Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
I don't understand why traction would be a problem. It doesn't have as much downward force, but it also has less mass to move than a bigger car. Those should even out.
Downforce will only come into play at higher speeds, and less downforce means less traction (although too much downforce and cause negative affects to handling as well). Less mass also means less traction.
It won't even out, as both of those would have a negative affect on traction.
Relatively narrow tires, light weight, and high power, means low traction.
I'm not sure why everyone is making such a big deal about traction. The whole point of cars like this is to have fun when losing traction. I mean, you're not going to be bragging about how your car takes the twisties in a car like that, you're gonna say how fun it is to do power on oversteer slides around corners and how it accelerates.
Throw it into a tall gear, you're going to have plenty of torque no matter what gear with an engine like that, and then drop it down to second when you need to accelerate.
If you want traction/handling, you're not going to be looking at a high horsepower lightweight roadster, you're gonna be looking at something like the Lotus Elise or going AWD like an Evo or Porsche Turbo. You will get nice handling but thats from the low weight and far from bad supsension/wheels/tires, but its not going to be better than a car of the same weight that has better balance between power and handling (unless you do something like use traction control or limit the revs so that it doesn't hit the meaty part of the powerband).
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