[s-cars] To plow, or not to plow.

[Cody Forbes]

bill mahoney wrote:
> Woah! is me.  Don't ask.
> But here's my question to the great and powerful oz:
> Staggered wheels.  Supposedly for sure they will increase oversteer.
> A number of high line cars sport them, but is this because they dont
> want rich boy racers to do a spinOrama and they look cool?
> Given a choice in a RWD car between staggered and not staggered, not
> staggered at first blush seems a wiser choice for a good driver as it
> should provide more grip in the corners, faster turn in and allow for
> time to time tire rotation?
> ps  I know NG for quattro.

Well I think you are thinking about it a little wrong. Its not like in order 
to have relatively wider rear wheels one would install smaller on the front. 
Grip would be great with 345mm wide tires on all 4 corners, but thats 
obviously unrealistic. Front tires need to be more narrow because they have 
to be able to still fit in the fender while turning without hitting the 
control arms or inner fender. Since the rears are stationary in relation to 
the suspension you can get away with them clearing the arms by a few 
milimeters where the front would need more then a few inches of space.

For a RWD car (assuming it's got a good powerplant) the widest possible rear 
tires and the widest possible front tires is where you get more overall 
grip. Most of the time that translates to wider rears. Wider rears don't 
decrease the ammount of grip in the front to induce understeer, they just 
raise the bar for where the rear looses grip to a point where the front's 
slip first. All of ths changes though if we are talking about low power 
cars. If you don't have an overabundance of power you need to ballance tire 
size with the ammount of drag they cause plus the ammount of weight of the 
tire/wheel combo. Sometimes you can gain speed on a track while loosing grip 
if you drastically reduce rolling and unsprung weight.

-Cody Forbes
http://www.5000tq.com
'87 5ktq - Fast.
'87 5ktq QLCC'd plus some
'86 5ktqCD
'86 5k
'86 5k