Hot! Ferrari F12 Berlinetta vs. Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4

[Sunny]

^A lot of those racing series have regulations that try to level out the playing fields for the various cars, other wise there is no way a 911 with 4l engine is competing with a Corvette with a 7l engine or a Viper with a 8l engine.

My take on front mid engine vs mid engine layout - short of dedicated open wheel single seat racers and top echelon of prototype/GT racing, cars (including racing cars of lower classes, let alone street cars) are hardly optimized to the last possible degree, so it hardly matters. But when you do optimize for the last milli second, a true mid engine layout does have a distinct packaging advantage - and that is exactly the reason Formula 1 cars migrated to a mid engine layout from front-mid engine layout. But, for street cars, that are already so compromised, you can have a good car with either lay out, heck you can even have one with the engine hanging out from the rear end. It is like if me who can hardly make it across a olympic sized pool, shaving all my body hair to be more streamlined in the water - pretty pointless.

But if you ask any racing team worth it's salt to build a dedicated racing car from a fresh sheet of paper, chances are it will be a mid engine layout.

 

[Gianclaudio]

By the same token, there are many races where both front mid-engine, front engine and rear mid-engine are mixed with on regulation as to which type of setup is the regulation. An example is, all types of endurance races (Le Mans, Nurburgring, VLN etc.). If you look at the history of the top winners in the previous years, many of the time you will see it is a front engine or front mid-engine car winning the races over rear mid-engine. In many cases, a rear-engine car like GT3 Cup car winning the race overall.

An example, LFA and 458 Italia challenge both compete in SP8 class, yet LFA won over the 458 Italia in the SP8 class in the 2 years of Nurburgring endurance they both went head to head in with the same regulations applied to both cars (restrictors, near-stock weight, tires etc.)

Case in point, it is the totality of the car that truly matters and how the package is put together. Otherwise, a GT3 Cup should never win any race since the inherently most inferior setup it has. With that engine swinging wildly behind the rear axle like a pendulum, it turns physics upside down.

Sunny wrote exactly what I was going to answer. And no, I'm not saying there is something wrong with other set ups or that they can't win over a mid rear engined car, but there's a reason why the high end of motor racing use the mid rear set up. Heck, even Porsche uses it on their hypercars like Carrera GT or 918

 

[Levi68]

Mid-rear engine is just more easy and cheaper to build, that is why most chose it. But I wonder why these mid-rear engine cars are so huge and so high. LFA is as low as a 458.

But back on topic, too bad F12 looks so ugly. When I first saw it @Geneva, I liked it. But now every time I see it, in pics or live, I hate its looks more and more. Heck, it starts getting more ugly than the 458 and also more ugly than the California. I hope post LaFerrari era will be the return of beautiful Ferraris.

 

[330CIZHP]

BTW, the C6-R Corvette uses a bespoke 5.5 Liter V8 making 450 PS, which is neither connected to Z06 nor the ZR-1. Yes, they market the ZR-1 as somewhat relevant with the Le Mans victory, but the car has little or nothing to do with the Le Mans racer.

^A lot of those racing series have regulations that try to level out the playing fields for the various cars, other wise there is no way a 911 with 4l engine is competing with a Corvette with a 7l engine or a Viper with a 8l engine.

My take on front mid engine vs mid engine layout - short of dedicated open wheel single seat racers and top echelon of prototype/GT racing, cars (including racing cars of lower classes, let alone street cars) are hardly optimized to the last possible degree, so it hardly matters. But when you do optimize for the last milli second, a true mid engine layout does have a distinct packaging advantage - and that is exactly the reason Formula 1 cars migrated to a mid engine layout from front-mid engine layout. But, for street cars, that are already so compromised, you can have a good car with either lay out, heck you can even have one with the engine hanging out from the rear end. It is like if me who can hardly make it across a olympic sized pool, shaving all my body hair to be more streamlined in the water - pretty pointless.

But if you ask any racing team worth it's salt to build a dedicated racing car from a fresh sheet of paper, chances are it will be a mid engine layout.

 

[Sunny]

Mid-rear engine is just more easy and cheaper to build, that is why most chose it.

Cheaper by $1million??

Levi, you got to stop making these "world is flat assertions" with absolutely nothing to back up anything, if you want people to take you seriously.

BTW, the C6-R Corvette uses a bespoke 5.5 Liter V8 making 450 PS, which is neither connected to Z06 nor the ZR-1.

The C6R GT1 cars that won LeMans in 05 and 06 did use a 7L LS7.R based on Z06's LS7. It looks like only in 2010 when they switched to GT2 class, they switched to a 5.5L engine. Anyway, my bigger point was rules play a big role in evening things out.

 

[330CIZHP]

Cheaper by $1million??

Levi, you got to stop making these "world is flat assertions" with absolutely nothing to back up anything, if you want people to take you seriously.
.

Please don't flame me, but Levi is right. A rear mid-engine car is indeed cheaper to build than an equivalent front mid-engine car (again keyword, equivalent) by virtue of its simplicity.

You don't have to build the extra components to make the front engine talk with the rear mounted transaxle, you don't have to have a rigid torque tube, you don't need a differential to drive the rear wheels, you don't need to build an engine that needs to be entirely behind the front axle, in many case you don't need to build an entire line to make the rear mounted radiators work with the front mounted engine etc.

Then having a big and tall transmission and differential tunnel passing through creates a lot of issues with the utilization of the interior space for the engineers etc.

All of these things add a lot of weight and complexity requiring a lot of creative and out-of-the-box thinking so the difficulty also is in how to make all of this possible without making the car unnecessarily heavy.

Essentially, having two components right next to each (engine and transaxle) other will always be cheaper than having the same two components far distance apart and trying to mimic them working together in harmony as if they were right next to each other.

 

[Sunny]

^You make good points, but mid engine layouts also have problems of their own that they have to overcome - cooling and plumbing being probably the most difficult. I doubt McLaren F1 would have had to have gold plated engine compartment or the Veyron would require 10 radiators and plumbing that goes with it if the engine was up front in direct airflow. My point is not that one is cheaper or not, but there are just too many variables for a casual observer or internet forum warrior to make a sweeping generalization that one is always cheaper or expensive than the other.

 

[Deckhook]

Mid-rear engine is just more easy and cheaper to build, that is why most chose it.

I would have thought the reason its mostly chosen is due to the fact you are placing the single heaviest component of the car firmly between the axles and mostly towards the rear axle where traditionally these cars are RWD. I'm sure cost has some bearing but when you are trying to build the ultimate performance car there are other factors other than cost which might be higher up the list of importance.

Just a thought.

 

[Levi68]

Cheaper by $1million??

No. $1billion.

 

[martinbo]

Key reason for rear mid-engined cars? Polar Moment of Inertia. Not cost.

 

[Levi68]

Key reason for rear mid-engined cars? Polar Moment of Inertia. Not cost.

Any key reason the 911 is the only rear-engine car in the world?

 

[Giannis]

Any key reason the 911 is the only rear-engine car in the world?

Tradition, I think.

 

[martinbo]

Any key reason the 911 is the only rear-engine car in the world?

Coz it's f#cking cool!

 

[Monster]

Any key reason the 911 is the only rear-engine car in the world?

Really Levi? Because the 911 is still the boss.

 

[Deckhook]

Really Levi? Because the 911 is still the boss.

I'm old enough to remember the death trap that was the early 911. It might be the boss now but in the past it was anything but.

 

[Monster]

I'm old enough to remember the death trap that was the early 911. It might be the boss now but in the past it was anything but.

Nope, the old one is the boss too because the car is in control of the driver's life.

 

[Levi68]

So no scientific answer to my question.

 

[Monster]

So no scientific answer to my question.

There is none, people want the 911 to stay that way so Porsche just gives the people what they want.

 

[lambornima]

Key reason for rear mid-engined cars? Polar Moment of Inertia. Not cost.

I like this answer.

 

[330CIZHP]

Key reason for rear mid-engined cars? Polar Moment of Inertia. Not cost.

I believe that applies to mid-front engine since the distribution has only slight rear bias (something like 48%/52% or 47%/53%) so the moments of inertia are based right in the center with the driver.

In the case of a rear mid-engine, generally the rear bias could be around 58% or higher making the polar moments of inertia skew to the rear substantially, which results in a steady-state oversteer/understeer behavior with a substantial rear bias since in corner entry there will be more weight transfer back to front resulting in understeer and while going through the turn, the rear will have a tendency to swing out more due to more inertia being exerted on the rear.

In other words, if latter half of the car is heavier than the former half then there will be more forces of inertia exerted on the rear half and vice versa. Hence more centrifugal force on the rear pushing it outwards.

In a straight line, no doubt the rear mid-engine configuration has the upper hand due to more front to back weight transfer resulting in more weight over the rear wheels giving more traction off the line by pressing the tires harder against the pavement.