If it has been posted here, excuse, but I think this is a great great site, a must to Scavier, and whoever intents figure out our religion.

Take special attention to the Handling subtitle. Enjoy.

http://www.autozine.org/technical_school/tech_index.htm

Very nice site Something to read over lunch...

Heh, I used that to write my article on V8 engines for University.

Fascinating stuff.

Im sure ill have more questions, but as i read through this i was confused by the following statement regarding making a car lighter.

"Weight versus Downforce
But then you may ask a question: reduce the car's weight also reduce the grip generated by the tyres, so what's the advantage ?

Firstly, because the car is lighter, centrifugal force acted on it is smaller. In theory the reduced grip could exactly withstand the reduced centrifugal force. Secondly, we could use aerodynamic downforce to increase the grip without increasing the centrifugal force. As a result, the car can corner faster. "

Isnt this saying that the less centrifugal force acting on the car due to its lighter weight is exactly cancelled out by the fact the car has less downforce on the tires (downforce generated by the previously heavier weight of the car), and therefore its cornering ability is the same as a heavier version of the car?
Then it talks about adding aero downforce... but if you added the same amount of aero downforce to both the lighter and heavier cars wouldnt they both still corner the same?.... Im obviously confused by this...

No, the advantage by less centrifugal force is superior to the disadvantage caused by lower weight on the tyres, because the tyre grip isn't exactly linear to the weight on the tyres. We just use a linear approximation that doesn't even deserve the term "approximation" in basic mechanical equotations because we're lazy.

As a result a light car with 500N downforce will corner better than a heavy car with 500N downforce. And a normal car will corner faster than the same car made 100kg heavier.
Also, these advantages are valid in acceleration and braking.

Vain

Thats what i thought. I just thought the article was saying there was no advantage, which didnt make sense to me. Its probably just the bad english.
Thanks for the reassurance.