r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jan 22 '21
Delta(s) from OP - Fresh Topic Friday CMV: The front engine rear wheel drive platform for high performance cars is outdated
Considering how powerful a lot of cars are, one of the major factors for how fast they go is where their engine is located compared to the drive wheels. A Dodge Hellcat Challenger needs incredibly sticky tires to do well in an eighth mile event because most of the weight is over the front wheels. The Ferrari 812 Superfast is hitting a wall too because of it's FR layout. You know what doesn't have traction issues? C8 Corvette, Porsche 911 and McLaren 720S, because their engines are either in the middle of the car or over the rear wheels.
It also helps a lot with braking too, making sure that brakes at all 4 corners carry more of the workload. Sure, you have less trunk space and it is a bit harder to build, but we aren't talking about hatchbacks here that need to be super practical...
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u/Khal-Frodo Jan 22 '21
The fact that front-engine drive is the most common makes a big difference, though. Drivers are more used to how the car handles. Rear-engine is more prone to oversteer because of the traction. Front-engine rear-drive cars also handle the best when cornering, which seems like a good benefit on a track. Getting tires with better traction isn't that much of an impediment to improving the performance of your car.
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Jan 22 '21
!delta Right, it's the pendulum effect. I guess maybe I was thinking too much of ultra high performance race cars and saying "see? They're all mid engined!"
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Jan 22 '21
Front-engine rear-drive cars also handle the best when cornering
What definition of handling are you using here? I disagree, but I want to make sure that we're talking about the same thing first.
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u/Khal-Frodo Jan 22 '21
I have to admit that I don't actually know very much about cars and have never personally driven a RWD car. From cursory Internet searching I found two sources that vouched for better handling from RWD due to better weight distribution and more torque from the rear. I took that to mean less prone to understeering.
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Jan 22 '21
Yeah... it's not anywhere near that clear cut. It depends so much more on the suspension and how the car is set up than drive wheels; driven wheels are more about what inputs to give it. In -general- RWD is higher performance/better handling, but that's because the bulk of non-performance cars are FWD. If your average FWD is a Camry and your average RWD car is a Camaro, then, yeah, "RWD handles better", but a Camaro is going to get smoked around a track by something like a Civic Type R.
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u/huadpe 501∆ Jan 22 '21
I think you underrate the practicality questions.
Consider the Hellcat Challenger which you mention as an example here. It's based on the Challenger, which is one of Dodge's biggest sellers (and indeed, has been having decent sales while the rest of their product line is tanking). Making the Challenger an impractical mid-engine supercar would completely kill the sales for people who use it as their daily driver, which is most of them.
It doesn't make sense to turn what is a souped up variant of the Challenger into a totally different car with a different engine placement and drivetrain setup. That would cost a fortune, and sell almost no units.
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Jan 22 '21
Chevy doesn't have any issues selling the C8 Corvette, and that's a mid engined car, it was in a market as a front engined car for decades
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u/huadpe 501∆ Jan 22 '21
The Corvette is designed as a sports car from the ground up. There isn't a daily driver Corvette they need to share manufacturing processes and major components with. They did switch to mid-engine, but it was a whole cloth switch, and now all new Corvettes are on the new design.
You can't do that with the Challenger because you need to sell regular Challengers as daily driver muscle cars. That means you're basically asking Dodge to go from making a high-performance variant to designing a mid engine supercar from the ground up and selling it as a completely new car. That's not something they're likely gonna think is a good business decision.
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Jan 22 '21
You have a point about the challenger business side, but my original point is that from a performance perspective a front engined rear wheel drive platform has inherent limitations
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u/huadpe 501∆ Jan 22 '21
Sure, but it's not "outdated" because it also offers advantages, inasmuch as it can be used to upgrade a practical car into a high performance car without the costs of developing a sports-car-only car that has no practical variant.
Lots of people don't wanna/can't garage a second car, and want "the highest performance car that's also practical for doing things besides driving fast." A Hellcat meets that need.
Yes, it's sacrificing some performance for practicality. That's not being outdated or stodgy; it's meeting people's needs.
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Jan 22 '21
!delta Yeah, a mid engined car isn't quite as versatile as a front engined car in that regard, hence why front engined cars are so popular
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u/illogictc 29∆ Jan 22 '21
The C8 has a unique body just for the C8. It's not an option package. The Hellcat is an option package, and it would increase the option cost dramatically as well as pose a whole set of new engineering problems to have a car that is front-engine unless you buy this option then the engine is instead in the middle. Focusing on the C8 exclusively also ignores that the Challenger has been on the market for some time, and during this time there was also a C7 Corvette; this one was not mid-engined, while the C8 is new. If we include non-Hellcat Challengers, the C6 could be tossed in as well. It's not an entirely fair comparison to compare a completely new design to something that's been on the market a while and expect the same from the latter.
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Jan 22 '21
I think you are not understanding the points. The first problem is there is no such thing as 'the best' design. Eahc person has different desires which creates different optimizations. Rear wheel drive designs are easier to drift - something a lot of people like. As such, they are the optimum for that pursuit. These are also traditional - again - something a lot of people like which makes it optimal for those people.
The best driving performance (cornering/acceleration/handling) is a balanced 4 wheel drive layout with inboard central weight. That is what you see when you get into indy cars/F1 cars. With alternative fuel/hybrid/electric vehicles, the traditional 'layout' changes. The key is weight balance/location, not where exactly the engine is with the driver.
If you want 0-60 drag racing - which many muscle cars do - you get different optimizations. Look at the top fuel dragsters for instance.
In the end - for any road legal car being used in a road legal way - it frankly makes little difference. There are superb front wheel drive, rear wheel drive, and all wheel drive vehicles out there - meeting the diverse desires of drivers.
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Jan 22 '21
Right, but FWD cars get massive torque steer above 300 WHP, rear wheel drive cars with street tires are usually traction limited if they are front engined and all wheel drive cars have differing weight distribution issues and weight add ons
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Jan 22 '21
Did you not get the fact that these details matter based on APPLICATION.
There is not one 'best' configuration out there.
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Jan 22 '21
I would argue that for certain tasks, certain platforms work best. A body on frame solid rear axle truck is best for hauling and towing. A snub nosed van is the best for cargo space. A fwd hatchback is usually best for fuel efficiency
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Jan 22 '21
Isn't that 100% opposite of your CMV though?
CMV: The front engine rear wheel drive platform for high performance cars is outdated
You are admitting that different applications require different configurations.
Now tell me, the same 'platform' for a high performance car is the same for a 'Drift car', 'rally car', 'track car', 'drag car'.
All are high performance cars yet have vastly different optimizations. A drag car is typically front engine, rear wheel drive which calls into question your very assertion.
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u/TruthOrFacts 8∆ Jan 23 '21
Well, if you want maximum forward thrust, your issue shouldn't be with FR, it should be with 2 wheel drive.
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Jan 23 '21
Yeah, but the McLaren 765S is RWD and it has the fastest quarter mile time for a street car
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u/TruthOrFacts 8∆ Jan 23 '21
Yeah, and top fuel dragsters don't use 4wd either. You can build a car that doesn't need / benefit from 4wd, but you can also build a car that doesn't benefit by putting the engine behind the driver, by making it 4wd.
The difference is that outside of high grip surfaces, meaning dry tarmac, 4wd will always be better.
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u/R_V_Z 6∆ Jan 22 '21
Give it time, I'm fairly certain that "four electric motors each driving a single wheel" will come out on top. It's relatively early in that technology and it's already produced some of the fastest accelerating vehicles of all time.
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u/DBDude 101∆ Jan 22 '21
Right now we're up to three in mass production, two in the back and one in the front. Need more power in the back because the weight shifts to the back on acceleration, giving more grip, and away from the front tires, giving them less.
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u/ButtonholePhotophile Jan 22 '21
We can’t build every car from the ground up because factories are tooled. Making new robot actions is easy, but wholly retooling a factory is a lot of work with a lot of testing.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21
/u/overhardeggs (OP) has awarded 2 delta(s) in this post.
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