Base Cayman vs BRZ

[nikitopo]

Originally Posted by dowroa

Front-mid, rear-mid or either? Just curious.

Front-mid . I would say the main issue with a rear-mid car is that you have limited engine access and it is more difficult to service.

[ZDan]

No such thing as "front mid" outside of marketing...
Mid-engine cars have the engine behind the driver and in front of the rear axle.
Front-engine cars have the engine in front of the driver.

Of course any well-designed FR sports car will have the engine situated well aft relative to the wheelbase to get decent weight distribution and minimize polar moment. That's a given. But nothing magical happens when some arbitrary part of the engine falls behind the front wheel centerline. My 240Z was classic FR sports car, so was my S2000. Same damn configuration, *classic* front-engine rear-drive sports cars! Despite the Z's having a cylinder and a half of the engine in front of the front wheels while the S2k's engine resides entirely behind. They're both the same configuration, which is a fundamentally *different* from mid-engined cars like Lotus Europa, Porsche Cayman.

[nikitopo]

Not a marketing thing. The "front mid" term helps you identify if the engine is behind the front axle or not. Some cars have the entire engine in front of the front axle and they are not front-mid and others as you said have the half of the engine behind the front axle or even have it complete behind the front axle. Everything matters on a sports car and weight distribution is one of the most import aspects. Saying that weight distribution doesn't make any difference is at least naive. A manufacturer can try to hide a certain weakness, but after a point it'll certainly show up. I didn't say that Porsche's don't have a better engine placement configuration, but as I said it is difficult to maintain and service. People usually don't realize this when they buy them and then they try to get rid of them.

Here is a nice video with more details:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzGT0AUyIkQ[/ame]

[EAGLE5]

Originally Posted by James H

I am not an EV fanboy and hate to admit it but if you are into launches and stoplight battles, a Tesla Model 3 with performance pack will destroy 99.9% of supercars and even bikes. They are not race cars but they are king going from stoplight to stoplight within a city block. There is no fuss with launch control, even granny can stomp on the gas and hit 60 at 3.5s or less each and every time, and that's on all season tires. Slap on some sticky summer tires on them and the instant torque + grippy tire and its the perfect weapon. I saw a P100D destroy a superbike at the stoplight, it was something else

Originally Posted by WolfpackS2k

Why the hell did EVs even come up?

Because EVs are fucking awesome. Low center of gravity. Easy to achieve 50:50 weight balance. Instant torque. In the real world of driving, an EV will almost always be faster than an ICE. On a track, not so much, because on a track, well-driven ICE are always in their efficiency range. Not so much on the street.

[ZDan]

Originally Posted by nikitopo

Not a marketing thing. The "front mid" term helps you identify if the engine is behind the front axle or not.

Again I'm well aware of the benefits of placing the engine well aft on a front-engine rear-drive car. Hell, Henry Ford's designers understood this which is why the front-engine rear-drive Model T has the engine behind the front wheel centerline.

Suppose an FR car has the "entire engine" 1mm behind front axle centerline, then one year there's a minor design change adding a small boss to the front of the engine which then puts the forward-most point 1mm *forward* of front axle centerline? Does that *really* fundamentally change the architecture of the car?! Of course not...

And what does "entire engine" even mean? Does it include water pump?
Pulleys? Intake manifold and throttle-body? Air filter? Depending on how you define it, plenty of cars could fall either way.

Also, some have defined this nebulous and useless category of "front-mid" as having the engine's *center of gravity* in aft of front-wheel centerline. Which pretty much makes *every* front-engine/rear-drive car ever built a "front-mid-engine".

"Front Mid" is b.s. marketing invented by Nissan for the 350Z, ironically a car with not-very-awesome 53/47 F/R weight distribution. Before that NObody talked about front-engine sports cars being "front-mid-engine" even with the engine mounted way aft.

The C8 will be the *first* mid-engine production Corvette, despite the fact that with introduction of V8 the 1955 C1 had the engine entirely behind front wheel centerline. As I think about it, it's possible the 1953 and 1954 inline-6 C1 Corvettes also fit this definition, but likely dependent on where the water pump or pulleys are...

and others as you said have the half of the engine behind the front axle or even have it complete behind the front axle. Everything matters on a sports car and weight distribution is one of the most import aspects. Saying that weight distribution doesn't make any difference is at least naive.

I never said or suggested that! Of course weight distribution is important (fwiw my 240Z and my S2000 had identical weight distribution). That doesn't mean that a car that's on the limit of some arbitrary definition fundamentally changes if a tiny part of the engine moves one direction or the other! Indeed, even changing front caster could be the difference between "front engine" and "front-mid". And it would be hard to know without some sophisticated measuring equipment to determine where whatever arbitrary point on the engine lies relative to the front wheel centerlines. This is silly, stupid, ridiculous, and wholly unnecessary.

Engine in front of driver: front-engine. Again, any decent FR car will position the engine aft for weight distribution. We already know this. No need to add a configuration to try to make a few people feel like they're driving "mid-engine" cars when they aren't...

[nikitopo]

Originally Posted by ZDan

Also, some have defined this nebulous and useless category of "front-mid" as having the engine's *center of gravity* in aft of front-wheel centerline. Which pretty much makes *every* front-engine/rear-drive car ever built a "front-mid-engine".

You are close with the engine's center of mass, but this doesn't make every front-engine car a front-mid-engine car. If the entire engine is in front of the front axle how in heck its center of mass goes behind? I think Dan that it'll be better to drive and win trophies , than trying to offend engineering definitions and talking about marketing b.s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-engine_design

[Irace86.2.0]

@ZDan .... I agree with you that this is mostly marketing, but the marketing has become convention--common nomenclature. Look up any article or wiki page, and they will make this clarification too. Why do they clarify front-mid when most FR layouts will be front-mid anyways like you mention, especially for sports cars? This is probably because of the numbers of cars that are not traditional FR sports cars. There are so many cars that are in a FF transverse layout that are considered sports cars from hot hatches to sports sedans, or that have their motor far forward in a FR or F-AWD because the car is offered as an AWD or an AWD option like the WRX or Audi's. The WRX prefers to put their transmission inline with the front axles to have symmetrical AWD (and they have a compact engine so they can), and often these cars will use a linkage or something to allow the engine to sit further back like the AWD system on a GTR or BMW, but still, the convention has become to clarify this front-mid layout because of the prevalence of the alternative layouts.


On another note, I agree with others that the rear-mid layout is the better layout by far, but can be much more of a bitch to service, yet I would say it is worth the effort. I also agree that any slush box automatic or EV will be the faster car around town. Even with my supercharged E85 BRZ, I often am ditched off the line by fat sedans or pug crossovers, but then again, I am always slow off the line because I drive fast in the turns or when it matters; I don't drag race from every red light. I notice some do, and the EV is a good choice. We will likely get a Model Y when it comes out, so we too can beat the other soccer moms to make that right turn into Starbucks.

[nikitopo]

Under this assumption everything is a marketing hype. Take for example the overall weight distribution. A car might have a 50:50 ratio. Does this means automatically that the car is a good or a bad handling car? Where is the majority of the front weight distributed? In front of the axles or behind the axles? You cannot really tell only with a ratio. All these are just engineering definitions that help us understand complex designs a bit better and make our lives easier.

[ZDan]

Originally Posted by nikitopo

You are close with the engine's center of mass, but this doesn't make every front-engine car a front-mid-engine car.

That's why I specified front-engine/rear-drive.

If the entire engine is in front of the front axle how in heck its center of mass goes behind?

FF, front-engine/front-drive is a different category, and of course they have to hang the engine out front in order to maintain some semblance of weight on the drive wheels under hard acceleration. With FR front-engine/rear-drive configuration you already know that for any decent sporty car the engine will be largely behind the front axle. Similarly with FF configuration you already know that the engine will usually be in front of front axle.

Very different configurations, but you still open up the hood at the front of the car to get to the engine! Both are front-engine but there's no ambiguity as to engine placement. FF = forward of front axle, FR = mostly or entirely behind front axle. Of course there are exceptions but those are mostly "weird" older cars (Citreon DS, Saab Sonnet, etc.)

Creating an "FMR" category based on the location of an arbitrary part of the engine relative to front axle is IMO completely unnecessary and misleading. S2000 architecture is not fundamentally different from Miata, Z3/Z4, etc. It *is* fundamentally different from Lotus Elise, Porsche Boxster/Cayman, etc. Yet now we have misguided people thinking that the S2000 and other FR sports cars are a variation of "mid-engined". They are not.

Please note that I am a HUGE fan of FR sports cars and have owned and tracked quite a few! But there is a fundamental difference between FR and MR, with S2000 and the like being most definitely in the FR category despite engines being mounted well aft, a feature which I am most definitely a big fan of!

Two critical differences:
1. in an FR car, even with the engine set way aft, the major masses of the car are inherently going to be set further apart, so it will have a greater yaw polar moment of inertia vs. an MR design where driver/engine/trans/diff masses are much closer together.
2. In a classic 2-seat FR sports car, the engine is situated as far aft as possible while still being in front of the driver, and the driver sits just in front of the rear wheels, way aft of c.g.. This gives a very different feel when driving the car (particularly near/at/beyond the limits) vs. MR sports car where the driver sits practically right in the middle of the wheelbase, very near the c.g.

[HachirocksU]

Your choice really. Twins are EXCELLENT. I'd rather get an MR2(and have many reasons to) instead over whatever porsche cayman > twins. A little further upgrade for the twins > porsche really.

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by nikitopo

Not a marketing thing. The "front mid" term helps you identify if the engine is behind the front axle or not. Some cars have the entire engine in front of the front axle and they are not front-mid and others as you said have the half of the engine behind the front axle or even have it complete behind the front axle. Everything matters on a sports car and weight distribution is one of the most import aspects. Saying that weight distribution doesn't make any difference is at least naive. A manufacturer can try to hide a certain weakness, but after a point it'll certainly show up. I didn't say that Porsche's don't have a better engine placement configuration, but as I said it is difficult to maintain and service. People usually don't realize this when they buy them and then they try to get rid of them.

Here is a nice video with more details:

But don't talk about the difficulty in servicing a porsche until you try and change the spark plugs on an 86...

Jaden

[WolfpackS2k]

That video is pretty moronic. A Porsche from the 2000s is NOT that difficult to work on. The newer 911s and 718s, however, make me nervous - but that applies to almost any new fully modern car.

And I have no idea who was quoted $4000-7000 for 2 catalytic converter replacements. I had to get one of mine replaced and it was $1400 (done under warranty).

[nikitopo]

Originally Posted by WolfpackS2k

And I have no idea who was quoted $4000-7000 for 2 catalytic converter replacements. I had to get one of mine replaced and it was $1400 (done under warranty).

He didn't talk about cars under warranty.

[WolfpackS2k]

Not sure what that has to do with this? If anything, a dealership will charge MORE for something under warranty because the factory pays for it. It didn't cost me $1400. It cost me nothing.