- The riddle pf the Toyota GT86- the car for purist drivers.

[SonicShadow]

Engine issues can be solved if your pockets are deep enough -

[Lefty]

By the time they're down at £10k i might well consider doing that.

[underphil]

Lefty said:

MarkRSi said:

nickfrog said:

Slight issue with the GT86 : the engine is utterly st. Not because of the power (it's not supposed to be powerful, it's supposed to be light and low COG) but because of its delivery.

I found the same when I test drove one a few years back, in that it just didn't seem to "enjoy" being revved in a same manner as a Civic Type R (K20) or even a 2.0 MX-5. That and overly long gearing (60mph in 2nd and nearly 90 in 3rd IIRC?) seem to blunt the performance, or at least the feeling of any performance.

100% - you both summed up my feelings about the engine perfectly.

word has it that these engines need a bit of mileage on them to loosen up, I bought the one I had with 20k on it and the engine felt keen to rev. Never experienced a K20 though..

[Lefty]

It's quite possible that was the problem, it was new demo car, less than 1000 miles on the clock.

[otolith]

Richyvrlimited said:

RobM77 said:

I thought they used that engine purely because the car was jointly developed with Subaru?

I have no idea if this is true or not, but someone on here a while ago said that the Subaru Boxer engine's CofG was actually higher than a typical inline 4. Can anyone confirm or deny this with links to the figures?

I don't see how that would be possible, the flat 4 is so low in comparison to an inline 4

It's also short, longitudinally, which is good for keeping mass close to the centre of the car in a longitudinal engine rear drive layout.

It felt a lot like an RX-8 to me.

[underphil]

otolith said:

It's also short, longitudinally, which is good for keeping mass close to the centre of the car in a longitudinal engine rear drive layout.

It felt a lot like an RX-8 to me.

I don't know that the GT86 makes use of that engine shortness, the weight distribution is 55:45

[CABC]

underphil said:

I don't know that the GT86 makes use of that engine shortness, the weight distribution is 55:45

engine at the front will be part of the "55" no matter what. point is it sits behind the front axle rather than than over/in front of.

[otolith]

underphil said:

I don't know that the GT86 makes use of that engine shortness, the weight distribution is 55:45

There are two factors - the location of the CoG and the moment of inertia. Toyota claim that they wanted that weight distribution (I guess they would say that) but having the mass concentrated and having the CoG right in the middle (and hence 50:50) are independent considerations.

[underphil]

otolith said:

underphil said:

I don't know that the GT86 makes use of that engine shortness, the weight distribution is 55:45

There are two factors - the location of the CoG and the moment of inertia. Toyota claim that they wanted that weight distribution (I guess they would say that) but having the mass concentrated and having the CoG right in the middle (and hence 50:50) are independent considerations.

I think that the weight distribution was intentional, as they were never going to give it a lot of power

[RobM77]

CABC said:

underphil said:

I don't know that the GT86 makes use of that engine shortness, the weight distribution is 55:45

engine at the front will be part of the "55" no matter what. point is it sits behind the front axle rather than than over/in front of.

I think what underphil meant was that if the engine was positioned further back that 55:45 might get closer to 50:50.

[otolith]

RobM77 said:

I think what underphil meant was that if the engine was positioned further back that 55:45 might get closer to 50:50.

Depends on how much weight is at the back too. You can get the benefits of a smaller moment of inertia in a car which doesn't have a 50:50 weight distribution - lots of mid engined cars are not 50:50 (Elise, Evora, Cayman).

[RobM77]

otolith said:

RobM77 said:

I think what underphil meant was that if the engine was positioned further back that 55:45 might get closer to 50:50.

Depends on how much weight is at the back too. You can get the benefits of a smaller moment of inertia in a car which doesn't have a 50:50 weight distribution - lots of mid engined cars are not 50:50 (Elise, Evora, Cayman).

Ah, his comment makes sense in that light.

[nickfrog]

CABC said:

engine at the front will be part of the "55" no matter what. point is it sits behind the front axle rather than than over/in front of.

Sadly it doesn't and that surprised me. It's over the axle so the PMOI is not optimised but that's not a big deal. Actually, that's probably intentional as the car can be a little playful as it is on the limit !

[Jimmy Recard]

kambites said:

If I was 21 (and in the same position I was in when I was 21) now, I could imagine myself buying one. Now I'm in my 30s with a family and we need two cars anyway, I might as well run a proper sports car without the inherent driving limitations provided by adding two extra seats and a decent boot.

Edited by kambites on Friday 13th January 12:47

I'm just reading through this thread.

The cheapest GT86 I found on Autotrader is £10,950. the cheapest manual GT86 I found on Autotrader is £11,495.

That seems an awful lot of money for a young man to find at 21, especially with a couple of grand of insurance on top

I'm just thinking that men in their early 20s would be the target market, but I doubt they can afford them.

[delta0]

underphil said:

otolith said:

It's also short, longitudinally, which is good for keeping mass close to the centre of the car in a longitudinal engine rear drive layout.

It felt a lot like an RX-8 to me.

I don't know that the GT86 makes use of that engine shortness, the weight distribution is 55:45

The RX8 is 50:50 distribution. The engine is very far back, most of it between the front passenger legs compartments.

[otolith]

delta0 said:

The RX8 is 50:50 distribution. The engine is very far back, most of it between the front passenger legs compartments.

I don't think that's particularly what makes it feel how it does, though. Lots of cars are 50:50 and don't have that feel. I suspect that it is the height of the CoG and the moment of inertia which do it (i.e. moving the battery to the boot and other attempts to get a 50:50 weight distribution by balancing both ends are no substitute for getting the weight closer to the middle and lower down)

[Alex]

Lefty said:

Fair enough, throttle response might suffer a bit with a turbo but the throttle response on the new 2.0 engine is pretty poor anyway.

I think the throttle response in my BRZ is excellent compared with most other modern cars I have driven.

[delta0]

otolith said:

I don't think that's particularly what makes it feel how it does, though. Lots of cars are 50:50 and don't have that feel. I suspect that it is the height of the CoG and the moment of inertia which do it (i.e. moving the battery to the boot and other attempts to get a 50:50 weight distribution by balancing both ends are no substitute for getting the weight closer to the middle and lower down)

The RX8 has the battery at the front. There is a lot more than 50:50 distribution that makes these cars great to drive. The chassis stiffness, multi link suspension, double wishbones, stiffener bars, rwd, lsd, low mass etc. all contributing to fantastic handling that these class of cars have.

[RobM77]

Jimmy Recard said:

kambites said:

If I was 21 (and in the same position I was in when I was 21) now, I could imagine myself buying one. Now I'm in my 30s with a family and we need two cars anyway, I might as well run a proper sports car without the inherent driving limitations provided by adding two extra seats and a decent boot.

Edited by kambites on Friday 13th January 12:47

I'm just reading through this thread.

The cheapest GT86 I found on Autotrader is £10,950. the cheapest manual GT86 I found on Autotrader is £11,495.

That seems an awful lot of money for a young man to find at 21, especially with a couple of grand of insurance on top

I'm just thinking that men in their early 20s would be the target market, but I doubt they can afford them.

Quite a significant number of people are now waiting until their 30s to settle down and have children, that's certainly the case with all of my friends, for example I didn't get married until I was 36 and I met my wife aged 34. I suspect therefore that there are quite a few people in their late twenties and early thirties who can afford a GT86. If I had a bit more disposable income then one of my potentially ideal line ups would be a van/camper and a GT86.

[otolith]

delta0 said:

otolith said:

I don't think that's particularly what makes it feel how it does, though. Lots of cars are 50:50 and don't have that feel. I suspect that it is the height of the CoG and the moment of inertia which do it (i.e. moving the battery to the boot and other attempts to get a 50:50 weight distribution by balancing both ends are no substitute for getting the weight closer to the middle and lower down)

The RX8 has the battery at the front. There is a lot more than 50:50 distribution that makes these cars great to drive. The chassis stiffness, multi link suspension, double wishbones, stiffener bars, rwd, lsd, low mass etc. all contributing to fantastic handling that these class of cars have.

I know, it doesn't need to fanny about shifting bits of mass to get that distribution. But it's not uncommon for other cars to do that. A barbell has a 50/50 distribution, but it's got a high moment of inertia. The point is that the raw front to rear mass balance doesn't tell you much about where the mass is actually located, which is arguably more important.