No way is Mark stupid enough the make a mistake like that.
Clearly you have never asked my wife for her opinion of me.
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My Elio Alternate Project Is Underway.
- Thread starter Mark BEX
- Start date
Clearly you have never asked my wife for her opinion of me.
JohnJ
Elio Addict
You really make it tough..... I can think of several smart-ass responses to that, but I'll control myself. I'm sure she's a lucky lady.
There are published tests of the steering characteristics of various platforms with their best castor angles.
The location of power to the wheels were also considered.
These test were focused on the oversteering and understeering that was 'felt' at various side force levels.
This was partly to explain the problems that the Dymaxion rear-steered vehicle encountered. Basically
a couple layouts are very problematic. The oversteering and understeering can swap or become suddenly
very pronounced in some combinations.
Rear steering was very bad in all power arrangements at anything but low speed. Caster angles could only
mitigate the problem just so much.
Powering a single wheel of three was also bad, particularly if a single front wheel. They didn't try 1 of 4.
The Dymaxion had both a single powered rear wheel at one point and it steered too. The only thing this car
in that arrangement could do safely was park in parallel spots, if never exceeding 10mph.
I have seen demo film of it doing fast transitions on roads to show how safe it was. But you could see wild
jerks while it moved that do not impress me much. They scare me in fact.
Of the tests, our BEX project is implementing the safest combination, below a nominal power level.
It is very boring if you like racing.
The only better layout for safety might be is a 45/55 mid-engine and/or all wheel drive.
That one can take high power, even for racing.
<knock, knock, knock> (that's a gavel on a wood surface) Well Mark, as you have seen this opinionated group of (ahem) people have very strong thoughts of rear steer, none of them good, but like they always say, "opinions are like assholes, everybody has one" this will be one of those "show me it works" before they will change opinions, some good, some bad, some ehhhhhh well. In other words, they would need to be shown that it will work, and positive that it will be stable before they jump onboard with it. And it's getting late, so I'm done feeding the sharks for today, --- Nite!!------
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You've seen and inspected the SOLO up close, what sort of steering system did they used?
JohnJ
Elio Addict
All I can say is that I would never buy a car with rear wheel steering.
And pray tell, why not?????
Fun and games, but there was never any intention of creating rear steering.
The 1980s Honda Prelude and Mazda 626 sold quite well with assisted rear steering by the way, and the Mitsubishi VR4 won some World Rallys with it ...
I remember those cars, and the rear steer they used was a little different, it would turn one way at low speed, and the opposite way at speed, it was a rather different type of rear wheel steer, it also had a lock out. But all of this steering it would do was computer controlled, and it worked in conjunction with the front wheels steering. It was a rather "different" type of steering, and the driver really had no control over how they were turning. Ahh yes, I remember that system, it was a nightmare to work on. And when it had problems, it was set to lock on straight, if it ran into problem. And it only turned a few degrees.
How big is the fuel tank? One of the things I wish my Honda Fit had was a bigger fuel tank.