if 4 are good, 6 has got to be better, right?

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A

Apex

Diamond Member
Oct 11, 1999
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www.gotapex.com
Editor's note at bottom is awesome.

We have to love the idea of any car that follows the maxim, “If two wheels are bad and four wheels are good, then six wheels must be awesome.” But as always, we’ll believe it when we see it in the cold metal and six-wheeled flesh.

Editor’s note: Two wheels are awesome, Ray. Always.
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V

Vette73

Lifer
Jul 5, 2000
21,503
9
0
roguerower said:
Two wheels > anything
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your two wheel/everything < One wheeled

Ryno-Motors-Invents-Worlds-First-One-Wheel-Electric-Scooter-1.jpg



1worldsamazinginformation.blogspot.com_.jpg
 
Soccerman06

Soccerman06

Diamond Member
Jul 29, 2004
5,830
5
81
God that video they showed was terrible, the guy is late on throttle after the apex and keeps the turn wider than it needs to be half the time, its like hes not even pushing the car hard. Damn amateurs!
 
J

JCH13

Diamond Member
Sep 14, 2010
4,981
66
91
Monster_Munch said:
Wouldn't six wheels reduce the weight on each wheel and reduce grip?
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No. The total normal force of the vehicle is the same, so the grip will be the same.

FDF12389 said:
This is what I was thinking, pair that with RWD and I'm not sure how much traction you'll have during acceleration.
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Weight transfer will help get more force on the rear wheels, helping the situation.

The static weight distribution won't be that bad either. It won't be split 33%/33%/34% or something like that. Two axles near the front will have lighter loading, I'd imagine it'd be something like: 21%/29%/50%. The two front axles would split the load that a single front axle would normally carry.

If you don't believe me try imagining holding a bar with a weight in the middle. Hold it with two fingers near one end and one finger on the other. Each end has about the same weight that you need to hold up, just one side has that same weight split over two fingers rather than one. It has the same total weight, but half the weight is on each finger. Make sense?
 
Pulsar

Pulsar

Diamond Member
Mar 3, 2003
5,224
306
126
JCH13 said:
No. The total normal force of the vehicle is the same, so the grip will be the same.



Weight transfer will help get more force on the rear wheels, helping the situation.

The static weight distribution won't be that bad either. It won't be split 33&#37;/33%/34% or something like that. Two axles near the front will have lighter loading, I'd imagine it'd be something like: 21%/29%/50%. The two front axles would split the load that a single front axle would normally carry.

If you don't believe me try imagining holding a bar with a weight in the middle. Hold it with two fingers near one end and one finger on the other. Each end has about the same weight that you need to hold up, just one side has that same weight split over two fingers rather than one. It has the same total weight, but half the weight is on each finger. Make sense?
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This is an idiotic idea for a sportscar.

#1 More wheel weight = more time to spin up (more sprung/unsprung weight).
#2 More wheels = more friction on the axles and bearings.
#3 It does not improve aerodynamics. They did this on the F1 car so they could use smaller tires to present a smaller frontal area: those are OPEN WHEELED CARS. The portion of a wheel underneath a low-slung car like that has very little explosed frontal area.
#4 Drastically increased complexity and weight.

Sorry. They fail at understanding the point of that setup.
 
J

JCH13

Diamond Member
Sep 14, 2010
4,981
66
91
Pulsar said:
This is an idiotic idea for a sportscar.

#1 More wheel weight = more time to spin up (more sprung/unsprung weight).
#2 More wheels = more friction on the axles and bearings.
#3 It does not improve aerodynamics. They did this on the F1 car so they could use smaller tires to present a smaller frontal area: those are OPEN WHEELED CARS. The portion of a wheel underneath a low-slung car like that has very little explosed frontal area.
#4 Drastically increased complexity and weight.

Sorry. They fail at understanding the point of that setup.
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I never said it was a good idea, I just took a stab at explaining how the weight distribution/grip would work out.

Who knows how well the compromises/benefits would work out. It may have better braking, stability, etc, but who knows if those potential gains justify the added weight and such that you mentioned. I think that aero might be improved a little bit because the hood line is lower, but you're right in that the effects are much more profound in a open-wheeled car.

Edit: I am fan of KISS (keep is simple stupid), just for the record :sneaky:

Apex said:
Maybe they're going after the "spinners" market. LOL.
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Rofl :awe:
 
Throckmorton

Throckmorton

Lifer
Aug 23, 2007
16,829
3
0
More wheels have some good benefits. That's why military vehicles will have 6 or 8 wheels!

- 6 wheels means the suspension can be 2/3 as stiff with the same amount of anti-roll.
- A lot more braking traction, especially if the extra pair of wheels is up front
- A blowout is less bad
- More tires to buy but they last longer
- More suspension components but by distributing loads they should last longer too
- Eye catching?!


I'm not sure if this car will really perform better because of its extra wheels though...
 
Throckmorton

Throckmorton

Lifer
Aug 23, 2007
16,829
3
0
JCH13 said:
No. The total normal force of the vehicle is the same, so the grip will be the same.
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In the real world, more surface area means more grip, so it will definitely have more traction up front.

Weight transfer will help get more force on the rear wheels, helping the situation.

The static weight distribution won't be that bad either. It won't be split 33&#37;/33%/34% or something like that. Two axles near the front will have lighter loading, I'd imagine it'd be something like: 21%/29%/50%. The two front axles would split the load that a single front axle would normally carry.
Click to expand...

Mid engined cars are usually something like 40/60, so it should be maybe 15/25/60.

I think you could also adjust the springs to change the load distribution between the the 2 front axles... ie push the frontmost wheels downward so they take on more weight.
 
J

JCH13

Diamond Member
Sep 14, 2010
4,981
66
91
Throckmorton said:
In the real world, more surface area means more grip, so it will definitely have more traction up front.


Mid engined cars are usually something like 40/60, so it should be maybe 15/25/60.

I think you could also adjust the springs to change the load distribution between the the 2 front axles... ie push the frontmost wheels downward so they take on more weight.
Click to expand...

I have looked at tire test data from when I was designing race cars and they show that tire grip is proportional to normal force up until a certain point, depends on the tire, then it is slightly beneficial to have a larger contact patch. This happened at a fairly high contact pressure, near the limits of the tire in some cases.

FWIW: you assume, of course, that the 4 wheels up front have a larger contact area than if it only had 2 wheels, which may not be true.

As for our wild guesses at the weight distribution, =shrug= whatever makes you happy. MR2 and R8 are both 44f/56r, and remember that this thing has twice the suspension/steering/wheel+tire weight in the front.
 
D

darkswordsman17

Lifer
Mar 11, 2004
23,444
5,852
146
It will be much more stable, and you shouldn't run into any cases of understeer, so it should track pretty much where you point it. It should help coming out of corners as well, letting you go full throttle a bit quicker.

I'm not sure, but they might be using narrower and a bit smaller tires than they otherwise would. The second set definitely seems to be smaller. I am surprised they didn't make them smaller still to help with the aero. If you look at the designs they had before, it seems they were going for that, so I don't know what the deal is.

Its probably pretty lightweight, it looks like a typical fiberglass bodied barebones car. It probably only added maybe 300-400lbs, which it could still be competitive in power to weight with plenty of cars if its 3500 lbs or so.

Actually, something like this would've made sense for something like the Veyron.
 
GasX

GasX

Lifer
Feb 8, 2001
29,033
6
81
Took them 36 years to put out this monstrosity and all of a sudden they have 1 year until they put out a diesel supercar... Right....
 
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