Driving Style:FF AutoX

NYSpeed Automotive
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With Spring just around the corner I thought a thread for tips on driving styles might be something people can get into.

I am by no means a “great” driver by my standards but I thought i could share with you guys what i have learned in my few seasons of autocross in a FF car.

It is my belief that any FF car can be driven with a similar style. Subtle differences will show depending on your car’s setup.

We will start with corner entry. Trailbraking is the fastest way to get a FF car into a corner. What trailbraking means is to overlap the transition from braking to turning. What?? Think of it like this, as you approach a corner you have already selected how much you need to slow down in order to make the corner. Trailbraking requires you to brake just a gnats ass hair later. And as you reach the end of your brake zone you will begin to turn the wheel towards the apex as you let off the brakes. To what degree you overlap your braking and turning actions will depend on the corner, slaloms less, hairpins more.

WHAT TO EXPECT: Because you are beginning your turn with the car’s weight foreward, because your on the brakes, this will cause the front end to have more grip then the rear. Your front wheels will begin to make the turn, your rear tires will follow. Because you have less weight on the rear, the rear of your car will begin to step away from the apex. Essentially, oversteer.

Next, now that we have started the car rotating we need to use this to our advantage. One thing that you will notice is that since the car is now drifting once you let off the brakes you are still scrubbing speed off. This will allow you to keep the car going a little faster a little longer.

You will also need to adjust your steering input. Trailbraking requires a little more input on turn in and A LOT less input after the drift starts , so be ready to counter steer even.

So now we’ve got a car that is rotating around the corner very nicely. No gross embarassing FWD push. So what now?

How do I make it to stop sliding?

This was by far the most difficult aspect of gaining speed in a FF car for me. The next step is once you feel it is time to stop the extra rotation, gather the car back up, you need to apply the throttle. WHAT?? The only way you will regain grip in the rear wheels in your car is to transfer weight back.

If you have a low power FF car, stomp the go pedal. Its tough but it works. This will regain the rear of the car and allow you to finish the turn with extra speed, because of the extra rotation you’ve already achieved at entry.

Left foot braking is also a large time saver. This will allow you to add brake and throttle adjustments mid turn if need be. If your car is pushing, touch the brake just a bit to try and get the rear to brealk away. If the your overrotating, well we already went over that.

What left foot braking will allow you to do is have less transition time between the brake and the throttle. Giving you a quicker respone to the balance of the car will allow you to ride close to the edge of your mechanical grip.

How i taught myself was just to drive around on the street and whenever i could use my left foot to slow the car to a stop. Shift into neutral before you start to slow, trust me it sucks if you dont. This will teach you how to learn to modulate using your left instead of your right foot.

Once you have mastered left foot braking you can now use it to trail brake with if you dont need to change gears for the corner exit. This gives you the advantage on being ready on the gas if you over-do the rotation on turn in and need to gather the car back up qiuckly.

Thats all for now, my head hurts.

Any questions, comments, input, feel free to add.

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:tup:

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This also works for most AWD cars, since the ratio from factory is more biased to the front (sometimes by as much as over 70%). Good post :tup:

Those lucky enough to have VCDs can shift the ratio backwards (STi) so things may change if you start messing around with that

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i was experimenting with that towards teh end of last yr…but my car had terrible understeer…but i have fixed that problem somewhat…so ill keep on testign it at Novice school…plus i have much better brakes so braking later will be a better possibility

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the biggest thing now for you to do is go out and OVER do it a few times. take a run and tell yourself its a throw away and try and find the limit of how far you can take it this will steepen the learnign curve quite a bit.

Rick,
I have found the style to be very similar to most AWD cars with the exception that after the drift is induced that with a decently powered car or even a lwo power car on a wet surface you can get into a decent overpower drift after and on rainy courses that can really give you an advantage.

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i actually did that overpower drift in the rain and ended up with a faster time than me in the dry.

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If you have terrible understeer, you are going too hot into the corners. FWD is tough because you are asking the front tires to do 2 things at once: accelerate/decelerate and alter direction.

Think of the max potential grip of a tire as an empty bucket. You have 2 buckets next to it, both full with water. The first is acc/decel. The second is altering direction ( turning ). You can fill it up with 100% acc/decel water but then you have 0% turning water ( no turn ability ). Or you can fill it with 100% turn water which will give you no acceleration ability. You can also split the difference and use 50% of the space for accel and 50% of the space for turn. But neither with be 100% usage so you have neither max turn nor max accel.

So, extending this analogy, the size of hte “grip” bucket is the amount of potential grip which you can increase with contact patch, tire compound, etc changes. But no matter how big you make the bucket ( how much grip you have ) you can always overfill the bucket at which point you slide/push/spin the tires.

So what am I getting at? If you asking a tire to slow your car down AND turn, you will do neither very efficiently. Unfortunately FWD ALWAYS have to play this game because the front wheels turn and drive. So if you find your self rolling tires, pushing like crazy, etc, try slowing early and apply throttle as you unwind the wheel after apexing and getting the car to rotate ( alter direction). Just realize there are really 2 ways to get a car to rotate: use the front to grip and change direction or allow the rear to “slip” and rotate around the fronts. Sometimes the “slip” method is faster as most FWD’ers will tell you but in reality its best if you use as much grip as possible instead of reducing rear grip to help rotation.

What trail breaking really does is “ungrips” the rear/shifts the moment so it will come around allowing a shallower angle of attack for the front tires so more can be used for the actual turn and helps start the rotation ( the slide if you will ).

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Besides the fact you suck ;), the reason was probably because the rotational help from the drift took less time to handle than the push was slowing you down. Still not the fastest way, but definitely faster in that case.

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Haha, I must be one of the few FF drivers with massive oversteer issues in the SLO. Really need to get new parts for the suspension. :slight_smile:

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Its not impossible to get massive oversteer in a fwd. Take a Type-R and slap some 245 autocross tires on the front and 225 street tires on the rear. Why? dunno but it will fucking rotate. Will it be fast and predictable? Nope. :smiley:

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Question: When are you coming back to buffalo to drive the good ole 333 car again?

Comment: This car has crazy linear power now, and a helical LSD. You don’t know what you’re missing. It is a much different feel now.

Input: I would like to reiterate the point of practicing left foot braking on the street. It’s not an “intense” situation where you’re going all out and it’s the perfect place to learn. Even try it on the street around turns and feel how much it flattens out the car.

Also as for controlling the oversteer. That’s such a huge thing to get used to when you are first learning. You feel that oversteer and get freaked out and your natural reaction is usually to lift which will throw you right around. You can’t be afraid to keep your foot into the gas once you are oversteering. We’ve all done this concept just fine in the snow at low speeds, it’s a similar thing, only you’re going faster and there is much more grip.

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Great question. I’d come watch for sure. :smiley:

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Vaild point but how many people have that issue in a taurus with 225s all around. :slight_smile:

Very good article though should be helpful once I finish the suspension up.

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For awd/rwd, giving more gas in the middle of a turn also works to add rotation if you have MILD understeer. I have found that if my car is pushing through a turn, mashing the gas near the apex will load more weight towards the outside wheels (if I’m turning right, more weight loaded on the left wheels) resulting in a tightening of my turning radius.

Also, if you find yourself going way too fast in a long sweeper, don’t get off the gas/slam on the brakes like I did my 2nd event last year. Throttle lift oversteer killed around 5 cones that run :lol:

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I am also going to run not quite as sticky tires in the rear …lbut we will see

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DAMN you… and your active diffs.

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I hope this summer although when i left buffalo a certain someone with a white DSM offered me their car anytime i wished and that may be fun also.

But andy I would hate to come back and beat you in your own car that would just be rude.
:stuck_out_tongue:

and sean I also like the analogy of the grip circle same idea but easier to draw on paper

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Did you ever get to drive my car? i forget. ask kevin or tom what they thought hehe

I think tom still wonders how i completed entire runs w/out spinning, then again sometimes I do too

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That would be completely fine by me. I was actually dying to have yeoh co-drive the last RIT event w/me after the WNY season was over but I blew a headgasket :frowning:

I think I’m going to try to get Dale to co-drive an event or two with me. I honestly believe providing the evilly sweet B-mod car doesn’t show, my car is an FTD machine with the right driver. I want to see what I should be capable of and work towards it. Last season, I was consistantly (providing no mechanical problems) anywhere from 1-1.5 secs faster than Carrie in her hatch. Now during fun runs, her FIRST TIME in my hatch, I believe she beat her best of the day in her own car. Yeoh drove her hatch and basically matched my best time in my car. And he continued to say he could easily get another second outta her car. So by deduction, I’m assuming with a good driver, my car could easily be at least ~2-3 seconds faster than the times I’m putting up. Hence I’m dying for a GOOD FF driver to show me what this beast is capable of. Hence the reason for no major changes to the car other than seats and harnesses, I need more driver mods.

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This isn’t fantasy auto-x, you can’t just plug in random hotshoe drivers each week to get your car points :stuck_out_tongue: