Driving Techniques Dos and Don'ts - Page 2

Widowmaker · Mar 3, 2003, 11:24 PM

a good technique for front wheel drive cars is "left foot braking" you probably already use it but anyway its a good one to learn. when you are coming up to a corner you first select a gear that will take you the WHOLE way through the corner then you transfer your left foot to the brake pedal and keeping your right foot on the accelerator you then go into the turn and you can balance the car using the accelerator and brake and you can go much faster then you could just accelerating. for more over steer use for accelerator for more oversteer use more brake but normally just keep the accelerator planted to the floor and use the brake to do the balancing. Now this isnt somthing you can do strait away you will end up locking up the brakes or somthing silly the first time so try it in a parking lot before trying it at 60mph around a sharp bend, you will see alot of rally drivers using this technique when they have that "Foot view camera" its a good one to learn to get out there and try it

edit , oh yeah just to show how good this technique is i was using it once and the sideways force was that great even with stock suspension that i got fuel surge and the engine cut out for a second. now you couldnt do that driving normally .... or atleast without spinning out

sdhotwn · Apr 2, 2003, 08:14 PM

When I shift I tend to spool the engine clear to 5800 (I think... mind blanking now that I type it) if I'm driving hard. Reason being that the gear ratios in our car usually drop you about 2500 to 3000 rpms coming off the shift.. The trick is that our lancers have all their torque concentrated from about 3200 rpms to 4500 rpms. You can also get it to spool through the rpms a little faster at the top with the acceleration you have given yourself. I've played with shifting at different points when trying to get going fast. I think a good example is the fact that if you are at 60 mph and have to execute a pass you can drop to third gear to get the best kick, but you run out of it real fast and need to get to 4th to finish the pass. I think at that drop you are running almost 4.5K so that's my two cents.. but please do correct me if you think I'm crazy

Also... from a mech engineering student (me) the reason for break in is to correctly polish and lubricate all the journal bearings (two smooth surfaces seperated by about a thousandth of an inch of oil and nothing else) before they undergo heavy stresses that could compromise the quality of the surface. For those who felt that breaking it in hard right away was best... well the reason is because you wear in the patterns faster from the stresses and thus things move and run smoother... but that doesn't mean they were worn in BETTER.

Lastly... the rev limiter on our engines protect us from most of the possibility of damage to the car. As long as you aren't pegging it up there at 6000K then you aren't likely to cause too much damage. The rev limiter is at 6.5K last time I glanced after hitting it because I was concentrating on other things.

ChillinEvoVIII · May 30, 2003, 04:08 AM

lol left foot braking? LOL.... all wheel drive turbo...... lol " YOU will go faster while having left foot on brake and accelerating on turns " yo.... wat kinda crack are u on.....lol..... i would never try to race you on some twisties... u would probably drift into my lane.... actually wait no.... i would have my pedal floored to the ground and be about 100121829128192891 feet ahead of you out of the turn..

Crufty Dusty · May 30, 2003, 04:49 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by sdhotwn
Lastly... the rev limiter on our engines protect us from most of the possibility of damage to the car. As long as you aren't pegging it up there at 6000K then you aren't likely to cause too much damage. The rev limiter is at 6.5K last time I glanced after hitting it because I was concentrating on other things.

Interesting that you should mention this cos I saw a video of a stock JDM E8 GSR and the guy was way past the 7K redline. IIRC he said the rev limit was at 7600 RPM. On my previous car (E7 GSR) I hit 7000 RPM at least once a week.

Widowmaker · May 30, 2003, 06:50 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ChillinEvoVIII
lol left foot braking? LOL.... all wheel drive turbo...... lol " YOU will go faster while having left foot on brake and accelerating on turns " yo.... wat kinda crack are u on.....lol..... i would never try to race you on some twisties... u would probably drift into my lane.... actually wait no.... i would have my pedal floored to the ground and be about 100121829128192891 feet ahead of you out of the turn..

To who it may concern,

Of the matter of left foot braking I was addressing the front wheel drive lancer models not the lan evo model's which are four wheel drive. But on the same token if you are a professional racer you can still find this techinque usefull it is called "trail braking". But ofcourse more then likely youve never heard of trail braking either since you have spent more on your car then on driver training and i could assume you do not have a high motorsport license. Thank you for making such a fool of yourself and giving Heart beat motor enthusiests a bad name.

Thank you
Widowmaker.

sdhotwn · May 30, 2003, 08:42 AM

Every car has a different rev limit... the USDM Lancer has a rev limit at 6500 like I said... other cars have them much higher. I have a buddy with a B16 swap on his civic and he has a rev limit at 9K so it all depends on the car.

Amen widowmaker. Left foot braking is very very much a valid technique and for AWD cars. I think most of the time it is used for non-drifting high speed turns as it becomes necessary to try and balance the car while maintaining as much acceleration as possible. You can't do fine balancing jumping your foot from left to right between gas and braking. They wouldn't teach left foot braking in racing schools if it wasn't for real. And to throw another misunderstood item on top of this pile, they also teach double - clutching in racing schools but as the instructor put it when it was brought up, "It's too hard and too advanced of a technique to try and teach most people but it is very useful" Since I don't claim to know how to do the proper double clutching (which I assume is more complicated than what we often assume it to be) and I haven't taken the driving classes that I want to take yet I'm not going to try and claim otherwise.

My point is that there are a hell of a lot of techniques and racing terms out there that we may think we do or don't know about but very few of us have taken driving classes on high levels, so don't be trying to trash something when in the end you don't know what you are talking about.

hottires23 · May 31, 2003, 02:54 AM

Why do people go off the deep end when they cant even swim.

Great Tai Chi approach Widowmaker .... let him beat his self up.

EvoAndyUK · Jun 8, 2003, 08:27 PM

Hi Guys,

Most days when a impreza is close behind me i rev my Evo 7 FQ300 up to the rev limiter which is set by Mitsu at i think its about 7800 rpm or maybe 7900 rpm and its still going well.

My red zone on my rev counter starts at 7000 rpm and ends at 9000rpm what does it read on the US version?

If the engine goes BANG! i will take it back to my Mitsu Dealer and they can fit me a new engine under warrenty

I think the US Evos max out at what 6500rpm, it should be atleast 7500rpm i think.

Drive carefull guys

bobaab · Jun 8, 2003, 08:33 PM

actually he was talking about the US LANCERS not the Evo's here. im pretty sure the Evos here have a rev limiter set at 7500 u said anyways though.

mama's evo7 · Jul 19, 2003, 08:46 PM

evo is a rally or circuit machine. Not a drifting car. I mean you can drift but not for beginners or even some experienced drifters. If you really want to learn to drift you should get an rear wheel drive car.IE 86 corolla, rx7, silvia, etc.. My father is friends with an agent who represents Japan's most famous drifter.(Tsuchiya Keiichi or aka "Drift King") That is what he recommends.

NumptyScrub · Aug 4, 2003, 07:46 AM

Re: shifting, I normally change up at 6000+ when driving hard, and anything up to 3000 in town (or "normal") driving (stock engines have the peak torque from 3000-6000 rpm). I very rarely let the car go on boost if I'm just pottering around in traffic. Oh, this in in an Evo 6, btw

Re: revlimits, the Evo 4G63 engines normally hit the limiter at 7600 (ECU dependant, if you buy an aftermarket ECU you can adjust this yourself).

Re: drifting, although it is easier to get a rwd car drifting, it is also much harder to control that drift. By far the "safest" cars for drifting are fwd or a 4wd with an understeer bias under acceleration (like the Evo has with the factory geometry settings

), since you can use the accelerator to try and shift the car from oversteer (drifting) into understeer. In the Evo GSR models, the AYC will also be actively trying to stop the car oversteering too, which also helps control the car.

It will be much harder to control a Viper RT-10 (powerful rwd)in a drift than it will an Evo 8 GSR. I stand a chance of handling an Evo if it lets go, if I was in an RT-10 I would be toast.

fastmarsh · Aug 18, 2003, 09:46 AM

have any of you tried autocrossing? It is certainly one of the most fun that you can have with the car. It is in a controlled enviroment, requires driver skill (NOTE: Driver skill, not a fast car) and it will make you a much better driver.

I toolk mine yesterday and had a ball. I ran on street tires and ended up beating everone in stock, except for a ZO6 that was on Hoosier Auto-X tires. This car in A-stock is exceptional and should give them all a run for their money. You could run it in ESP if you have made some mos (IE: Lowered, Intake, Exhaust) .

Also getting a good alignment is the way to go as well. Look for these events under an autocross search or link to SCCA.org for info.

sdhotwn · Aug 18, 2003, 08:12 PM

I have autocrossed with my OZ Lancer and it is a hell of a lot of fun and an all out blast and a great chance to learn driving skill. Typically pretty cheap too as our events cost about 20 to 30 bucks for the council that runs most of them. It is similar to SCCA.. but I also HIGHLY recommend the sport to anyone who is serious about cars and ejoys driving.

zcyph · Sep 4, 2003, 07:29 PM

cool thread.. i gotta try some of this stuff some time!! (autocross etc)

So the regular lancer is just FWD right? i dont have AWD do I!? :P

so you guys are saying drifting would be more difficult in my camaro than in my lancer? Despite my z28 needing an alignment I feel much safer in it most of the time.. just doesn't feel like a tin can

i also like the way the cam handles, much more solid. i know i can't compare the two cars, but i feel a lot better gaining control of a skid in a rwd camaro than in a fwd econobox.. i guess the lancer evo's would be a whole diff story tho! man, just the regular lancer is pretty peppy.. the evo must rock ass

datsun boy · Nov 21, 2003, 10:06 AM

AH Auto cross! Hey all, I was at a BMW event and just about beat out all the BMW's out there but they had a interesting course absticle that troubled me. They had a turning circle that cost me a lot of time. Looks like the EVO 8 has a really bad turning radius. This was my second autocross event. Anyone have a good tecknique for those turn abouts? It was a full 360 plus and a quarter. Hey but we beat out the new 2003 M3! But we could have done better!