Hi! There is one thing that has kept me from driving with GTi and FXO. LFS's FWD cars has rather strange weight distributions compared to real world hot hatches. Small FWD cars usually have 60-65% of the weight on front wheels with a full tank of fuel. In LFS FXO has 54.4% with a full tank and GTi has 55% with full.
This makes them handle more like RWD cars with less understeer. On the other hand they spin front tires very easily as less weight is on front wheels. With almost empty tank LFS's FWD cars behave more realistically as there is more weight on front tires and the front lateral grip is the limiting factor in the corners.
These wrong weight distributions could be very easily fixed so I hope they are changed in the next (test) patch!

A very good point - how come no one has realised this!

I know the new MINI is 62% front (no idea which model if it makes much difference), as is the latest Golf. And with the recent 'trend' of moving engines backwards for 'balance and poise', I'd guess that older hatchbacks (like the XF) would be closer to 65%. As for the FXO, that would also be a little more rear biased than a short hatchback, but still 55-60%.

Any other cars that are 'wrong'?

UF 1000 - 56.4%: Mini Cooper Mk1 64:36%
GTi - 55%: Ford Fiesta XR2i 64:36%
XF GT (Turbo): - 49.4%: Mitsubishi Starion 52:48%, Mazda RX-7 50:50%
RB4 - 53.2%: Toyota Celica GT4 60:40%
FXO - 54.4%: Opel Calibra Turbo 57:43%
FZ50 - 40.7%: Porsche Carrera 966 36:64%

Why didn't you notice this a few months back! We could have had it fixed for patch Y.

I'm holding you personally responsible for this.

Edit: It might be easy but what would it do to the newly balanced TBO glass?

Quote from Antsa :

These wrong weight distributions could be very easily fixed so I hope they are changed in the next (test) patch!

Hope so!

Quote from Antsa :

UF 1000 - 56.4%: Mini Cooper Mk1 64:36%
GTi - 55%: Ford Fiesta XR2i 64:36%
XF GT (Turbo): - 49.4%: Mitsubishi Starion 52:48%, Mazda RX-7 50:50%
RB4 - 53.2%: Toyota Celica GT4 60:40%
FXO - 54.4%: Opel Calibra Turbo 57:43%
FZ50 - 40.7%: Porsche Carrera 966 36:64%

Very interesting, and good job noticing too Those are quite big differences in some cases when compared with similar RL cars, especially the UF1000 and GTi!

These things matter indeed. Well spotted.

/bump!1

OMG - I noticed this yesterday aswell!

Also, as another thing to do with the XFG - (This might have been mentioned before)

Isn't 115 bhp from a 1.3 quite alot for a road car. I'm not saying that it isn't impossible, but wouldn't a normal small car with a 1.3 only have about 70-80 bhp?

Bump, good point.

Could be why the FWD cars are prone to more power oversteer than they really should be.

Yes, it is quite a lot, but not impossible. The GTi version of the XF, which is what we drive, might have had a factory camshaft upgrade or something... We routinely get 130hp out of thirty year old 1298cc engines...

Oh yeah - I forgot that it's supposed to be a 'GTi' version!

Well spotted! Let's keep this thread alive for when Scawen gets back from his vacation, so he sees it!

Another car that's weight distribution has always bothered me is the XRR. For XRT and XRG it's reasonable that the weight is a bit front biased, but the XRR is a race car yet it is even more front biased.

Agreed, the road cars are nearly spot on (XRG/XRT) but the race car you would assume would be made 50/50. Would help make it a bit easier to drive, too. A front heavy rear drive car is simply going to have traction issues and no sensible engineer would try and make a car competitive like that.

Once you've stripped the interior (bias forwards), moved the batteries and fitted extinguishers, race tanks (rear bias) then you end up not far from where you started. It's fairly unlikely a front engined front biased road car would become a 50:50 race car, unless you are free to move anything and everything (which is rare).

I agree that you couldn't completely change the weight distribution, but considering the XRT is almost perfect, it seems odd the XRR is actually 'worse'.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Once you've stripped the interior (bias forwards), moved the batteries and fitted extinguishers, race tanks (rear bias) then you end up not far from where you started. It's fairly unlikely a front engined front biased road car would become a 50:50 race car, unless you are free to move anything and everything (which is rare).

By the time your building a GT car from ground up you are pretty much free to move anything you like around a bit, mainly because it would be impossible to enforce. You'll find most front engined GT cars will have the engine moved quite a long way back with dead space left at the front of the engine bay. Body panels (especially the bonnet) are often replaced with carbon fibre equivalents that save a huge amount of weight moving the balance both rearwards and down in the car. Then you've got the odd thing like the battery and fire extinguisher where the placement is free, but they don't weigh very much to move the weight around and dry sumped cars usually have the oil tank in the boot to help with the weight distribution. Of course it all goes wrong again when you start hacking the rear end apart to remove the dead weight.

More importantly though if cars can be built under weight in the first place they can then be ballasted up to the weight limit with perfect (and very low) weight distribution.

This must be kept at the top of the "new posts" list.. but I fear it's too late for Y?

Quote from DaveWS :

This must be kept at the top of the "new posts" list.. but I fear it's too late for Y?

It's far too late for patch Y, the last test patch had a separate download which Scawen said something about it was meant to be the last test patch.

Don't the usual GTR cars have minimum weight or kg/hp per regulations? I think they could, IRL, just make the car over light then ballast to the heart's content.

Quote from yoyoML :

Don't the usual GTR cars have minimum weight or kg/hp per regulations? I think they could, IRL, just make the car over light then ballast to the heart's content.

Getting to the minimum weight (typically around 1100kg) can mean chopping the best part of 800kg out of a modern car, that's not easy to do in itself so a lot of cars may be only just getting down to it. Some series and lower profile races like Britcar (and probably the 'ring 24 hours) don't have a minimum weight limit so obviously no one is ever going to put ballast in a car then.

Quote from ajp71 :

Getting to the minimum weight (typically around 1100kg) can mean chopping the best part of 800kg out of a modern car, that's not easy to do in itself so a lot of cars may be only just getting down to it. Some series and lower profile races like Britcar (and probably the 'ring 24 hours) don't have a minimum weight limit so obviously no one is ever going to put ballast in a car then.

V8 Supercars do it iirc... But with 1355 kg minimum weight, it's not that difficult to get under the limit with a race car...

Quote from Antsa :

UF 1000 - 56.4%: Mini Cooper Mk1 64:36%
GTi - 55%: Ford Fiesta XR2i 64:36%
XF GT (Turbo): - 49.4%: Mitsubishi Starion 52:48%, Mazda RX-7 50:50%
RB4 - 53.2%: Toyota Celica GT4 60:40%
FXO - 54.4%: Opel Calibra Turbo 57:43%
FZ50 - 40.7%: Porsche Carrera 966 36:64%

Opel Calibra Turbo is a 4x4...

http://www.rsportscars.com/eng/cars/opel_calibra.asp

Quote from dev :

Opel Calibra Turbo is a 4x4...

http://www.rsportscars.com/eng/cars/opel_calibra.asp

It still is front-engined, is it not?