Quote:
Originally Posted by old greg
Don't drink the BMW kool-aid. There's nothing all that great about a 50/50 weight distribution, no matter where your engine is. 53/47 is a good place for the AS1 to be based on it's power level, given that the engineers wanted it to be a little tail happy under throttle.
For going fast around a race track in a RWD car, the "ideal" weight distribution is in the range of 45/55 to 40/60 depending on cg height and power to weight ratio. Staggered tire widths keeps the contact patches nearly evenly loaded front to rear for optimum cornering grip. Rearward load transfer puts a large majority of the load on the rear tires for extra traction out of a corner, and forward load transfer under braking more evenly distributes load for shorter braking distances.
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Speaking of which, have you seen the new Miata magazine ad? They have it on a fancy teeter-totter and make a huge deal about it being 50/50 with the driver on it and how it is an un-retouched/no photoshop picture.
My bet is that this car has just made Mazda pee its pants a little...