Who says a FWD car can't oversteer?

[eMKay]

Here is me from last year, my mistake? trying to take the gates too fast, the result is amusing...

Right click and save as. 1.2mb WMV

 

[Siberian]

Originally posted by eMKay
Here is me from last year, my mistake? trying to take the gates too fast, the result is amusing...

Cone Killer!!!

... what kinda car?

I miss my old CRX sometimes... just lifting off the throttle would bring 'er around. My darn eclipse won't BUDGE, short of a yank on the handbrake...

 

[jtmcinder]

Almost any car, regardless of drivetrain or suspension, can be made to oversteer or understeer if driven badly enough. (It can also be done on purpose, but that's not what this video seems to show.)

The key question when considering new mods to increase handling - the main theme of this section of this board, I might add - is what propensities do each of the drivetrain types start with and what needs to be done to reduce these unwanted behaviors.

On average, FWD starts with the most understeer. Therefore, a lot of things need to be done to move weight transfer to the rear and to increase front-end grip. The former is done by increasing the rear roll stiffness, usually by increasing the relative thickness of the rear swaybar (although some people prefer to use higher-rate rear springs, instead, which is fine). The latter is done by increasing static front camber, even though this can reduce straight-line acceleration and braking.

Read that last sentence a few times. You increase front-end grip for turning by upping the static (negative) front camber, but this costs you in terms of straight-line grip. That's the key to the basic problem with FWD. What you do to make the car turn better costs you in terms of straight-line performance.

Yes, there are things that you can do to minimize this trade-off, but you will never make it go away. That's why AWD and RWD cars are better road-racing and autoXing cars. They can optimize the front end for turning without killing acceleration and braking.

Note: the fact that FWD cars are at a disadvantage when autoXing has had a direct effect on the rules: in classes that mix all three driveline types, FWD has the lowest weight minimum and AWD has the highest. In other words, the people that know what's going on have used weight minimums to balance things out.

I'm sorry if some people with FWD cars are having problems facing the fact that they have the worst driveline type for racing, but that does not change the facts. If you have a FWD car and you want to make it handle better, you need to come to grips (as it were) with the basic problems and do what you can to work around them. Merely insisting that FWD doesn't have these problems - or worse, posting videos of bad driving that are claimed to disprove such - does nobody any good.

- Jtoby

 

[Siberian]

Originally posted by jtmcinder
I'm sorry if some people with FWD cars are having problems facing the fact that they have the worst driveline type for racing, but that does not change the facts. If you have a FWD car and you want to make it handle better, you need to come to grips (as it were) with the basic problems and do what you can to work around them. Merely insisting that FWD doesn't have these problems - or worse, posting videos of bad driving that are claimed to disprove such - does nobody any good.

I think he was just poking fun of himself and showing us something he found amusing, not trying to provide scientific evidence, ... but I could be wrong

As for FWD on the track... it's certainly true that in theory, FWD always comes in dead last because the front wheels have to do all the work. In Theory.

But in Reality, I can't tell you how many times I got stuck behind RWD critters like Vettes, Stangs, Camaros, NSXs, 911s, etc., when at the track (in my CRX, not my Eclipse) because they were terrified to go any faster and risk losing the rear end.

In the hands of a skilled driver, who can afford to crash his ride in extracting every last ounce of performance, RWD will always beat FWD.

In the Real World, where we're all out there flogging our daily drivers at the track and need to drive them 4 hours home at the end of the track day, things aren't quite so simple. The stability and predictability of FWD can be a huge advantage. The field is leveled quite a bit, since the FWD guys are using 110% of their car, while the RWD guys will only use 75%.

And, incidentally, I routinely oversteered the CRX by simpy lifting off the throttle in a corner (or braking into it)... and could just as easily put it into a throttle-controlled four-wheel-drift by simply getting back on the throttle. Weeeeeee! What fun!

I havent tried the eclipse yet. Maybe this spring

 

[jtmcinder]

I tried and tried to use trail-braking to get my AWD 2G to rotate when autoXing. Maybe I never mastered it, but it never worked for me. The car either pushed (too little) or snap-spinned (too much).

Then I moved a ton of weight transfer to the rear (new sways and much higher rear spring rates) and added some front grip (eccentric bushings) and all was well. No "tricks" were needed any more. Turn in, point just inside the exit cone, and floor it.

This was a hugely important lesson for me. I did everything I could to drive around the car's inherent problems. I got somewhere, but not even close to where I wanted to be. Then I threw some engineering into the mix et voila: a full second gain. Plus, the car is a heck of lot more fun, now that it's a bit loose.

The only problem was that my co-driver was coming from a Honda. He spun away half his runs using the "skills" that he had learned in a FWD. But he also thought that the car was a blast to drive (probably because those weren't his tires).

- Jtoby

 

[eMKay]

Originally posted by Siberian
Cone Killer!!!

... what kinda car?

I miss my old CRX sometimes... just lifting off the throttle would bring 'er around. My darn eclipse won't BUDGE, short of a yank on the handbrake...

Protege5, sweet handling car, especially with Ecsta V700's. I will race it this year as well until the Eclipse is ready. In slaloms and high speed corners it's beautifully balanced, in slow speed corners I need to trail brake deeply. In this vid I just lifted, the first gste was fine, but the second it snapped around too fast.

Jtoby, I don't read your inane drivel snymore, so why bother posting? Leave me alone.

 

[jtmcinder]

Originally posted by eMKay
Jtoby, I don't read your inane drivel snymore, so why bother posting?

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=egotism

This was never about you. It was always about getting accurate information on the board, especially when total nonsense is being posted (such as "AWD understeers more than FWD"). My audience is the typical lurker who wants to learn. Think of yourself an Meno and you're getting warm.

- Jtoby

 

[Siberian]

Originally posted by eMKay
Protege5, sweet handling car...

Ooo, drool... Proteges always seem to be winning everyone's "best handling FWD car" awards. Very nice.

I'm gonna try out a Mazda3 in a few days. I hope it inherited some of the Protege's handling...

 

[eMKay]

Originally posted by jtmcinder
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=egotism

This was never about you. It was always about getting accurate information on the board, especially when total nonsense is being posted (such as "AWD understeers more than FWD"). My audience is the typical lurker who wants to learn. Think of yourself an Meno and you're getting warm.

- Jtoby

Then stop posting misleading information. I don't care what your opinion is, nobody else does either, you know very little but you think you know a lot, that doesn't help anyone.

 

[jtmcinder]

Originally posted by eMKay
Then stop posting misleading information.

For completeness sake, I'll apologize in this thread for claiming that you want a 15 degree slip for maximum lateral force, since the value for the tires that you and I both run is actually only 10 degrees. (Maybe if you upped your slip angles, you'd PAX a bit better. It's worth a shot, no?)

I'm not aware of any other errors on my part. If you can point them out in some coherent manner, I'd be grateful.

Getting back to the point of all this: I'm waiting patiently for a retraction or explanation of your claim that FWD understeers less than AWD, which was what started our running debate. That, to me, was one of the most incorrect statements that I've seen for a while.

- Jtoby

ps. I really would welcome some moderator action at this point

 

[JoeWagon]

Originally posted by jtmcinder
I'm waiting patiently for a retraction or explanation of your claim that FWD understeers less than AWD, which was what started our running debate. That, to me, was one of the most incorrect statements that I've seen for a while.

- Jtoby

Where most people can admit they didn't get a joke (or in your case have no sense of humor), you, in this thread, have tried to deny your mistake (stupidity?) with more babble to make yourself seem smart.

Now, everyone here knows everthing i've already said... it's what happened. However, at what point will you just say "my mistake" (or similar)?

One last possibility may be that you knew it wasn't a serious post to begin with (of course, right?) and that you've just been an a-hole the whole time. How do you expect a moderator to side with you, when you're off-topic?

P.S. we know you're right about handling, it just wasn't the point of the thread, ass.

 

[GRNDSM]

You are right, this thread WAS not about handling, but then it should NOT have been in Suspension Tuning forum, but rather in a hangout!

Post it in the serious forum, you get serious responses.

Though, JToby, you do need to realize when people post in the wrong forum .

Thread closed…

Leon
RR