so of course they would also strive to go closer toward 45-55...and also so I guess we agree on that which makes it odd that you are using it against me....hmmm


but anyway, here is an article from car and driver including tid bits from some tech nut who wrote a book on Ferrari F1 technology. http://www.caranddriver.com/features...evealed_column


If you don't wish to read it you can take my word for it:
It includes info explaining how the team's cars for a modern F1 are so light that they have a lot of ballast to work with before each race. Sounds like typically the weight is added with a bias in the front, resulting in an overall ratio of about 44/56, F/R. But it does explain that often ballast is set to give a more rearward ballast for tracks with slow speed corners.

F1 cars have a ton of power going to their rear wheels, though.

Lighter cars with less power make much better effect out of a 50/50 or near (51/49 standing) since they aren't going to wheel spin under acceleration. If, however, the 16x engine was put into the 8, I'd say your idea to shift some of the weight towards the rear wheels would be better.

If you take too much weight off the front, you'll end up with understeer, especially when it starts to get wet. I wouldn't go too much further back without very significant upgrades and changes to the suspension, which might throw off the beauty we already have. My two cents.

Damn...that would be cool...I like that!!...(the blue "targa" RX-8 shown above)