Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) Lotus Elise Handing Myth Or Heavenly Grip

The standard Elise has narrower front tyres than the Exige to ensure understeer for less racy drivers on public roads accorning to Lotus themselves.

To overcome this "fake" understeer (which is certainly working like a safety plus for the inexperienced driver within some range) I have Exige Cup rims on my Elise with 205 tyres front and 225 tyres in the rear.

Chaps, because the page has turned may be you have not seen the post where I quote a mail of a good friend regarding the Elise and the way to drive her. A good read in my view.

Heinz, interesting read. in fact i need to re-read several times and go for a drive (and then re-read again!)
the whole weight transfer thing is not as easy as it might first seem, practice is much more difficult. trail braking is an easy introduction, but the article you pasted is far more nuanced. who is the writer? Mark Hales is no amateur himself, although his own article didn't fully address the issues either. in fact i'd call it a half-hearted magazine article to describe a few symptoms and then fail to address either the physics involved nor the resolution required.

For me the Elise has become a heavenly road car. corrected geo to give more lively handling, still an excess of grip, but steering and chassis feedback to delight on every drive. I explore weight transfer more fully with my MX5 on track.... work in progress!
very difficult to explain how difficult car dynamics are, even to road-only petrol heads. Since driving on track i now realise how little i knew before, and how little i still really know. My know unknowns are greater and i suspect my unknown unknowns could be greater too.

I read that Heinz and all I can say is that it made me feel rather.......inadequate!

Nick

We had further email correspondences yesterday and he added the following regarding possible cons of rear/mid engined cars on normal roads in comparison with front rear cars.
Mike is a very good friend from Chicago who also joined my 60th birthday over here in March. When he was here he was the first customer who could rent the new A110 Alpine for ten laps at the Nordschleife Nürburgring and he was very enthusiastic about this car.
He is an (audio but not only) engineer. We met first ten years ago on a meeting at the Klipsch factory in Hope AR. We share our common interests in cars and audio. He likes the driving as much as his technical considerations about it to share. Of course I asked him before I published his text:

„Btw, the reason I was comparing to front-rear cars is because I think they might be more enjoyable to drive on a normal road. The thing about this rear weight creating a rotational moment is that you always gotta be careful about the car's balance before slamming on the brakes. Or you have to be careful that you can't swerve as quickly without braking first. Momentum works both ways... Either it wants to continue moving, or it equally resists moving.

Also, I think the mid-rear setups might be slower in an autocross slalom because the rotational inertia fights against you during the transitions. Basically, you can't take advantage of it without braking. Or to put it another way, the car turns slower if you don't have enough speed to brake.

This isn't a problem on any racetrack, but is something I fight against in autocross [regarding his Elise] It's also annoying on the road because sometimes I don't get to carry speed into my favorite corners due to traffic conditions... If I try to accelerate to my cornering speed, then I will lose front grip and push off the corner.... even though I haven't reached my ideal corner entry speed. This is because I lost the rotational moment afforded by braking first. This is technically true for all cars, but I think it's way more noticeable with a rear engine setup.

All that to say, I think front-rear is more fun to drive outside of a racetrack....“

getting a little confused in my own head now...
i certainly agree that most cars enjoy approaching a corner above cornering speed, but this is because the necessary braking weights up the front wheels to enable tighter turn in. all cars understeer at the limit under constant throttle. braking not only reduces speed but also enables tighter steering (so long as the back holds...)

Parisa, if a mid rear engined car doesn't have the excess speed before the corner then it doesn't steer as well into the corner as a front rear car. At a steady speed into the bend, or when accelerating, the front rear car has more grip on the front axle. But it also needs more friction to turn in so overall it is slightly slower than a mid rear engined car in the right circumstances.

The slowed down excess speed at the corner entry of the mid rear engined car causes the car to push outwards at the rear as a result of the braking energy in combination with the curve angle. You have more grip on the rear axle if you go on the gas again and the car drives the curve almost with very little steering movement because it rotates due to the mass forces through the curve and not mainly by the steering angle. So is has lower friction on the front wheels.

Just to add, this driving technique is far away from the classical drift because you do not counter steer which would reduce the speed any more but you can reduce the steering angle in this case.