the best wheel base for racing

[66cummins]

if you cant drive for chit none of it matters LOL!

[TNT]

Originally Posted by 66cummins

if you cant drive for chit none of it matters LOL!

Kyle, stick to rock crawling where you shine.

To the serious racer everything matters. I have seen B class riders smoke A class just based on their set up and tech knowledge or team.

You racers have to understand weight and balance and how it affects stability and control, then you'll be ahead of the game and the answer is not always more wheel base and weight that will need more power.

The big weight 'distribution" ticket items are the rider(s) and motor, the closer they are to the CG and/or centralized(like Aritcat claims) the less the arm or distance to the CG, the more shock control and less impact to the driver. If you have no control of your CG in the vertical direction, your car feels fwd heavy or lawn darts for example, and you want to move the CG rear dynamically, then add more (fwd of CG, and as close to the CG as possible) wheel base w/ light weight material/designs, and visa versa. Arm pivot locations and swings have a large impact on sprung weight, but now we get too complicated.

Time for a brew it's Friday

[TNT]

BTW: Everything I posted is true and accurate that u will only find on UTVUG tell ur racer buddies come out here I will try and help.

[noceros]

Thanks for all the comments. We raced the Mint 400 want to race vtr. been seeing all the 4 seaters(switch to 2) racing. just wondering if the longer suv handles through tight rough terrain.
my center of gravity is pretty low. I have 13" clearance with 83" wb . my car is a 06 rhino with a rx1 engine handles very good up to 75 mph. want to run 95-100 mph. I want to extend either 10 or 12", lower the rear bars 6 to 8", lower my spare tire & add a bumper. change out the light bar to led (save about 25-30lbs overhead). hope to retain my low speed handling & gain high speed handling. Rich

[TNT]

Rich, need more detail on your issues above 75 mph?

Hard to compare any car to another there are so many variables that affect handling.

If one were to take a ball and call it a CG it is easy to move in any direction. Now position it in four tires, centered then the handling is symmetrical around the CG axis, lateral, longitudinal, and vertical directions. Now adding weight globally will affect handling around these axis, and if the added weight is not symmetrical the handling will be affected accordingly and can produce a more/fwd, in/out, up/down CG. So knowing approx where your CG is and weight and balance is critical to handling and control.

Sounds like you got a good car and are on the right track, removing overhead weight depending on how far it is from the CG will improve handling in those directions. When you lengthen your wheel base you do add additional stress to the chassis because the distance to the input load(tires) to the CG has increased. The chassis will fatigue faster depending on the amount and affect reliability. That is called a bending moment equal to the load at the tire(s) times the distance (arm) to the CG. The less weight you can put at large distances away from the CG means less chassis stress & fatigue, better handing and shock reactions.

Depending on exactly what your issues are above 75 mph will determine where you add your weight and arm. It may turn into a balancing act in both lateral and longitudinal directions to gain both high and low speed handling, and as a last resort changing the axis of your suspension if that is allowed in your rule book.

Hope that makes sense not easy trying to simplify a complicated task.

[noceros]

Thanks for the info Terry