Six_Shooter

Could be true, but that would depend greatly on the set-up, not just that it's a 4-link or ladder bar or "hotchkis" suspension, etc, but how the actual set-up is done or "tuned". There are quite a few cars with same or shorter wheel bases that can accelerate very quickly by planting the rear wheels. Depending on how it's set-up you can change how hard it hooks or how high the front end lifts, to a point anyway. Look at some street classes. Many are in the 9s even high 8s without bars and have similar length wheel bases. A short wheel base does make it a tad more difficult than a longer wheel base though to keep the front end down.

Yeah it's definatly interesting, what size WG is being used?

Simple, two words: Ground Clearance. Yes, that's been my point all along that the crank CL and input shaft CL have to be inline. So looking at the pics in this thread of the Scooby flat 4 and the SBC oil pan, that means that the tranny needs to be raised to have everything lined up. I was actually surprised at that myself, I thought the crank centerlines in relation to the oil pan bottom would have been closer.

Yes, I have read about the circle of traction, and have found it to be very useful. You need to look a bit more into drag racing, it's not all about "point and shoot". You'd be amazing at what is really going on with the driver down a single digit 1/4 mile sprint. Besides that's not all I'm into, I just have a majority of my (racing) experiance there. I tend to turn more often than I drive straight though, and although less in the past few years I tend to drive fairly spirted at times, and enjoy the turns more than the straights, and have modified my cars to work better around cars than in a straight line. I plan to change that with the S30, I'm trying to acheive at least a bit of both. Which is why I'm debating between keeping the IRS or going ahead with the live axle swap, I've seen live axles work well for both.

Cool it's been a while since I've played with a SBC, and realize that I was thinking more of the deep sump pans than the stockers. But the fact still remains that the Scooby engine in question has 11" between the crank center line and the bottom of the stock oil pan. I don't know if the Scooby pan can use a short sump or not, if it can, then yes the center of mass could be lowered, if not that it would have to remain in this example 3 and a half inches higher than an L6 or SBC, due to ground clearance of the oil pan. I can see where you're coming from, as far as needing to back statements up, but this stuff isn't new, I've been reading and experiancing it for a number of years. If I wanted to I could go through a few books I have, and quote them, but most have either been borrowed books, magazines that have been long thrown out, or talking with people I know that are very into chassis design, besides the things I have tried, not all have worked, and have been told that some shouldn't work, but have worked for me. Like very stiff sway bars that I was told would make the car "skip" accross the road surface, when it actually made my car at the time, though still ill-handling (it was a FWD, I hate FWD) in my eyes much more predictable, and easier for ME to put through a corner. Now many people are actually making almost solid (as in very little twist) sway bars and anti-roll bars. I just find it very odd that people here have "experianced" or read differently.

Nope, I would have to find video or something of that nature, and there's more racing than auto-x. Auto-x is usally on very tight courses where even the "Sweepers" are very tight. Suffice it to say that everyone's driving style is a bit different and some prefer to not mash the brakes to turn. Look farther down in your own post, there's one a 911, where evn you say that you needed lots of camber to get them to turn. I'm talking about spirited driving here, because it's pretty obvious that driving even a poorly set-up car at regular speeds will still turn. By how much? 55% 60% 80%. Yes it will improve traction of the rear wheels out of a corner, that's been established and agree, but if there isn't enough traction on the front wheels then it will easy turn into a push situation, more noticed on higher power cars. If you were to say that with the stock power of the Scooby engine that wouldn't be much of an issue, I would agree, but who's going to swap an engine like that without getting more power out of it. An improvement in braking could reduce steering responce, Improving downforce could reduce accleration or top speed, improving steering responce could reduce braking stability, straight line accel among many others and instances. Chassis set-up is all about compromise, there's not one perfect set-up, if there was, there would no longer really be any competition as everyone would be using it. The changes that affect other areas are never an absolute, but possibilities, and what is changed in one area can effect different areas differently, hense why there is constant tuning and changing of items and adjustments. Youv'e NEVER tapped the brakes to get the weight to transfer forward to get more bite? Do this: Hold your hand above the table, place just your index finger on the table, now without applying doward force move you hand sideways, I know this is a bit subjective here, but feel how much resistance there is to yoru hand moving, or how much effort you need to apply to move you arm/hand sideways. Now, place all 4 fingers on the table and see how much force you need. If wider tires had no benefit to adding grip then we'd all be running much more narrow tires. In some of the racing I get involved with, which is mostly drag (It's what I've grown up around but do try and involve myself or at least keep an eye on other forms of racing), the lighter cars need the wider or gripier tires to get down the track. The heavier cars have the ability to plant a smaller or less grippy tire with more weight over it, hence weight transfer being good. I don't see why this is such a hard thing to understand.

So if that were true, which I think it is higher myself to the bottom of the sump, not just the front of the pan, that means the the Scooby engine is then mounted higher than the SBC, in relation to the crank center line, and having even less "lowering of the center of mass" It may even end up at the same hight as other engines.

LOL, Some interesting stories and fixes. I think my best was making a waterpump/alternator belt out of duct tape, to get me the 5 miles or so down the road to a near by repair shop on my way to School at 7 in the morning. If you have to do this, use 3 "strips" of duct tape, twsited and then braid them. A single strip doesn't work for very long. LOL

I understand that, but part of the discussion was also about mounting the engine lower by mating the Scooby engine to a convention RWD tranny, which is not the case, or at least not the 4" that Braaap believed could be done.

Do the SCCA rules dictate that the car needs to shut off (while running) via the master disconnect? The need for this in other santioning bodies is in case the driver (possibly you ) is for some reason incapacitated, hit your head, knocked out, fainted, etc and are otherwise unconcious and can not shut off the engine. This situation could really go from mildly uncomfortable to a real night mare quickly. Broken fuel lines fed by electric pumps, and similar things. Although, just thinking about it now, with a simple relay set-up this could be done, possibly even on the negitive side, without running the alternator charge lead to the other side of the switch. I'll have to draw it up. Hmmmmmm

That crank pully at 11" is I believe about the same distance that a SBC has, My V6s that I play with are about the same distance as well, and that is what I was getting at with the crank CL. Unless you use a shallow oil pan, it's really not going to be any or much lower, than other engines. I was actually surprised to this measurement at 11" on the Scooby engine. I figured it would have been a bit lower than that myself.

Yes, too much weight placed too far forward is probably worse, but I don't think that will really be a problem, with the inteded design of this swap, seeing as people want to use it (Scooby engine/boxter) in a RWD only application, and seems that it will be either completly or almost completly behind the front axle. The 6 cyl might have a harder time acheiving that though, being behind the front axle I mean, the weight forward I wouldn't see as a problem still. If these cars are considered to handle decently with the I6 where a lot of the engine is forward of the axle, then I can't see a flat 6 being a problem. We're not adding weight here, simply moving weight around, or removing it still.

I can see that, and makes sense. But does that mean we should all turn our S30s into rear engine cars to simplay gain possible better braking? It would seem that where one area had a possible gain, other areas might suffer. Regarding the 911, I've known a few people who didn't like the handling of a 911, because they found that it pushed through the corners, until there was enough brake applied, and then coming out of the corner was found that the rear end wanted to kick out, and took a very careful modulation of the loud pedal. No, I don't unfortunatly. I don't have a braking theory, only weight transfer, you have applied it to braking theory. There is still that debate about what split (weight bias) is best, and it seems to come down to each vehicle, not just each type of driving/racing. There's many factors that could be why one vehicle with a certain weight bias works better than others, like wheelbase, suspension type AND how/where in the chassis those suspension points are tied into, steering, where the weight is, not just hight or along the length of the vehcile but where to each side, and how those CGs will move, in relation to braking, acceleration, cornering, etc. I would also think there's much more to the wide® rear tires than simply braking ability. I'm sure it has something to do with planting the power and controling the rear end wanting to kick out in a hard turn.

For that reason alone I wouldn't use it. Even with the vehicle off, or quite probably especially with the vehicle off spikes in teh electrical system can still cause problems with electronics. Just about all electronics that have any type of control or memory side to them, will be connected to the battery, even with the ignition off. Your follow up just solidifies my reasons for not trying something like this. the only way I would use something like this is with a battery not connected to any vehicle, but then again, using a battery charger on a standing battery seems to have similar results.

No it doesn't mean that the engine can be lowered 4". The half shaft/CV outputs are at the bottom of the bellhousing, which you already know, this is to line up the outputs closer to the wheel centers, and also very much due to the fact that two objects can't occupy the same space at the same time as another object. More specifically the front axle outputs and the related diff, can not be in the same line as the input shaft of the tranny itself. There is also the clutch (in manual trannies, that I will deal more with than the autos, though I am sure they are of similar design). Take a look at any FWD transaxle for similarities. The axle/half shaft/cv shaft outputs on the tranny are far below the crank centerline. If I was even half decent with PS or even MS Paint, I could drwa up a few diagrams to show what I'm trying to illistrate. I agree that the center of mass will be higher on V engine, than a flat engine, I am mearly talking about the actual mounting hight in relation to the crank center line. I know in some chassis' moving the mass lower has had an undesired effect on handling, lower is not always better. Not exactly. For handling, possibly for overall weight transfer to gain traction while acceleration, quite possibly not. Can you recall those drag cars, from the late '50s and up to somewhere around the mid to late '60s that used straight axles in the front? The reason for this, was to get the weight in the front as high as possible to promote weight transfer, to gain traction. At some point the rear axle was also moved forward for the same reason. Yes I know technology has changed since then and understanding the reactions of chassis' is quite a bit better, but the idea of this still has to be understood. With the weight higher the moment was already closer to being able to lift the front end or rather get that weight be more on the rear wheels than the front wheels. This is great for straight line, usually not so much for handling, imagine trying to take the corkscrew at Laguna Seca in one of those cars? With todays technology, we can usually open enough power, and with the better understanding of suspensions, get the car to weight transfer with the engine lower, but in the case of the S30, it's still a 38 year old design, and unless this is going to be re-worked may not work well with a lower center of mass, it may work awesome, but these are the things that need to be considered. Yes, I can't really see any reason why the engine shouldn't fit behind the crossmember, but this IS something that needs to be determined. If I was going as far as moving the TCs to the front of the axle, which while we're talking about that would require quite a bit of frame strangthening forward of the axle, as the say bar aready puts enough stress on that area (), but to continue my thought, for myself I would probably convert to a double A-arm suspension, as it would be more adjustable, for tuning the chassis, and can usually fit wider wheel and tire combos, when designed with that in mind. This would depend on where the front of the heads would actually sit, if it would interfere with an attachement point of the upper A-arms, which it very well could. On the other hand a properly designed fram rail that passes around the heads, could incorperate a TC attachment point still rearward, where it will transfer loads into the chassis better, without the need to re-inforce the "nose" of the car with extra weight. That is afterall what is trying to be accomplished in moving the weight rearward, as I understand it. Again this is what I mean by considering everything. The rear ward attachment point would be below the heads, and may need to be moved a little bit forward (as compared to the stock location), to gain the full arc through the movement of the chassis, without using a bent TC rod (to clear the head in suspension full compression), that could cause ground clearance issues. I have quite a bit of experiance with this and quite a bit of theory study as well. I don't say something unless I'm sure of what I'm saying. You're also misconstruding what I am saying, take that 911 and take off most of the front weight, it won't handle well without good front grip, which removing that weight will reduce. To combat this wider front tires will be needed, that does a few things, adds weight, and increases the contact area to the road surface, because to gain more traction on a lighter axle, more contact area is needed. There's a balance to this, but the basics still hold true. Yes there is much more to this than what is on the surface, that's what I'm pointing out and have been all along. I'm not commenting on this anymore, you're beating a dead horse here, and is simply about symantics, and only reading what you want to read. When reading posts, or passages on the internet, or even in a book, it is usually the reader themselves that put the emphasis where they see, not always where the writer intended. This part is done.