Race or Rice? The Quiz...

[Famine]

ok try this on. its wet or snowy out. you go to make a turn. the wheels turn but the car goes dead ahead, what do you do? you accellerate!! to make the front tires pull you around the turn!!

Awesome. Now you're talking about low-grip conditions, which just makes you even wronger.

Just draw the graph. Accelerating WILL NOT HELP YOU - you're adding to the forwards vector rather than the lateral one, so you'll carry on going forwards.

On a public road in snow, if my car is understeering I'd leap off the gas (although I wouldn't be doing more than about 30mph anyway) to encourage the rear end to move out a little (see "Lift-off oversteer"). Adding power makes more understeer

same goes for dry roads. your push'n your fwd car a bit you, brake entering a turn and coast thruogh it but the front end pushes to the outside

Of course it does. You're carrying too much speed into the turn - remember the graph? The point is too far up. In this situation you'd recommend putting more power on, but you should back off the power to allow the tyres back into the grip circle on the graph so they can turn.

next time you brake earlier and gradually accell through out the whole corner to make the front tires pull you around the corner

You're right, but for the wrong reasons. You brake earlier - or harder - and, once you're past the clipping point or apex, power through the turn. This has nothing to do with understeer on corner exit. It's eliminating understeer on corner entry. Too much speed = Understeer.

Let's go back to the 170mph FWD car. You are driving at 170mph and turn the wheel hard left. The car doesn't turn - it ploughs straight on. What is the solution to this problem NOW, not next time? It is to back off the power. Your solution would be to put even MORE power on. Does this make any sense to you? Clearly it does.


Let me reiterate. There is NO situation where not applying any power is the cause of understeer in an FWD car. There is NO situation where braking is the cause of understeer in an FWD car. The only cause of understeer in an FWD car is power - too much of it, too soon - or excessive speed.

 

[TB]

You might as well give it up, Famine.

1. He isn't going to get it
2. That's why he's a "wana b drifter"

 

[TB]

^that was NOT there a minute ago.

 

[///M-Spec]

Not applyingpower will cause the front end to slide. thats one of the down falls to having a front wheel drive car. when you push it to its limit it will under steer very badly unless you accellerate to make the front tires pull you around the corner try and look it up somewhere. for real.

This is wrong and completely backwards.

A typical FWD car is in a steady state turn near or at the the limit of grip. Adding throttle will induce power-on understeer. This is because you are now transfering weight from the front end of the car to the rear end of the car, taking weight OFF the FRONT tires where you NEED it. In addition, you are now asking the front tires not only to turn, but to accelerate as well. Since you are already asking it to commit 100% of its grip potential to TURN the car, adding acceleration to the load will cause it to exceed it's limit and break loose.

A Civic will do whis. An SRT-4 will do this. A GTI will do this. Go ask any knowledgeable FWD racer --a real one, someone who autocrosses a FWD car or tracks one-- and he/she will tell you exactly what Famine has already told you several times.


M

 

[Duke]

i drive a fwd sports car too. Yes you want the front tires to pull you through the corner. without power behind the front tires they will just silde to the outside.

I'm sorry, but this is absolutely and completely dead wrong, for a couple of reasons:

• Weight transfer - braking transfers weight forward, loading the front tires and unloading the rear tires. Assuming you don't lock up the front tires, this increases the front grip and reduces the rear grip, allowing the car to rotate into the corner. Hence the reason why trail braking has risen in popularity with the advent of FWD cars. Until 20-30 years ago, trail braking was a no-no, and classic driving dogma dictated hard straight-line braking before turn in.
  
  
• The traction circle - in conjunction with the fore-and-aft weight transfer mentioned above, each tire has X amount of traction available to it, which is increased by increasing load (up to a point). This is shared between turning (lets call that Y) and accel/decel (lets call that Z). Mathematically,
  
  Y + Z <= X x load
  
  or else the tires slides. If you make Y bigger by turning harder, then Z gets smaller, leaving you less traction to use for acceleration or braking...
  
  BUT...
  
  Braking transfers load to the front tires, making X (the available traction) a bigger number for the front tires. Acceleration transfers load away from the front tires, making X a smaller number - less traction. So you want to avoid accelerating while turning in a FWD car, because that reduces the amount of traction available to do either thing. Hence the prescribed driving line for FWD cars: a late-braking, exaggerated late-apex dogleg line that concentrates rotation early in the corner (under braking) in order to straighten out the acceleration half of the turn as much as possible to reduce the amount of steering necessary.

No, no, no, when you let off the gas the front end will go outside circle. and physics... i live my life by the laws of physics and what not but anyways i'll look it up for you. someones been feed'n you BS or you just don't know anything handling charactrics of a FWD car.

Watch an amateur or semi-pro racing series like the SCCA Runoffs or the Speed World Challenge, where there is a mix of FWD and RWD cars on track. The FWD guys almost always pass the RWD guys under late braking, then try to carry enough momentum through the turn that they can make it stick when the RWD car gets back into the throttle harder in the second part of the turn. The RWD guys pass on corner exit by using their turn/acceleration advantage to power out of the corner better.

I hate to burst your bubble, but it's true. You're just dead backwards on this. I'd be careful about when you charge BS or ignorance on someone if I were you.

 

[Famine]

No - we're all wrong because he read it somewhere. My smaller-than-everyone-else-agreeing-with-me FWD driving experience of more than a decade apparently means squat.

Anyway, I'm feeling generous here. So let's load up the scans!

This is a grip graph, with no axes. Accelerative force increases from the centre to the top. Left lateral force increases from the centre to the left. Decelerative force increases from the centre to the bottom. Right lateral force increases from the centre to the right. At the centre, no forces at all are being exerted on the wheel. The circle represents the level of force at which the tyre ceases to grip. Okay so far?

This is a grip graph under accelerative force. The car is accelerating hard in a straight line, and the level of force has exceeded the level of the circle. The net result is that the tyre is attempting to move forwards quicker than it actually can, and the wheel spins.

This is a grip graph under deceleration. The level of braking has exceeded the tyre's grip, with the net result that the wheel locks. Still with me?

These grip graphs show the car cornering in the ideal manner. The car is moving forwards with a level of force just inside the tyre's tolerance. The driver decelerates and turns, keeping the tyres on the very edge until the car is turning right, then accelerates out of the turn while levelling the steering off.

These drivers have overcooked it. The first graph shows that the driver has not decelerated enough, and thus the extra lateral component force causes the net vector to exceed the tyre's available grip. Since this is an FWD car, it is understeering. The second graph shows a driver who has come onto the power too early - this time the extra accelerative component causes the vector to exceed the tyre's available grip - understeer again in this FWD car.

This final graph zooms in on the understeer quadrant. The dot in the centre represents the total vector of the car which is understeering. You have four options (well, eight) available to correct the understeer. You can turn harder in the direction of the turn, turn less (or counter-steer), accelerate or decelerate (not necessarily braking - you can just back off the gas a little)

As you can see, turning more would just compound the problem. Turning less would solve it, but you're now off-line. Accelerating would only make the car go even straighter. Decelerating brings the forces acting on the tyre back within the tyre's limits.


As duke says - as I did a little while ago - the classic FWD driving line is late braking, late apex to allow maximum turning with minimum understeer early in the corner.

 

[xcsti]

I think he is associating the tendancy of most fwd cars to be setup(suspension) to understeer with the characterisics of every fwd car, and then using rear wheel drive tactics (more gas to cure understeer) to solve it.

Edit: oh and nice diagrams

 

[Small_Fryz]

well famine its nice to see you back up my points, and yes i totally agree, more power while turning equals understeer, dont belive us get a fully modded integra type R in GT3 and try it for your self.

 

[TB]

Some people just don't learn. And when they are wrong, the just don't come around, I guess.

 

[wana b drifter]

You might as well give it up, Famine.

1. He isn't going to get it
2. That's why he's a "wana b drifter"

1. i do get. i'm trying to prove my point
2. you really think you can tell something about someone by there screen name, and whats TB for? total b*tch

Sooo anyways... you guys are saying that when auto Xing a front wheel drive car you should brake as late as possiable and coast through the corner. then accell while exiting. right??? BUT heres what i say. if you do that the front will want to push the outside. Sooo you brake a little earlier and and when entering the corner you gradually accell to make the front tires pull you through the corner. because its a fwd car!! what do you do if you get sideways in a fwd car? you counter steer and accell to make the front tires pull the car right again. same thing with corning a fwd car. thats why some people left foot brake. soo they can be on the brakes but still the have power going to the front tires so they can pull the car through the turn. when you're corning in a fwd car you need them to pull you through the turn. you don't really need to accell but you do need some power going to the front tires so they can pull you around the turn.

it sounds like you guys are telling me how to drive a rwd car. So could one of you please tell me the differance between cornering a fwd car and a rwd car? but besides that i give up.

 

[Famine]

I drew the graphs for you.

Your posts only make sense if you substitute the "F" for "R" - or even "4". What you suggest WILL exacerbate the problem in a FWD car, not solve it.

And please don't resort to personal insults - that's the second time you've done it in this thread. Insulting someone doesn't make your case any stronger - but since your case is wrong anyway, I guess it didn't harm it much.

 

[DRIFT4EVA]

wana b drifter - Just give it up man. You are going to embarass yourself. If you haven't already done so.

Famine and everyone siding with him (Me too) are right. I'm stupid when it comes to cars and forces. I only know about Downforce Anyway. If a car is in the state of understeer, there is too much force propelling it forward, for the tyres to handle. It's just too much for them. If you accelerate, you're just increasing that force. I see what you're meaning about the car pulling itself back, but that only works in a state of oversteer. Ask yourself this. Why do people who race saloon cars in speedways (The muddy kind), prefer to use FF cars? Or even drifters. It sounds to me that you are trying to drift right, on a corner turning left. I may have got it wrong in places, but as it says in the second sentence of this paragraph. I'm allowed to.

We all know what happens to those who attack people, personally. You don't want that to happen to you. Do you?

 

[skip0110]

Famine has said it better than I ever could. But I agree with him, because he's right, obviously.

 

[DRIFT4EVA]

Ofcourse. He's..... Well Famine. To tell you the truth. I'm glad I've never put myself in a position to be owned by him

 

[Duke]

Sooo anyways... you guys are saying that when auto Xing a front wheel drive car you should brake as late as possiable and coast through the corner. then accell while exiting. right??? BUT heres what i say. if you do that the front will want to push the outside. Sooo you brake a little earlier and and when entering the corner you gradually accell to make the front tires pull you through the corner. because its a fwd car!!

You may keep saying it as many times as you wish, but you will continue to be wrong as long as you do.

what do you do if you get sideways in a fwd car? you counter steer and accell to make the front tires pull the car right again. same thing with corning a fwd car.

I assume the first "fwd" was meant to be "rwd". In either case, thank you for proving our point so well. Follow me here:

When you are sideways you are oversteering. Yes?

So you counter steer and get on the gas. Right?

So what are you actually doing? First, you're trying to counter the excessive rotation, of course.

But what else is going on? You are transferring weight TO the BACK of the car to help the REAR wheels grip, while you transfer weight OFF the FRONT of the car to reduce the amount of traction it has. In other words: YOU'RE GENERATING UNDERSTEER.

You're generating understeer by applying heavy mid-corner throttle to your FWD car, in order to prevent a spin. Clear enough?

thats why some people left foot brake. soo they can be on the brakes but still the have power going to the front tires so they can pull the car through the turn.

That's not why some people left-foot brake. If you gas and brake at the same time, the brake cancels out the throttle to some extent. The tires can't tell the difference between having the throttle floored and the brakes on hard, or having no brakes on and just a little throttle. Net acceleration is net acceleration.

There are only two reasons to left-foot brake: 1) because it theoretically reduces the lost time between accelerating and deaccelerating, theoretically improving your lap time; and 2) in a turbocharged car, keeping the engine under load keeps boost up through the corner to minimize lag at corner exit. That's it. And personally, I disagree on point #1m but that's really a matter of personal driving style.

it sounds like you guys are telling me how to drive a rwd car. So could one of you please tell me the differance between cornering a fwd car and a rwd car? but besides that i give up.

Here. I already did:

Hence the prescribed driving line for FWD cars: a late-braking, exaggerated late-apex dogleg line that concentrates rotation early in the corner (under braking) in order to straighten out the acceleration half of the turn as much as possible to reduce the amount of steering necessary.[/b]

Watch an amateur or semi-pro racing series like the SCCA Runoffs or the Speed World Challenge, where there is a mix of FWD and RWD cars on track. The FWD guys almost always pass the RWD guys under late braking, then try to carry enough momentum through the turn that they can make it stick when the RWD car gets back into the throttle harder in the second part of the turn. The RWD guys pass on corner exit by using their turn/acceleration advantage to power out of the corner better.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

1. i do get. i'm trying to prove my point
2. you really think you can tell something about someone by there screen name, and whats TB for? total b*tch

Sooo anyways... you guys are saying that when auto Xing a front wheel drive car you should brake as late as possiable and coast through the corner. then accell while exiting. right??? BUT heres what i say. if you do that the front will want to push the outside. Sooo you brake a little earlier and and when entering the corner you gradually accell to make the front tires pull you through the corner. because its a fwd car!! what do you do if you get sideways in a fwd car? you counter steer and accell to make the front tires pull the car right again. same thing with corning a fwd car. thats why some people left foot brake. soo they can be on the brakes but still the have power going to the front tires so they can pull the car through the turn. when you're corning in a fwd car you need them to pull you through the turn. you don't really need to accell but you do need some power going to the front tires so they can pull you around the turn.

it sounds like you guys are telling me how to drive a rwd car. So could one of you please tell me the differance between cornering a fwd car and a rwd car? but besides that i give up.

Have you played Gran Turismo?

 

[DRIFT4EVA]

He'll probably say that he's played GT4.

 

[Takumi Fujiwara]

If acelleration is the secret to FF driving, why don't any professionals do it? The proper way to corner an FF is with trail braking. Trail Braking shifts the weight forward, allowing the car to acellerate sooner, and to round the corner at a higher speed, due both to increased front grip and decreased rear grip, which induces a sort of artifical oversteer.

 

[Duke]

Let me further illustrate our point with an example from real life: an accident I had last winter. I drive a Neon ACR, a sporty FWD car set up for autocross and club racing, based on the regular Neon economy car.

I was driving to work one cold winter morning. The roads were pretty much dry and the sky was clear. I pulled out of a traffic light and made sweeping left turn from the highway onto the side road that leads to my building. No problem.

I turned onto the side road, past the apex and accelerating normally, the car composed and in a steady state of mild acceleration and cornering. As I turned, though, I drove into the shadow of the building. In the shadow, the roads were black ice - very slippery. The car instantly spun the front tires and UNDERSTEERED directly into the outside curb. The wheels were still turned left. I hadn't given it any extra gas. But the car reacted precisely as if I had just mashed the throttle on dry pavement. The acceleration and turning loads overwhelmed the tiny amount of traction available to the front tires, and 3/4 of a second later I broke the rim, bent the lower control arm, steering knuckle, and strut.

 

[DRIFT4EVA]

Let me further illustrate our point with an example from real life: an accident I had last winter. I drive a Neon ACR, a sporty FWD car set up for autocross and club racing, based on the regular Neon economy car.

I was driving to work one cold winter morning. The roads were pretty much dry and the sky was clear. I pulled out of a traffic light and made sweeping left turn from the highway onto the side road that leads to my building. No problem.

I turned onto the side road, past the apex and accelerating normally, the car composed and in a steady state of mild acceleration and cornering. As I turned, though, I drove into the shadow of the building. In the shadow, the roads were black ice - very slippery. The car instantly spun the front tires and UNDERSTEERED directly into the outside curb. The wheels were still turned left. I hadn't given it any extra gas. But the car reacted precisely as if I had just mashed the throttle on dry pavement. The acceleration and turning loads overwhelmed the tiny amount of traction available to the front tires, and 3/4 of a second later I broke the rim, bent the lower control arm, steering knuckle, and strut.

Don't forget the wallet. It had to break your wallet.

Understeer pushes the car wide, therefore decreasing your speed and losing the racing line, which in a race will lead to loss of positions. If you accelerate you will be into a wall. Face it. YOU ARE WRONG!!! The Duke, Famine and everyone else for that matter is in the right.

I think he's given up. Well after being owned by the rest of GTP. You should just give up.

 

[Sage]

1. i do get. i'm trying to prove my point

Except that your point is a falsehood.

2. you really think you can tell something about someone by there screen name, and whats TB for? total b*tch

Watch your language. 👎

Seriously, do you know anything about physics? I have very, very little knowledge about the mechanical aspects of cars in comparison to most of the people here, but even basic physics will tell you all you need to know about this pointless argument. I even believe the GT3 manual has a little passage in the back about tire grip. The basic, basic premise is this: Your tires can use no more than 100% of their grip at any one time. In a front wheel drive car, part of that 100% is used for turning (assuming the car is turning, of course), and the balancing part is used for acceleration.

So, let's say that a FWD car is using 50% of its grip for turning, and 50% for accelerating. If you want to accelerate faster, then you have to use more grip for accelerating. Thus, if you're using, say, 70% of your grip for accelerating, then you have to use less for turning—30%. Less turning grip means less ability to turn. Geddit?

 

[TB]

You know you're backed into a corner and can't get out when you start throwing around expletives.

 

[gt4]

Gran Turismorator
You scored -21%
You are a respectable tuner. You probably subscribe to one or more tuner magazines and know, quite a bit about your car and/or racing in general. Either that or you play a ****load of GT3. At any rate, you recognize the difference between a wastegate and a blow-off valve. In time, and with practice, you may attain "Racer X" status since it is supposed that you are relatively new to tuning and still have much to learn. Keep, working, and thank the maker that you're not a ricer.

thats fairly accurate since i dont do much work on cars just play GT3 nonstop.

 

[McLaren]

I had to go at this with my old 3000GT VR-4.

I have a new car, but I haven't had problems with it (Yet) and I've only had a glance at it.

Anyways,

You are a respectable tuner. You probably subscribe to one or more tuner magazines and know, quite a bit about your car and/or racing in general. Either that or you play a ****load of GT3. At any rate, you recognize the difference between a wastegate and a blow-off valve. In time, and with practice, you may attain "Racer X" status since it is supposed that you are relatively new to tuning and still have much to learn. Keep, working, and thank the maker that you're not a ricer.

 

[Mista Bob]

Hmm

Gran Turismorator
You scored -22%

Sounds about right.
Sure beats those other 'quiz's'.

 

[Roo]

Granturismorator, -10%. And I've never even played GT3... although many hours have been wasted on GT2.

 

[Iceman]

Scored Gran Turismorater, somehere in the high teens percentagewise.