Would a Mid-Engined Front Wheel Drive Kart Still Understeer?

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Crispy

Crispy

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crispychicken49
crispychicken49
So, me and my friend were discussing go-karts yesterday, and we wondered why nobody has made a mid-engined front wheel drive go-kart. So I would like to ask if it would still understeer? I mean, it doesn't really have to deal with that much power, and it doesn't have to deal with the weight of the engine.
 
It would understeer even worse than an FF car. Weight transfer still happens even when there is no suspension and the weight is low.
 
The other issue is that it'd result in higher weight as there'd need to be some sort of propshaft, diff and driveshafts linking the engine at the back to the wheels at the front. It'd be a nightmare actually as you'd either need a linkage going around the seat, or raise the seat to have a propshaft underneath. That'd raise the centre of gravity and make the handling even worse.

Then you've got the traction issue of having the bulk of the weight at the back of the kart and the front wheels having to handle power and cornering forces.

It's basically a bad idea in virtually every way you look at it!
 
crispychicken49
So, me and my friend were discussing go-karts yesterday, and we wondered why nobody has made a mid-engined front wheel drive go-kart. So I would like to ask if it would still understeer? I mean, it doesn't really have to deal with that much power, and it doesn't have to deal with the weight of the engine.
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A Kart has a locked diff (or actually, no diff), a FF with locked diff is going to have pretty terminal understeer problems.
 
As has been said, I think the reason why nobody has made an FF Go-Kart is because it would be needlessly complex in order for it to handle properly, there simply would be no point.

A Front engined, Front wheel drive Go Kart - with rear wheel-steering.... now that would be nuts...
 
AOS-
Drive in reverse.

Problem, engineers?
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Would also require turning the seat around, and the engine, as most karts don't have a reverse speed, just a centrifugal clutch. Wanna go the other way? mount the engine the other way.

Of course, you might as well be driving a forklift truck. Those are Mid-engine, FWD, RWS.
 
crispychicken49
So how do the wheels connect to the engine in a RR Layout?
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It's a chain, similar to that of a bicycle.
On a typical go-kart (i.e. The one in GT5) that is.

And it would be quite easy to force a front wheel drive kart to oversteer.

Assuming it has no front brakes, if you were to lock up the rear wheels by stabbing the brake pedal, and still give it a little gas to keep the fronts from locking up, it would be quite easy. (run-on sentence FTW!)
This is how the rally drivers used to do it in the Front Wheel Drive Minis.

And since we're on the topic of weight.
The weight of the engine making up most of the weight of the kart is completely untrue.
A typical kart engine weighs only about 120 lbs iirc.
With all my safety gear on (I'm a relatively slim 14 year old), I weigh approximately 120 lbs.
If we want to talk about weight transfer, the proper way to drive a kart in the rain is to literally throw your body weight to the side to put weight on the outside tires. This helps you turn in. You could easily do the same in the dry if you're experiencing understeer.
 
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Ah, thank you! 👍 And BTW, my load cells coming in tomorrow, so we should be able to film some episodes soon!

And has there been foot operated clutches for Go-Kart, because all I see are ones with hand operated clutches.
 
crispychicken49
Ah, thank you! 👍 And BTW, my load cells coming in tomorrow, so we should be able to film some episodes soon!

And has there been foot operated clutches for Go-Kart, because all I see are ones with hand operated clutches.
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All shifter karts have sequential gear boxes. (or that I've seen/know of)
No clutch required, similar to paddle shifters.
What you're seeing is most likely a handbrake. 👍

And I've just had my PS3 fixed. :D
 
JJ72
A Kart has a locked diff (or actually, no diff), a FF with locked diff is going to have pretty terminal understeer problems.
Click to expand...

Have actually read into this topic a little in regard to dedicated autox cars with slicks. And the result is massive understeer and massive oversteer, actually. Off power, it sucks. It'll understeer. On power, it'll pretty much go right where you want it, with quite a bit of torque steer I'd imagine.
 
Also you'd have to have a LSD, otherwise you would get an enourmous amound of understeer. Plus I'd probably have a Front Engine or sit further forward.
 
dadn
Also you'd have to have a LSD, otherwise you would get an enourmous amound of understeer. Plus I'd probably have a Front Engine or sit further forward.
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Karts do not, and most likely will not have an LSD.
It will take away the entire point of karts: a relatively inexpensive way to go racing.

Many karts make up for the lack of an LSD with Ackerman Steering.
This is when the inside front wheel drops and the outside front wheel rises when you turn into a corner.
It'll force the weight of the kart onto the outside tires, and more importantly, unload the weight of the inside rear.
What the LSD does (well, the differential) is adjust the speed that the wheels turn to help the car actually turn.
If the outside rear wheel has more power going to it than the inside, it'll help the car turn.
Since karts don't have this, they force the inside tire off the ground so that it doesn't have as much of an effect as the outside tire.

Simple, cheap, effective.
 
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Jim Prower
Would also require turning the seat around, and the engine, as most karts don't have a reverse speed, just a centrifugal clutch. Wanna go the other way? mount the engine the other way.

Of course, you might as well be driving a forklift truck. Those are Mid-engine, FWD, RWS.
Click to expand...

On some older, more simple two stroke engines, if you started them in reverse, they would run in reverse.

gogatrs
All shifter karts have sequential gear boxes. (or that I've seen/know of)
No clutch required, similar to paddle shifters.
What you're seeing is most likely a handbrake. 👍

And I've just had my PS3 fixed. :D
Click to expand...

This is not right, no karts have handbrakes, at least not racing karts. The reason karts don't have foot clutches is because they would take up to much space on the floor of the karts. Also, gearbox karts (KZ2 or KZ1 are their proper names) have standing standards, rather than rolling starts like other classes. This means that the driver has to have his foot on the brake a foot on the gas and operate the clutch for the launch. No one has that many feet, so the clutch goes by the wheel, near the shifter. When the kart is going however, they don't use the clutch, they simply lift off the throttle, change gear, and plant it again.

Also, karts are technically mid-engined anyway because the engine is positioned between the axles, beside the driver. A front engine kart would never work because it would extremely over complicate things with the mess that would be involved in transferring the power to the front of the kart and then to the individual wheels through CV joints and the like.
 
Front-wheel drive? Simple, take this:
Easter-2007-038.jpg


and remove the rear engine.

It seems like they maintain steering by using universal joints with the driveshafts attached to the chain drive. Some 4WD kart builders use CV Joints for ATVs.

Easter-2007-041.jpg


http://www.affordablegokarts.com/RaceKartsProjectKarts&More.php
(I saw this stuff last week while I was looking for ideas to make a three-wheeled commuter)

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It would be interesting having a FWD kart... using a locked diff and Ackerman steering, it should go basically where you point it... won't suffer from squirrelly handling midcorner under power, but it would probably have traction issues in the same instances from having just one wheel putting down power. It's when you exceed the traction available through that single driving wheel under power while still holding some steering angle that you will experience understeer.

Move your seat further back to even out the weight balance... but not too far back... as that would handicap you on standing starts.

I can imagine that it would have an advantage in the wet and in stability, but not such a huge difference that it would overcome the necessary balancing handicap imposed by the layout.
 

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