Transverse mid engined cars
Discussion
ravon said:
Wonder why no racing cars, where performance is the sole criteria, opt for the transverse, side gearbox, rear axle mounted engine route ?
Nearly all Formula SAE cars have transverse engines also 
.Packaging is critical for race cars. It is a compromise between suspension, aerodynamics, cooling, weight distribution, engine performance, cost and serviceability.
It is the same with sports cars, but the constraints and solutions are different.
No race cars have been rear engined, or flat engined, for about 50 years, but the 911 family are still sports cars, and good ones.
Think if you check your motor racing history the Lancia Stratos was a very spectacular, but never wildly successful as a rally car, or in its much modified form as a racing car. It was replaced by the very successful Lancia Rallye 037, and guess what the engine configuration of that car was ? As for the Peugeot, I think it was a rally car, I mentioned racing cars .
Think if you check your motor racing history the Lancia Stratos was a very spectacular, but never wildly successful as a rally car, or in its much modified form as a racing car as a racing car. It was replaced by the very successful Lancia Rallye 037, and guess what the engine configuration of that car was ? As for the Peugeot, I think it was a rally car, I mentioned racing cars .
doogz said:
When you say "race cars", do you mean bespoke prototype sort of things, as opposed to saloon/sports car based racers, such as any Porsche, anything built by Subaru, etc?
I was responding to ravon's claim that no race cars had transverse engines, so assumed he meant prototype class single seaters.There have been numerous transverse middy production based racers, some of which have been posted on this thread.
The Stratos was very successful. It certainly wasn't killed due to a lack of competitiveness, indeed if memory serves it wasn't replaced by the 037, but by a Fiat 131, I think. If you discount rallying as racing because the cars race the clock instead of eachother, I don't see the relevance to an engine configuration question. If you think that it's different because a circuit racer is designed to go as fast as possible in its environment, well so is a rally car. Short wheelbases are good on tight corners, twitchy on fast corners. Aerodynamics work better on fast corners and low ride heights, neither of which are much use on a dirt stage.
A rally car, at least in the group B era, is a purpose built race car designed to take two people as fast as possible from the start to the finish. Packaging was no less important here than it is in circuit racing, and frankly a rally car is made to work in an environment more relevant to a road going sportscar than a formula 1, GP2 or Le Mans prototype is, so if you want to know which layout works best for carrying two people quickly on public roads, rally cars are a better place to look than Circuit racers.
Someone mentioned no flat engines in purpose built racers for 50 years, that's not quite true, but the last of the flats in F1, those being the flat 12s in the Ferrari T cars and the Alfa flat 12 in the Brabhams - and I think in some of the last Alfas too - showed that the lower CofG was uncompetitive compared to the ground effects made possible with a V configuration and led to the demise of that configuration in F1. I think there was a Matra flat 12 around in those days too? In the '60s and '70s, on the other hand, Ferrari's flat 12s were certainly competitive.
On the other hand the Porsche 956 and 962 did just fine with a flat 6 up to the end of the '80s.
A rally car, at least in the group B era, is a purpose built race car designed to take two people as fast as possible from the start to the finish. Packaging was no less important here than it is in circuit racing, and frankly a rally car is made to work in an environment more relevant to a road going sportscar than a formula 1, GP2 or Le Mans prototype is, so if you want to know which layout works best for carrying two people quickly on public roads, rally cars are a better place to look than Circuit racers.
Someone mentioned no flat engines in purpose built racers for 50 years, that's not quite true, but the last of the flats in F1, those being the flat 12s in the Ferrari T cars and the Alfa flat 12 in the Brabhams - and I think in some of the last Alfas too - showed that the lower CofG was uncompetitive compared to the ground effects made possible with a V configuration and led to the demise of that configuration in F1. I think there was a Matra flat 12 around in those days too? In the '60s and '70s, on the other hand, Ferrari's flat 12s were certainly competitive.
On the other hand the Porsche 956 and 962 did just fine with a flat 6 up to the end of the '80s.
Edited by kiseca on Wednesday 27th August 11:56
Fort Jefferson said:
hidetheelephants said:
Fort Jefferson said:
Clan crusader is rear engined (Hillman Imp)
Not transverse though, imp derived things are longitudinal.I was only pointing out it wasn't mid engined.
kambites said:
There's certainly no denying that haivng the engine transversely has its disadvantages. There's also no denying that it has advantages as well.
I think the question is which outweights the other. Would Lotus have made a longitudinally engined Elise/Exige with a Honda S2000 engine and gearbox if they could have done?...Rob with regard to Lotus, in the Chapman era, there were plenty of FWD transverse drivetrains around, but for some reason he choose to go through all the engineering aggro of turning a Renault transaxle upside down to make his true mid engined Europa and years later when there were even more transverse options his true mid engined Esprit. Chapman is famed for his love of a quick buck, but still went the traditional ( and expensive ) route for his production cars, interesting ?
ravon said:
Wonder why no racing cars, where performance is the sole criteria, opt for the transverse, side gearbox, rear axle mounted engine route ?
Well, none, other than this one:EclipseSportsCar
(which is currently cleaning up in the championship it runs in.........)
But it does use a very clever rear drive architecture to minimise the deficit of running with a proddy engine / gearbox combo:
;-)
RE: Rallying transverse mid cars, it's worth remembering that 4wd is a lot harder with a longitudinal engine (requires the engine to point backwards and a very custom gearbox "in" the cabin, and for a 2wd, the poor weight distribution means most of your mass is concentrated over the drive wheels, crucial where traction > handling on rough surface events!
ravon said:
Max Torque, interesting stuff, not so new in concept ( and very topical, Len Terry RIP ) see Len's 1950's solution to being forced to use and an Austin 7 rear axle in the 750 formula.
As described in "Racing car design and developement"?Still one of my favourites : I even found a second hand copy to replace the one I lost years ago.
I have yet to replace Costin & Phipps, lost at the same time
The issue addressed by the design shown above is the achilles heel of transverse middies : room for a decent rear suspension.
ravon said:
Rob with regard to Lotus, in the Chapman era, there were plenty of FWD transverse drivetrains around, but for some reason he choose to go through all the engineering aggro of turning a Renault transaxle upside down to make his true mid engined Europa and years later when there were even more transverse options his true mid engined Esprit. Chapman is famed for his love of a quick buck, but still went the traditional ( and expensive ) route for his production cars, interesting ?
An engineering genius, but perhaps not the best businessman, in the light of his sad demise and of course selling the 7 off. The Elise, whilst fantastic to drive, is hardly ideal in terms of its balance, but has made those compromises to be sellable at a low enough price to sell in big numbers; now I'm a big Chapman fan, but that's better business sense.Qwert1e said:
Recent quick Lotuses have compounded that compromise by sticking a supercharger on top of the engine and virtually destroying any hope of rear visibility. Still, I don't suppose the driver needs to look out the back very much!!
Not the case in the 2-Eleven The back's totally flat. Visibility isn't its strong point though 
ravon said:
Think if you check your motor racing history the Lancia Stratos was a very spectacular, but never wildly successful as a rally car, or in its much modified form as a racing car. It was replaced by the very successful Lancia Rallye 037, and guess what the engine configuration of that car was ? As for the Peugeot, I think it was a rally car, I mentioned racing cars .
In fact it was something of a disaster for Lancia, only winning the World Rally Championship in 1974, 1975 and 1976ravon said:
Apologies, my mistake, should have looked up the facts before commenting, was relying on the little grey cells, which clearly deserted me !
Clearly this was the case since the beginning of the thread.Anyone who has a ideological bent against a particular configuration has probably not sat down and designed something much before. Every configuration has merit at some level and for some purpose - a good engineer will remember what he was once told about it. A great engineer will truly understand the compromises and trade-offs that have been chosen.
Even the received wisdom of boxer engines having lower CoG's than V-configurations, as mentioned earlier in the thread, is actually almost always incorrect.
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