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Engine not sitting straight, suggestions?

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Old Jan 19, 2006 | 12:23 AM
  #21  
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Originally Posted by BigBlockk
1) To off set the weight of the driver for more even handling.
...

These cars are made to carve canyons in the asphalt. The front to rear weight bias is right in the neighborhood of 50:50, which is ideal.

Another neat trick is to get your car corner-weighted, sometimes known as cross-weighted (also written: X-weighted). Since weight transfers diagonally along a chassis when road racing, the ideal setup is to have the weights of RF + LR = LF + RR. This is achieved by raising (increasing weight) or lowering (decreasing weight) a corner of the car depending upon the car's current state. You should be able to envision how slightly shifting the engine to the passenger side of the car, can help to offset a driver's weight, and thus make corner-weighting easier.

You need some kind of scale setup to find out what each corner weighs. My friend races an ITA prepared RX-7 so he simplified matters and bought a scale setup, though it's not the cheapest option. I have heard of people using geometry and typical bathroom scales. Maybe someone who is more familiar with this can chime in.
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Old Jan 19, 2006 | 12:28 AM
  #22  
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Originally Posted by 1969Vette383

These cars are made to carve canyons in the asphalt. The front to rear weight bias is right in the neighborhood of 50:50, which is ideal.

Another neat trick is to get your car corner-weighted, sometimes known as cross-weighted (also written: X-weighted). Since weight transfers diagonally along a chassis when road racing, the ideal setup is to have the weights of RF + LR = LF + RR. This is achieved by raising (increasing weight) or lowering (decreasing weight) a corner of the car depending upon the car's current state. You should be able to envision how slightly shifting the engine to the passenger side of the car, can help to offset a driver's weight, and thus make corner-weighting easier.

You need some kind of scale setup to find out what each corner weighs. My friend races an ITA prepared RX-7 so he simplified matters and bought a scale setup, though it's not the cheapest option. I have heard of people using geometry and typical bathroom scales. Maybe someone who is more familiar with this can chime in.
WHAT???? So is the engine "cocked" or not?
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Old Jan 19, 2006 | 01:21 AM
  #23  
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Just FYI, the passenger side got clipped pretty bad, not a direct head on. We replaced the whole front end with a one-piece deal instead of individual parts, so that's why there is a cut in the cowl. And yes, the front end is not completely aligned/attached yet, although I believe the engine would still look a little tilted even if the front end was properly installed.

What measurements should I have them take, and what numbers should I compare it to? I've already told them that this seems to be normal, and if anything additional needs to be done now is the time. We are trying to meet a pretty tight deadline, want to have it in the Detroit Autorama which is in the first few days of March, and need to have pics of the paintjob within the next 2-3 weeks.
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Old Jan 21, 2006 | 11:35 PM
  #24  
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Originally Posted by Jclgodale3
WHAT???? So is the engine "cocked" or not?
I don't think it should be cocked, although that might be the price to pay for an offset engine; the rest of the driveline has to match up somewhere right? Ideally the engine should just be offset, not cocked, to the passenger side by a small margin.
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