Forgive the double post, but I've got Young Thunder's review
"Young Thunder" '02 - Review
Every time Ive seen this car, Ive always thought of it as a concept car, the radical design, crazy body shape and other things just make me see it as a concept, and not a street car of sorts, but when ARTA took it and made it into a JGTC car (back in 02), it definitely made some noise.
One thing that really impressed me, was its performance throughout the years when it was at Suzuka, it always did real well, got good podium finishes, had excellent pit strategy, and clever moves by the drivers to keep opponents at bay (which were instructed by Mr. Tsuchiya himself), and because of that, I decided to test out MFTs tuned version at Suzuka.
On track heading through the chicane that leads to a right-hand bend and onto the main straight, the car showed good braking and neutral handling throughout the bends, but did seem a little hesitant at initial turn-in for a fraction of a second, nothing too bad, but if a driver wasnt expecting it, it could throw them off rhythm for the corner, and I have 2 ideas as to what causes this.
The first is the ride height, the front has actually been raised and the rear lowered, and time has shown us that this usually gives way to understeer easier than the opposite setup, maybe lowering the front and slightly raising the rear would help the car react better to initial steering input.
The second is sort of a mix of 2 reasons, those being the Mid-engine setup, and the effect of the cars downforce as a whole. With a MR setup, you have good overall weight balance, but to achieve that, you have to remove weight from certain areas, such as moving the engine from the front to the middle, this takes weight off of the front tires, causing them to not press into the pavement as much as they need to for good traction, and that grip lack could be why there is a little hesitation during turn-in, not much response.
The downforce side is more just about the balance rather than the amount, with the weight already shifted different, some areas dont need downforce as much as others, namely the rear, with most of the weight in the middle, its momentum will carry to the rear during forward motion, keeping it stable and under control, and the 30/30 balance you guys have gone with is good for higher end stuff, but for a smaller MR car like this, I think more front downforce than the rear would help balance everything out during corners, the car in stock form looks to be rear-biased and sorted, so increasing the front end grip and response would make it really fly
Other than that, the car was pretty fun to drive, it had an excellent exhaust note, pulled through the gears despite the low power, and because of its neutral handling, its beginner friendly, find a way to correct the turn in hesitation and itd be a great practice car.