S-AWD video (inc.SVX + H6 + VTD)

[Sov13t]

Perhaps judging handling on a 18 year old or however old suspension is not the proper method of determining symmetry?

[BoxerFanatic]

Subaru hasn't done a divorced front differential on a production street car.

to make a front-mid-engine, or even a rear-mid-engined layout, while keeping AWD... the front propeller shaft has to be passed either around the engine, or THROUGH the engine, likely at the oil-pan.

The thing is... that it is easier to go around... but that diminishes the symmetry toward one side or the other, then you have to choose which side, and it possibly complicates the steering linkage from the column to the rack on either left hand drive, or right hand drive.

Going through the oil pan is harder, and also limits the diameter of the clutch or torque converter. Going over the top would also be a bit dicey, especially without mounting the boxer lower, with a dry-sump system...

I believe the new 2010 Legacy JDM endurance race car, where the wheels and fenders are taller than the hood... sends the front prop-shaft over the top of the engine case, and mounts a differential just forward of where most street Subarus mount the alternator. But then they have to mount the alternator somewhere else, likely in leu of power steering and air conditioning, which a race car doesn't have.


But as long as the street subarus send the lateral half shafts off the side of the transaxle, behind the flywheel, even if the driveshafts angle forward a bit to reach the hubs, most of the engine will be in front of the front axle line. Just the way it has to be. Audi longitudinal Quattro is the same way.

Otherwise, it has to be RWD only.

Porsche Panamera, Audi R8/Lambo Gallardo, Murcielago, GT-R and others all send a driveshaft around the engine, or through the engine oil pan, and are not strictly symmetrical.

Really the trick would be, to keep the Subaru boxer as low as possible, with as little in front of it as possible.

Double radiators to the right and left sides, like a Porsche... mounting the battery behind the engine, or in the back of the car... and other techniques could theoretically minimize the front weight bias of a front engine.

Otherwise there is the option to pull a "saab", and turn the engine and transaxle around, and have the transaxle point toward the front of the car, and the engine belts toward the firewall, and somehow send the rear driveshaft around, over, or through the engine, to drive the rear wheels....

[Ironhydroxide]

I couldn't have said it better. This weight bias is the exact reason why I have relocated the radiator to the trunk in my SVXT6.