steering w/the go pedal

[DARISC]

Throttle steering videos - anyone?

[DaddyGlenn]

After hearing about throttle steering and having a basic understanding of how it worked for years, I stumbled on it during an autocross a couple months ago. It was an eye opening experience.

I have an in-car video of some autocross runs where I used throttle steering but it is such a subtle action that you can't see it. As the driver, you can sense it by the seat of the pants very easily but it is not really visible from the outside.

Throttle steering allows you to turn the car by transitioning from slight understeer to slight oversteer and vice versa.

In my limited use, I go into a corner with the front end pushing just a bit then when needed, I lift off the throttle ever so slightly to shift the weight forward and transition the car to an oversteer condition which brings the back end around a tad. When the front is pointed where I want it, which is usually only a couple of degrees of rotation, I'm back on the gas.

In autocross the turns are pretty short but on the occasional "sweeper" I'm off and on the gas several times through the turn.

I haven't gotten good enough to use it through a slalom yet. But I have video of several failed attempts.

You need to get on a track and discover it. Don't attempt it if you are not willing to spin a few times or run off course.

[jester911]

I have no video but I stumbled onto it like Glenn did. I was at a DE this last weekend and I was working on getting on the throttle at or before the apex a little earlier each time.

I went into a turn that requires a little braking and then turn in.

When I went to the throttle it felt a little hot so I lifted slightly. The rear rotated a little and suddenly the car was pointed exactly where I wanted it to go so I got hard on the gas.

What an awesome feeling. I was able to reproduce the same thing a few times when I had a clear track.

I don't have it down perfectly but I do feel like I can now practice it and get better with it.

I think you really have to have a good connection with the balance of your car to attempt this.
I have had my car for about nine years and have really only driven it on the track the last 3 years. I think I am just now getting the real feel of my car mostly from the last couple track days.

As for video I am not sure that it would be very detectable on film. If the video had good audio as well you might be able to hear the slight lift in throttle but I am not sure you could really see the car rotation unless a car was following the one doing the throttle steering.

[Quicksilver]

We teach throttle steer on a wet skidpad with a circle of cones to go around. The later model 4wd cars are useless for this. You need something that will get loose. What you do is get the car going round and round in a circle and bring the speed up until the circle just starts getting bigger. At this point you want to stop moving the steering wheel, just lock it in place.

As you add throttle your circle will get bigger. When you let off of the throttle the car will turn in. If you let off sharply it will turn in sharply and aim you right at the cones. What I like to get the students to do is get the circle fairly large, lift to turn it in so their arc will intersect the cones, and then add gas to increase the arc so they miss the center cones.

By holding the wheel completely still you can make your circle become triangular or egg shaped just by using the gas. It is a pretty easy exercise and it teaches a lot in a hurry. Most people get it so they can play comfortably with the concept in a couple minutes. The real trick is getting this pounded into the back of your head so your reflexes do this automatically. Just do it for a few years...


As far as getting a video about this. It would be very hard to get anything that would show on video except in a case where you got hugely sideways and stomped the gas to reel it back in. (got an ugly vid with just that) In the more common useage this is subtle enough that even a passenger isn't really aware of it because they can't feel the feedback from the steering wheel that tells you that you are shifting back and forth between push and loose.

[RarlyL8]

I don't do enough track events to have the terminology down.

The action (or reaction) you all are describing is what I have always called lift-throttle steering. What I have always refered to as throttle steering is the action of stabbing the throttle to induce controlled temporary oversteer when needed. Add some speed and balanced understeer and they now call it drifting.

So what is the correct terminology for stabbing the throttle to induce oversteer if lifting the throttle to reduce understeer is called throttle streering?

[Jandrews]

I'll add my limited experience here...

My thought is that there are two different things being discussed here. Throttle steering, and trailing throttle oversteer. Maybe they are the same thing, but I have used what I call throttle steering more in high speed sweepers where you want to keep your car on the line and make sure you are in the right place to apex and exit the turn properly. Then trailing throttle oversteer I have used when ENTERING a turn, to help get the car rotated at the proper turn-in point. This is fun and really helps to make your turns smooth when you get it just right. I believe technically it is the very early stages of a spin, but done right it can make you faster. I am no expert, so this could be a little bit less than precise.

So in summary, from my experience, throttle steering is used DURING a turn, and trailing throttle oversteer is used in conjunction with threshhold braking when ENTERING a turn.

Thoughts?

JA

[JonT]

isnt it just "throttle-induced oversteer" or "throttle-induced understeer" with "throttle steering" being the term that covers both and the others being more specific?

[DARISC]

Quicksilver describes EXACTLY what I'm referring to very clearly.

More specifically put, my request is for videos of cars in drifts where it is visually aparent that the car is in a turn on the limit of adhesion, its front wheels not being steered, yet the car visibly changing course through the turn.

I make a distinction here between "drifting" and "sliding", the former involving keeping the car in the very narrow range between being totally stuck and totally broken loose, the latter being totally broken loose (perhaps a fine point, but I look at the "sport" called drifting more as "sliding").

Opposite steering lock is employed to maintain control in both cases, generally to a larger degree and for a shorter period of time when "sliding" (unless it's a luridly long slide that pretty rapidly scrubs off speed - and tires) than when "drifting" where the car is in a state of yaw in the narrow range between total adhesion and total loss of adhesion, its back end moving in and out, thereby altering the line, by varying throttle rather than steering input, the steering wheel remaining in the same position, as the throttle is used to vary the attitude of the car, (once set).

Drifting through corners is the fastest way through, sliding is the slowest.

Whatever the terminology for throttle/brake/steering input used to set the car on the limit of adhesion in a turn, I'm using "throttle steer" here to describe how the car is steered once it is in the turn and on that limit.

My post was prompted by my delight with how amenable my tail heavy SC (my first Porsche, for just over two years now) is to throttle steering compared to other sports cars I've owned.

As Quicksilver says, 4wd cars are useless for the excercise on a wet skidpad and low powered cars don't have the power to sustain a drift on dry pavement (I couldn't wait to graduate from my Bugeye to my 100 4, which just barely had enough power to sustain a drift if the speed was high enough).

The first thing I did when I bought my SC (and my past sports cars as well) was look for a wet parking lot where I could get a sense of the cars balance and dynamics. I believe that finding a car's handling limits, to the point of "losing" it and learning how to recover, should be basic to all driver's ed. courses. Of course, putting a car into a drift on a dry surface other than at the track is nuts considering the speeds involved to get into that dynamic range.

Quicksilver has the right approach in my book - got any videos Bud?

[Zeke]

Before the modern concept of drifting, I think people would use a term like slip angle. Today's drifting is no more than driving in a slide as the dirt track cars and bikes do. No one uses the gas and the steering wheel anymore than a dirt sprint car.

Drive behind anyone on the paved track and you can see the car drift, shift, back end come out, all kinds of movement. The better the driver, the more subtle.

[DARISC]

"Drive behind anyone on the paved track and you can see the car drift, shift, back end come out, all kinds of movement. The better the driver, the more subtle."

Yup.

[masraum]

I've always considered TTO, power on oversteer, and power on understeer to all be steering with the throttle. I believe that steering with the throttle refers to any action that causes the car to change directions due to change in throttle.

So if you hit the gas to get some oversteer, you've just caused the car to changed direction based on throttle input which would be steering with the throttle. If you let off a bit mid corner to get the front end to bite and the rear to get a bit loose, you've changed the attitude of the car with throttle input which is throttle steering, and if you get a little into the gas to induce understeer mid corner, you again, changed the turning radius of the corner that your car is taking which means that you've steered it in a different direction using the throttle which to me would again be throttle steering. Drifting, trail braking and understeer at corner exit are all types of throttle steering in my book.

[stlrj]

Take a look at this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viL8A1QCP_U


Joe

[dentist90]

You'll notice in this video that the drivers use either: i) trailing throttle ii)hand brake application and/or iii) "flick" rally driving manouevre to induce the initial oversteer. The drift (controlled throttle oversteer) is then maintained by keeping on-throttle to keep the car rotating. Not the fastest way around a course, but obviously these drivers have an excellent feel for their car's balance!

[DARISC]

They do indeed. The cars are in controlled slides, however - yes, definitely not the fastest way around the course.

A drift, in the original usage of the term, is where the contact patches are "creeping" (drifting), not sliding, towards the outside of the turn, just on the verge of breaking loose into a slide. This IS the fastest way around a curve since speed isn't scrubbed off as it is when the car is pushed past this point and begins sliding.

I just find it fun to make certain distinctions for the sake of making certain distinctions (I still think the "sport" of "drifting" would correctly be called "sliding").

If a violinist dents his violin, should he have a dentist remove the dent?

[dentist90]

Originally posted by DARISC
If a violinist dents his violin, should he have a dentist remove the dent?

A: No. It is now a Fiddle. Call a fiddler.

[nostatic]

I don't see the use in a video. It is all feel. We do the abovementioned skid pad exercise in our driver clinics (although with a dry skidpad). When I first did it as a student, that's when the heavens opened up, and I was first addicted to the track.

There is some semantic ambiguity, but here's my take:

throttle steering refers to the use of the throttle to change the direction of the car while in a turn. In our cars, this is usually done by a slight lift, inducing rotation of the rear end (oversteer, technically trailing throttle oversteer), then application of power to plant the rear wheels again in the new direction. You can also induce oversteer by violent application of throttle while in a turn (depends on the car though...amount of hp, tires, speed, etc).

Trail braking is the application of brakes while turning the car. That doesn't qualify as throttle steering to me, but is often the fastest way into/through a corner.