Quote:
Originally Posted by akyp
The flat-4 is wide, probably heavier than an inline-4, and cannot get any closer to the firewall due to the steering shaft getting in the way. Toyota/Subaru knew this so they hype about low CoG all day. Looking at the side-by-side video, the ND can carry more speed through the corners, that says something. IMO neither cars have enough spring rate from the factory to handle sticky tires such as star specs.
That we can all agree on. I think 2500lbs and 220hp was the initial design goal.
I would also like to say I'm ok with our car losing every objective metric to a brand new car (credit to Mazda). That means Toyota/Subaru have work to do. They've been sitting idle for far too long.
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If you go back to the original engineer interviews they said they wanted a boxer or wankel for low c.g. to get a low hoodline and good handling characteristics, so I guess this car was fucked when they drew it up 8 years ago?
http://blog.toyota.co.uk/tada-how-to...eated-the-gt86
The ND does hit a higher corner speed, but that has a lot to do with the 450 lb weight difference and slightly stickier tires: F=ma, reduce the mass and the acceleration can increase (higher mid-corner speed) with the same amount of cornering force generated by the tires, oh and that is slightly better in the Miata too.
The Miata's soft suspension gives it a lot of dynamic camber, simply put off the showroom floor it's working it's tires better than the 86 I would suspect but we won't know until guys start measuring their factory alignments (mine was garbage at -0.3 degrees camber up front), definite points for the I4+double wishbone but that's a setup that requires more effort to refine as grip gets added, we will see how the Miata guys handle that over the next few years.
I'm still on OEM suspension on my FR-S with Dunlop Direzza ZII Star Specs and it's doing marvelously after getting the alignment improved, it wallows a bit in the front hurting my slalom but that can be fixed with a swaybar, although I'm considering picking up some BRZ front struts as they are stiffer springs. And per the tire tests mentioned
, the 86 picks up a ton of time with sticky 200TW tires without any problems with the handling, and again, I believe that is BECAUSE of the low c.g. facilitated by the boxer engine.
