Originally Posted by Wyodaniel

I didn't know that they started the factory launch control in 2005, that's good to know.

Originally Posted by Veronica

A lot good informed advice here in this thread (and it includes other posts too [rolls eyes])... Steve knows what he is talking about! Listen to him.

My $.02:
1. Please take the time to read, 'Going Faster' or any other serious primary racing instruction. I see a lot of the principles explained in the forum - but they really only scratch the surface for the detail you need to really understand what the car is doing and why....

2. Get to a track event (even if it is only modified carts) to put it into practice. Porsche Club (and other marquee auto clubs) does this as a High Performance Driving Experience. SCCA should be your best friend. Go to one of their events just to observe!

Why? Because you need to know how much you don't know about performance driving. But hey! You are reading this post so you do care. And that is a great start!

Originally Posted by sdhotwn

Well, first of all my apology. I was in a bad mood, a hurry, and tired last night and wasn't as corgial as I'd like to be in my last post. There are enough jerks and arrogant people on the forums already, I don't need to be one of them. So thanks for being cool and not being a jerk like me in return!

As far as the avatar on the left... does it show up in your options when you are looking at your own profile? Just check that you are showing a custom avatar in your personal setup on here.

Now as far as your responses....

Maybe your friends just can't drive ... but honestly... I can see what you are saying about the 90 degree turn and so forth. Yes it can be easier to get the car to rotate with the e-brake, I wouldn't argue otherwise. But a properly setup car can be biased by the operator to induce the rotation necessary. A properly setup car is neutrally balanced, meaning in a sharp turn or at the limit all 4 tires should slip around the same time (no not drifting, or power sliding, just adhesion limit all at the same time). Then a good driver or someone really familiar with their car can use the brakes just right to induce the tail to come around a little bit in the turn and that is the ideal way to take a lot of turns and is referred to a lot of times as trail-braking.. but it is a slight derivative of that technique.

There is no such thing as a 90 degree turn in actuality . When you are racing or auto-xing you will never take any turn as a 90 degree.. You end up modifying the line of everything to make it a little wider overall.

Left foot braking is really for balancing the vehicle through a bit more of an extended turn or for keeping up rpm's when you have a turbo. It's a completely separate and independent thing of heel toe shifting. In actuality they are mututally exclusive. You can't do both at the same time! It also will not heat your rotors and pads any worse than than the stress they are undergoing during hard braking when cornering quickly. And rotors will only warp when your lugs are torqued improperly or you allow large amounts of water to be splashed on them, or you get them hot and then let the brakes be held onto the rotor (which results in imaging where an image of the brake pad is left on the rotor and can cause carbon depositing and uneven cooling that will give the rotor a "warped" feeling).

You can still take a 90 degree turn faster if you do not hand brake it... think about it from the standpoint that you only have so much traction available in total. Say 10 points per corner cruising down the road at whatever speed... when you lock a set of tires you exceed their adhesion limits and will essentially drop their traction value to say 2 points out of the 10 they had. Under proper cornering you would in theory have a traction distribution of say 15 points on the outer tires, and 3 points on the inner tires (notice that you do not have the full 40 points... you never have as much traction in cornering as you do laid out flat and completely corner balanced). Now if you are e-braking that same corner you would in theory have 15 and 3 up front, but only 1 and 1 in back... so obviously with less traction you have less ability to hold cornering g-forces and thus by the simple immutable laws of physics you will not be able to have as high of a cornering speed overall.

Then the next important thing is your entry and exit speed. Which is probably where you are feeling you are gaining. But again, apexed and balanced properly a non rear locked turn will be MUCH faster.

I did sort of think you meant to hold it longer... but again even if you are just doing it to induce the position the problem lies in that you have unbalanced the car and there is a certain amount of settling time inherent in a suspension before the vehicle will take a "set" which is the what you need for taking a solid and proper corner.

But basically any time you lock any tires for any reason before or during a turn you will pretty much be guaranteed to be slower than someone with very good car control and balance and a good racing line. And yes you can take a good racing line to some extent on EVERY corner even in daily driving. But when daily driving you have to alter your view of the "course" to only include your lane so the line you take may be other than the "ideal" line for the actual pavement, but you want to pursue the ideal line for the case where the pavement would be only what your lane actually is.

But you should want to always learn to properly late apex and roll on when driving.. when you learn to get it right the car feels amazing... first time I learned to properly trail brake and roll on through a late apex I couldn't believe how natural and amazing it felt!

Now as far as the flat spots... any time you lock a tire you put a flat spot on it. Doesn't matter how long or how short... that only alters how severe the flat spot is. For example I locked my tires this weekend at my race (getting used to new brake pads is bad when it's on the race course!!!!) and only slid the tires probably a good 10 feet at max with them locked and I have bad enough flat spots on my tires that I can feel and hear them when I drive around right now. So every time you lock your rear tires you are putting on a flat spot on them. Depending on how soft your tires are and how long you are locked will determine how bad the spots are.

Hope that helps and was a fair bit more civil!

Later.

Steve