MX-3 grips the road TOO well

Autocross, Road Racing, Rallycross, Rally...
Leedeth
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Post by Leedeth »

ZOMG. I did it again! It caught me by surprise again, but I didn't counter immediately since I knew what the result of that would be.

It was on one of those turns that I would go faster every time I ran it. I got up to 80km/h this time. There's no posted limit for the corner so it's assumed to be the usual 50km/h limit. Visualize this. I'm going down a road, which starts to go downhill. It continues on a left curve which goes uphill. But there's a road in the middle of that dip that cuts off to the right. It curves back in the direction I came to about 70 degrees, right after the intersection. Right there is an awesome corner, and I've pushed the fronts past their adhesion limits many times on that one. After that is a short 100m straight, followed by that turn I'm talking about, which turns to the left about 50 degrees.

So on that turn, I took it as normal, but the fronts started sliding, and I could feel the understeer. I didn't counter immediately, since I could tell I wasn't going to plow off the road, they were just slipping slightly. But then I did counter, by turning the fronts to the left even more, just a bit. Well the fronts, they hadn't lost grip completely, so they made the car turn sharper as well. So now the car is heading into the oncoming lane. I counter to the right a bit, then left, then right again to straighten out. It did the same thing as the first time, but this time it didn't swerve so hard since I hadn't countered sharply.

I think I got a better feel of the MX now. What I think it is is that the fronts will slip under load, but not lose grip completely. When it does that, then I'll know, because the car will plow straight off the road. So maybe that's why the first time I did it, countering caused the car the swerve so hard.

8)
GarySheehan
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Post by GarySheehan »

Leedeth wrote:When it does that, then I'll know, because the car will plow straight off the road.
Hopefully not straight into a tree. Maybe look into a cheap helmet and a track day or autocross for learning the handling limits of your car.
pmacutay
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Re: MX-3 grips the road TOO well

Post by pmacutay »

But then I did counter, by turning the fronts to the left even more, just a bit. Well the fronts, they hadn't lost grip completely, so they made the car turn sharper as well.
I read somewhere that street cars are designed to give some amount of "controllable understeer" in which the car feels like it's understeering, but you can turn the wheel farther into the turn and still have traction. It's for the purposes of letting you know that you're getting close to the limits of the tire, without being completely unforgiving like true understeer.

Something about the suspension set-up leaning the tires toward the outside of curves.
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zender05
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Re:

Post by zender05 »

Leedeth wrote: But then I did counter, by turning the fronts to the left even more, just a bit. 8)
To counter understeer in the future, lift slightly off the gas. Turning in more will create more understeer.

Also, Gary's right. Try autocrossing. Learning the limits of your car in an uncontrolled environment with unaware people is dangerous and kinda imposing.
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