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Weight Transfer
A fundamental topic in any discussion about handling is weight transfer. If you do not fully understand weight transfer, you will not be effective in understanding how to adjust the car for maximum handling performance.
Given a certain car weight, there is a certain amount of mechanical downforce applied to each tire. As we stated in the tire traction article, this downforce impacts the grip potential of the tire. While a car is braking, accelerating, or cornering, the effective mechanical downforce on, and therefore the grip of, the tires is constantly changing. These changes are referred to as "weight transfer." Of course, the weight of the car isn't changing, or moving about the car, but the forces on the tire contact patches are changing due to inertia and momentum. If you were to have a set of scales under the tires while driving, you would see what appears to be a constant changing of the weight at each tire, hence the name.
Weight transfer is a function of the vehicle's weight and the forces acting on that weight. Reduce the weight, and ou reduce the product the of the forces involved. The center of gravity is the fulcrum point through which the vehicle's weight is multiplied by dynamic forces. In particular, the higher the CG point is, the greater the effect of the forces. Reduce the CG height reduces the product of the forces and vehicle weight. The longer the wheelbase and wider the track in relation to the height of the center of gravity, the more resistance the car has to weight transfer. They behave as counteracting lateral levers to the vertical lever of the center of gravity point. Another important concept of controlling weight transfer besides minimizing it, is to control where it is transferred. Where weight transfer occurs is related to the static weight distribution of the car, the roll couple distribution of the car, the height of the roll center of the car, and the slope of the roll center in relation to the ground plane. Roll couple distribution is the relative roll stiffness between the front and rear of the car, and the left and right of the car. In cornering, the front of the car may roll less than the rear of the car. This has impact on how the weight transfer is distributed. The roll center is the line through which the vehicle rolls. It is not necessarily parallel to the ground. Weight distribution, and roll coupling distribution can create a roll point at the front of the car which is lower to the ground that the roll point of the rear of the car. This creates a sloped line. The angle of this line has influence on how much weight is transferred, and where it goes.
The top figure shows a vehicle with the weight as measured at each tire while the car is at rest (The grey represents the tire, the black patch is the actual tire contact patch with the road). During braking, weight transfer increases the load at the front tires and reduces the load at the rear tires. Accelerating of course would be the opposite. During cornering, the loads for each tire could be quite different. The goal of all "handling modifications" for your car is to optimize the the corner weights and tire contact patches to be as even as possible during cornering
alter the CG height by lowering the car with lowering springs, lower sidewall tires, and to a smaller degree by adding removing, or moving weight in the car. Once you have selected your car, there's nothing you're likely going to do to change the wheelbase or track width. You might increase track width a little with wider wheels though.
(assuming relatively equal left and right turns on the road course).
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