How to fix under steer

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Not enirely sure but hunch would be wider front wheels, maybe spacers, a tad less pressure at the back.

Lets see other feedbacks.
 
I got to thinking last night, a set of rear wheels and tires put on the front end would be worth trying.
 
Here are the dimensions, indeed the front and back wheels are different

Front: 145/65 R15 72S Front Wheels: 4.00x15 ET35
Back: 175/55 R15 77S Rear Wheels: 5.00X15 ET35

I guess the narrower the better for economy, yet at the back they must have put larger ones for the sake of transmitting the power to the ground and avoiding to often small skids.
 
There's a removable metal sleeve on the front hubs which won't allow the rear wheels to bolt on the front. If you remove that sleeve so you can bolt the rear wheels on the front, the track width gets way wider - I've done it . . . . The wheels and tires stick outside the fenders

The design of the front wheels (their offset) is very unusual. It will require a wider wheel with a very large offset to get the rubber back inside the fenders. I'm not aware of any other cars which use wheels with this unusual offset . . . . but I'm still looking

Getting new rubber under the car to make it handle properly is the one thing I'd really like to get done . . . . even if it means I have to custom build a set of wheels for the front

Don
 
Don
If you cut the front inner wheel out and welded a rear outer wheel in place do you think that would work? I have not had a chance to pull wheels and measure but I will when I get a spare hour.
Daryl
 
I'm not sure what you can do with the steel wheels from the ES - I've never had a close look at those
I do think that getting a wide enough wheel to fit a suitable tire is going to require some cutting and re-welding though - It's not going to be an easy fit

I wish they had designed the front end of the car to use the same wheels as the back. I suspect what happened is we just got stuck with the same design they used on the original gas engine i-car, which was a much more rear weight biased car than the electric version - Our battery pack and the lighter drivetrain give us a pretty much 50/50 weight bias . . . . much more neutral than the original car and keeping the tail heavy ICE suspension under our car is why we get the understeer. I'm 95% sure the car would handle much better if it had all 4 wheels/tires the same size. It's never going to be a sportscar of course, but with the very low CG, it should handle lots better than it does, IMO

Don
 
Just an alternative idea to fix the front vs back balance...

Why not use front wheels in the back with spacers.

The spacers would bring the wheels back out to look normal. Of course, back tires would be very narrow but the same as back, then that shoukd balance the car ?
 
True - That *should* balance things, but only by making the rear of the car perform just as poorly as the front currently does. Two of the 145/65R15 tires on a 2600 pound car is already two too many, IMO - I'd hate to drive the car with four of them :shock:

Don
 
Quick question,

If you look at those front wheels, their angle with floor is not 90 but something like 95, meaning that once the car is in a curve the wheel might have a better and flat contact with the Tarmac.

Do you agree with this and is this a matter of standard tuning or does one have to change a piece of the front drive ?

Thanks
 
I think those are Works wheels - Very light, very expensive

Yes, the fronts are decambered a bit - It's an adjustment of the suspension. The car is rear wheel drive though

Don
 
Thanks Don, i Will ask my garage to December the front wheels very slightl, as long as it does not harm efficiency.

Rinspeed gave me the adress of their supplier for those wheels. If anyone is interested I can enquire, but I also feel that they must be very expensive.
 
Llecentaur said:
Rinspeed gave me the adress of their supplier for those wheels. If anyone is interested I can enquire, but I also feel that they must be very expensive.
I wonder whether Rinspeed used the same size wheels and tires front and back. If so, what wheel diameter, width, and offset and what tire size did Rinspeed use?
 
I think they are the same size back and front.

Will try and contact wheel supplier later this week. If we can have the dimensions and offset, at least we should be able to source them elsewhere, or who knows maybe the ones from the supplier are still available.
 
OK, I got the specs of the alloy wheels you see in the Rinspeed video.

They are actually 17" wheels from Works, model is Schwert SC1. Front is 5.5" and back 6.5", I could not get my hand on the the ET values. I know that they have a homologation for the iMieV in Switzerland.

My idea is that once we have all the technical data, it should be possible to also find other brands with the same fitting. Must say that those wheels are beautiful but out of any logical price for the iMiev (quoted over 800 USD on list price... per wheel).

Maybe someone can enquite about these wheels as the manufacturer seems to be US ?

Thanks
 
They are available in the USA for $465 in size 16 X 5.5 and $475 for 16 X 6.0. I didn't see any 17's narrower than 6.0 and I really doubt that the Rinspeed iMiEV is actually wearing 17's - They sure don't look THAT big to me . . . .

Four of the 16 X 5.5's wearing the same size tire would be a great upgrade, IMO - Considering that the factory wheels are only 4 inches wide in front and 5 inches in the rear . . . . no real need to go to 6 inch wheels

One downside is of course that you're never going to find any LRR's (Low Rolling Resistance tires) in those sizes . . . . but then I seriously doubt that the folks at Rinspeed are at all worried about the reduction in range these wheels/tires probably cause - Sticky, great handling tires are on the opposite end of the tire spectrum from LRR's. Small price to pay for the big increase in handling

Don
 
Don said:
They are available in the USA for $465 in size 16 X 5.5 ........................ Small price to pay for the big increase in handling
Don
Go for it Don- we long to follow your leadership!
:twisted:
 
jray3 said:
Don said:
They are available in the USA for $465 in size 16 X 5.5 ........................ Small price to pay for the big increase in handling
Don
Go for it Don- we long to follow your leadership!
Boy! - Talk about quoting me out of context :lol:
The 'small price to pay' was the couple percent of range lost by not using LRR tires!

Don
 
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