John, "what if" due to weight transfer or whatever, and the front and
rear axles are not connected, the front wheels spin more than the rear?
Would this not destabilize the car, and interfere with steering control,
more than if the two axles are connected, and all four wheels have to
spin at the same rate, if there is wheelspin. I'm visualizing a
streamliner with two big horsepower engines here, where wheelspin would
be a distinct likelihood, whether at Maxton or Bonneville.
Connecting the cranks ala Burklands might be preferable to using some
kind of transfer case. Might be hard to get a transfer case that could
handle big power, and if it did it would probably aborb a lot of power.
I seem to recall from Mickey Thompson's story that Challenger had the
front two engines driving the front wheels together, and the back two
driving the rear wheels together. He noted that he sat in the cockpit
with two tachs, one for the front pair and the other for the rear,
noting the differences in rpm, and pondering whether it was the clutches
slipping (they had some trouble with that) or the wheels spinning more
at one end than the other.
An interesting exercise of Physics. My two cents worth. Cheers from
Ardun Bill in the Great Dismal Swamp, Chesapeake, VA
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