Rollaclub.com Mt Cotton Skidpan / Lvma

[demuire]

Mr HachiRoku: You've got the hachi roku, I'm sure you can do it :)

 

ps: and if you have a large rear swaybar, even better - after all my car is completely stock :P

[Medicine_Man]

*Ponders taxing the nice thick whiteline swaybar from nicks KE70*

[Mr HachiRoku]

Jason, why do you need a swaybar?

 

Sprinters are notorious understeerers, and mine is no different... oh well, guess i'll just have to compensate with more right foot :P

[demuire]

Sprinters are notorious understeerers

 

Really? I thought they were meant to be very neutral, which is why everyone likes them so much. And if you think they're understeerers, I'm guessing you've never driven a FWD car, most of them are far worse.

[demuire]

I would be inclined to agree with Nick on this one. All cars understeer if you don't drive them right. Cars that are too heavy in front understeer cause there's too much weight (too much inertia) in front and not enough in the back to get any momentum happening, cars that are too light in the front understeer because there's not enough weight to keep the front on the ground. The 86 (and S13 among other cars) are an almost 50/50 split, so tend to be quite neutral unless driven wrongly.

 

That said, suspension setup also makes a huge difference, any car can be made to be very understeery or very oversteery, no matter what the weight distribution is. My Lancer (FF) was more prone to oversteering because of the way I set it up, and this eventually led to it's death at QR when it oversteered into a sand trap. My Corolla is more or less neutral, if I just turn the wheel hard or come in too fast all it will do is understeer. However, get the weight transfer right and once the front end sticks, it's oversteer all the way. Same with all other cars I've driven, including several FF cars like the Satria GTi, Proton Wira, Excel, Mazda 626, Camry etc, and FR cars like my Corolla, IS200, IS300, SC430, ES300, BMW318 etc, and RR cars like the Porsche 911. With FWD cars however (esp if it's reasonably powerful) even once you get the oversteer happening if you get too hard on the accelerator it will start to understeer again - generally leading to a 4 wheel skid. And RR cars are very hard to catch once they start to oversteer, believe me.

 

Another trick that you can use is a Scando Flick, but again you have to get the weight transfer right or you will just end up understeering. It's much more important to get it right in this trick because of the direction of forces on your front tyres, which will actually lead to less grip on the front end. But, if you get it right, you're almost guaranteed oversteer.

 

Unfortunately, if you have a POS RWD car like my Corolla, oversteer is only really possible either with really shit tyres, a very off camber corner, with a lot of water or dirt or on the pan (equivalant to having shit tyres), because with sticky tyres all you ever end up doing is either nothing at all, or just lifting the inside wheel and smoking that up, again with no oversteer. I've tried everything including massive scando flicks, and I think I've decided it's either impossible or pretty damn hard.

 

*edit* Also interesting to note that with stiffer suspension it's harder to control understeer/oversteer because it's harder to get the weight transfer happening. But it does generally increase the grip treshold, which is a good thing :P

[Medicine_Man]

you don't need all this technical stuff to be quick and have lots of fun around the skidpan, pinky showed us exactly that last time :P

[demuire]

Haha, that is true. Pinky is relatively quick around the pan and definately a barrel full of fun. Both "Quickness" and "Funness" could be increased if power increased though :P

[Medicine_Man]

Power comes at a cost though and we all know those with small 4's have the most fun..

[irokin]

smaller the better? :P That means my engine is fully sik man!

[Spanky]

i can definately vouch for sprinters hanging onto the road very well without any sort of understeer. There is a corner near my place known as "c**t's corner" and i took it one day at 120 kph and had a tiny bid of rear slide and the fastest i have ever heard of anyone taking it (and not crashing) is like 130 and that was in an evo 4 so it pretty much doesn't get too much better than that really for non 4wd

[Medicine_Man]

Got to have confidence in both your driving ability and your cars handling ability. At least we know a Corolla will handle well when need be :P

[Spanky]

as long as they can light 'em up when required as well

[Medicine_Man]

my car couldn't do one if it tried, doesn't help when you are lacking valuable clutch..