I have been curious, what are the effects of removing weight from the rear of Fits via removing the spare tire and rear seats, on a car that already has so much front weight bias?

Without the obvious advantage on acceleration(fuel economy) and breaking with losing weight, I can see 2 opposite effects that contributes to the handling of the Fit:


Increase in Understeer - There being less weight towards the back of the car, upon corning there will be less momentum on the rear that wants to go straight and throw the rear end out, so an increase in understeer. (Not so much that the front wants to push more as the weight was not added to the front, as to that the rear wanting less to swing out)

Increase in Oversteer - Weight over the tires are vital for grip provided by those tires. With the rear already pretty light, loosing more weight would mean that there are even less grip on the back, therefore during fast cornering the rear tires could loose traction before the front, causing oversteer.


I'm guessing that it's a balance between the two scenarios, with a bias towards increasing oversteer, more so from anecdotal personal experience then actual calculated data, but have been wondering what's the popular consensus amongst car enthusiasts.

So what do you guys think should happen and why?

 

I think the primary effect is increased acceleration responsiveness. Typically this far outweighs any small changes in over/understeer. wish i could dump my back seats and spare tire, but I'm a family man first lol

 

I would agree that any weight reduction is beneficial to the car's theoretical "lap time", but am wondering what would, let's say, a weight reduction from the rear that resulted in an 80/20 front weight bias on the Fit do for it's handling characteristics? Just a thought experiment

 

I'd guess it would have heavy understeer under acceleration with crazy lift-off oversteer...

 

Increase in oversteer especially if you jab the brakes to help it rotate.

 

This is correct.

 

to answer your question, it will be understeer when you are praying for otherwise.

I have a personal love of driving pig-nose heavy cars. Now what you are most certainly referring to is just pulling the rear seats and spare tire; ain't going to cause a significant difference. If you are going to gut to the hilt the interior to just a driver's racing seat and nothing else, then yes, you will have made a significant difference to the dynamics of the car. Anything short of that and tweaking the balance of air pressure in the tires and some suspension settings (can only assume you are above stock at this point to be concerned with this). Those will make more impact on the balance and handling of the car than a shift in a hundred pounds.

also if you think you are saving, my personal experience is it is about 500 pounds before there is a measurable difference in a car. If you are talking about efficiency, I'd say some of my best runs have been carrying loads far exceeding stock on all levels. The Fit is slow and it is all about momentum, it is far more about the driver than it is weight balance.

 

Thanks for the insight! It's good to know that removing the rear seats and spare tire will not upset the handling too much, as I do drive the car daily on hilly roads, and would not want to have the tail end suddenly loose grip on a hard corner.

 

I know what you are getting at, I am attuned enough that my other car I can feel the difference between having my bowlingball in the trunk or not. It is a good question to ask if removing a hundred pounds from the rear area of the car is going to make a difference... If you aren't SCCAing or tail of the dragon, it makes no substantial difference. You should be able to notice a minor difference but this isn't like lifting in a turn in an 80's turbo porshe... it's front wheel drive.