I bought my first evo(03Viii) about three months ago and last night was the first agressive driving I have done in the wet. There is a old closed airport behind my house and the guy that lives there doesnt care if I play on it from time to time. So basicly when the *** end starts to come out its fine as long as I stay on the gas fairly hard but it seems like a very fine line and then when the front grabs and it brings me back the other way I think only one wheel is spinning and it makes it fairly unpredictable. Does it make that big of a difference that the front is open or is it all just my lack of skills? I hear that a rear sway help a lot, what else(other then seat time) will help it feel more neutral?

 

Don't take this the wrong way...but it's the driver, not the car! There is some skill involved in setting up a car to oversteer gracefully and with total control. From what you've described, it sounds like you're holding the opposite lock too long (i.e., not unwinding soon enough).

Winding on the opposite lock is the easy (and intuitive) part. As long as you look where you want to go, you will generally dial in a reasonable amount of corrective lock. The trick is to know when to start releasing the car (i.e., unwinding the wheel).

As a driving instructor, it is always a major challenge when you have a "green" student who's just dying to powersteer the car through the corners. First, you need to master the "traditional" approach to cornering: brake; heel-and-toe downshift; turn in smoothly; balance the car to the apex; start unwinding the wheel after the apex; then start adding more throttle.

Again, the sequence is (1) brake (2) turn-in (3) balance (4) unwind (5) throttle. In that order!

Most people add throttle before they start unwinding. That tends to make the car "snap" into oversteer...which is tricky to control. And once the car gets sliding, most people hold the opposite lock too long. That snaps the tail around in the opposite direction, setting up a fish-tail situation.

My suggestion is to sign up for some good high-performance driving schools (NOT lapping days!) with good 1-on-1 instruction. Tying to figure all this out on your own is not only difficult, but quite expensive! Bodywork isn't cheap


A stiffer rear swaybar will only make the rear end step out even MORE dramatically. Your reflexes will need to be pretty tight to begin with before you want the car to be even more tail-happy.

Emre

 

It is not taken in the wrong way at all. I already mentioned my lack of skill
and I understand "how" to go fast(not saying that I am fast) but I am coming off of sport bikes(for safety reasons) and I rode for a couple years with a few people who race and teach so I had some good instruction and actually got fairly good at sliding the bike as well. What the post was intended for was to get pointers on how I can control the bad sensation I got when sliding in the wet. I do plan on taking some classes but my first class wont be untill april at thunder hill CA. I have an area at my disposal to "play" at every now and then and i enjoy sliding and just toying around with what me and my car are capable of and just have fun with it. If I could simply spend $150ish for a sway bar that would make my car more predictable it would be plenty worth it to me, but if its going to make the care less predictable then I will spend my money elsewhere. Any help/knowledge/suggestions are always appreciated.

 

Hi, Steve.

The reason I made all that fuss about the "traditional" approach to cornering is because this is the first thing you need to do if you want to control a slide.

You need to: (1) brake (2) turn-in (3) balance (4) unwind (5) throttle.
But most people will: (1) brake (2) turn-in (3) balance (4) throttle (5) unwind.

That's where most of the problem is! When the suspension is fully loaded up, don't add more throttle until after you've already started to unwind. That's how you avoid the initial snap.

And again, the second thing you need to do is know when to start unwinding the opposite lock. If you wait until the car is totally, fully stabilized...it's too late! You need to develop a sense for when the rear end is just about to stop sliding...when it's just starting to slow down. And you start unwinding just before that point.

If you do those things and always look where you want to go, then you'll find it much easier to stay on top of things. The car follows the hands; the hands follow the eyes.

Emre

 

Too bad you cannot get out tot he T.E.A.M. Racing HPDE event at thunderhill monday the 26th. There will be instructors assigned to new drivers for th eduration of the day. TEAM has an excellent instructor program. Listen to Emre's advice, as it's spot-on.

 

takes patience.. you just need to practice more weight transfer.. take a HDPE class, you'll learn more.. it's safer too and you have instructors that will be there to help you.. it's so much harder through yourself by trial and error.. sometimes those errors will cost you your life.

 

Start Saving money for a Transfercase....

 

That sounds like my problem!

 

Ditto. Mine was:

(1) turn-in (2) brake (3) balance!!! (4) heavy throttle (5) pray (6) curse.

 

what gears do you guys stay in? do you guys shift?

 

there's your problem, you got #2 and #1 backwards, that's why #5 and #6 is happening..

 

to do what? you just keep your car in the "sweet spot" of the power band if you want the best throttle response out of your motor.

 

Trust me, I learned really quick on that one. 4-wheel drift, caught it and got a bollocking from my instructor,

Brake in a straight line, and never accelerate WOT unless you know you're not going to need to let off until the next corner.

 

...well at least you lived to tell the tale

 

yes, if I was your instructor, I would have done the same thing, only I would really make it that your focus all weekend long until you can demonstrate threshold braking as if it was second nature, then I would move you onto trail braking which by then you dont have to worry about turning the steering wheel so much to get the car to rotate and put that AWD to your advantage.