Quote
joelsplace
Braking puts more weight on both front tires and less on the rear.

What kind of car are you talking about ? ? ?
Heavy engine weight induces body lowering weight transfer.
Front engine cars experience drastic nose diving.
Most conventional front engine cars react this way, yes, but not the Corvairs I have driven!
The rear engine weight on a Corvair, get transfered forward,, but ends up going to ALL the wheels since they are ALL forward of the weight mass.
One of the things I find really cool, is the incredibly FLAT squat my Corvairs perform under hard braking.

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WA. state, 1 mile south of the Canadian border, I am not at the end of the world, but you can see it from here.

I'm not talking about nose diving. That is a function of a lot more than weight transfer. Corvairs still have a lot of weight transfer but it balances the front/rear weight instead of making it drastically worse like a front engine car does. Let's say under hard braking all tires on a Corvair get the same amount of weight. That means with the talc method the front tires will be way under inflated since they will have half the weight of the car on them.

Joel
Northlake, TX
5 Ultravans, 141 Corvairs and counting...

I don't know how much weight goes to the front VS the rear, I just know it brakes extremely well.
As for the inflation issue, it isn't all about the braking.
An over inflated, though still "low" by normal standards, front tire will have terrible handling characteristics, and poor road gripping qualities due to inadequate contact patch.

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WA. state, 1 mile south of the Canadian border, I am not at the end of the world, but you can see it from here.

That is very true and you probably can't get the braking pressure right without screwing up the handling. I don't worry about the pressures for braking. I set them up for cornering.

Joel
Northlake, TX
5 Ultravans, 141 Corvairs and counting...

FWIW, I tend to think that when you move the spare (and possibly the battery too) from the rear to the front of the Corvair, you are not only moving the 30 lb spare (etc) weight, but are getting a NET weight distribution gain of 60 lbs. 30lbs removed from rear / 30lbs added to the front`. If you move both the spare AND the battery, that's a net 100 lbs distribution to the front. significant !.

Doug Ward
Orange, Calif.
65 Corsa 180, 64 Monza convertible, 61 Lakewood, 61 Monza

It is even more significant because both of those are high up and you generally move them lower too.

Joel
Northlake, TX
5 Ultravans, 141 Corvairs and counting...