[Randy Chase]

Good question and well stated.

Any car can be made (as you note) to understeer or oversteer in a normal cornering state. The issue is not that the Elise, or any midengined car, is set up to oversteer out of the box.

If it was, I would actually think in a way it would be less surprising to people, because they knew the back end wanted to come around.

I think the issue is that Elise is not 50/50 weight distribution. With the engine towards the back, you have that hammer being thrown effect.


Let's exaggerate the analogy a bit. The front engined car is a large hammer with the hammer head representing the engine end. You throw the hammer and the head end wants to go to the front. Normal. And predictable. You throw the hammer, with the head first, it stays first.

Now flip the hammer around. Toss is. What happens? The hammer rotates in the air. The head wants to go to the front, but there is now a force causing it to tumble and rotate as it moves.

You can set up cars to understeer by various methods. Larger rear tires vs smaller front tires. DIfferent alignments. The use of suspension bits like swaybars. Etc. But that does not change the physics of the hammer.

The main difference is, as long as you are operating within the "budget" of the tire's contact patch, those suspension bits and alignments are doing their job to keep the car neutral. It's when you exceed them that those things become less part of the equation and the hammer analogy takes over instead.

As mentioned above, the other issue is the weight transfer in a midengined car. It magnifies the unweighting of the rear tires in a turn. A front engined car is designed to have the engine's weight over the front wheels. As such, the front tires are doing more of the work in a corner. When you brake in a turn, and unweight the rear tires or weight the front tires, you are only shifting incrementally more what the car normally does. In a midengined car, the rear tires are doing a lot more of the work. To brake in a turn forces the rear tires to unwieght and the fronts to take on the load instead. That adds to that hammer affect.

This is my grasp of it anyway.

The net is this. Any car can be made to oversteer and understeer. A driver can induce those conditions also. But in a midengined car, the result of sudden oversteer is more severe and can be catastrophic to the untrained or less conservative driver.

This means-

1. Use car pushing the car on turns where there may be traction changes. A wet spot. Dirt on the road. Ice/snow. Anything that can reduce the traction of the rear tires in a corner.

2. In slippery conditions, do almost all your braking/accelerating in straight lines. As much as possible.

3. Try to avoid sudden movements while turning. Specially anything abrupt that unweights the rear such as quickly lifting off the throttle or hitting the brakes.

4. You can possible do better in a turn with more judiciously applied throttle to maintain grip. Even a car with a lot of oversteer (think "drifting") can be controlled. A spinning car is much more difficult.

5. Practice with the car under safe conditions. I highly recommend parking lots and cones. There is normally an autocross somewhere near you. Experience sudden oversteer and see what it feels like. Over and over. Go into a corner near 10/10ths and tap the brakes. Jab the throttle. You can make the back end come out. Get a feel for what the car is doing.

Damn.. I wrote another novel. sorry! Hopefully someone else will add to this.