jon hill

ok - an offshoot from last sundays donnington track day postmortom (coming out of the "track event" forum...), for the technical drivers out there.

Whats the best way to get round the Melbourne hairpin at donno in the wet ?

I'm in a fwd integra; if I go in slow, it takes ages to turn the car, then ages before I can get any power down (fighting understeer).

If I go in fast, trail the brakes and let the back swing round and nail it when i'm pointing in the right direction it definatly "feels" faster. But is it ? (its more fun for sure )

Or... is this what left foot braking was invented for ? (though this is beyond my capabilities.... ). Maybe even the hand brake ??

Also, should a different technique be used in an awd scooby to a fwd itr ?

any takers ?

jon

Neil Smalley

Check put

jon hill

yep - i'm familiar with it & theres some good stuff there, but it focuses more on each technique rather than when its best to use each one. (still cant do them though )

I guess my confusion is that my understanding is that generally "smooth is best"; hanging the back out, etc, slows you down. So the quickest way would be to brake in a straight line, turn in and get the power on as soon as possible. But it seems so much slower than the dramatic swinging the back of the car round. Is it really slower or does it just seem slower coz its less dramatic ?

jon

Mungo

I'm not a technique guru, but I'd say that chucking it around a corner on the handbrake isn't always a bad thing - Messrs McRase and Burns seem to think it's the quickest way in certain circumstances....

IWatkins

Jon,

Maybe left foot braking would be your best bet. Give it go if you can find somewhere safe.

Late last year I went on the Left Foot Braking course with Pentti A. I was suprised how quickly you could get a FWD car to turn on crappy/wet surfaces. A real eye opener.

Most of the hire cars I get from Avis for work are FWD. Had many a fun time using left foot braking to get around roundabouts on the way to Bracknell in the wet

Cheers

Ian

jon hill

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by IWatkins:
<B>Jon,

Maybe left foot braking would be your best bet. Give it go if you can find somewhere safe.

Late last year I went on the Left Foot Braking course with Pentti A. I was suprised how quickly you could get a FWD car to turn on crappy/wet surfaces. A real eye opener.

[/quote]

thats half the problem - very few places in central london to practice

whats the course that you mention ?

jon

MorayMackenzie

Sure, LFB will help... but for ultimate cornering of an integra on a wet hairpin you need:

1. Passenger with good throwing arm.
2. Grappeling (sp) hook or anchor from small boat.
3. Length of strong rope.

I shall leave the rest of the details for you to work out...

Moray

carl

Nice thought Moray, but isn't the Melbourne hairpin a right-hander? Could be painful for the driver...

BryanC

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by carl:
<B>Nice thought Moray, but isn't the Melbourne hairpin a right-hander? Could be painful for the driver... [/quote]

So just make sure you're driving a left hooker

Or - for the really inspired - an F1 - and have a passenger on each side of you

brickboy

Tricky one this -- I think the BTCC way (most of those are FWD) would be to go in deep, peel in late then use the left foot to keep the nose into the apex. Once you're powering out then it should sort itself out.

The smooth vs. scruff-of-the-neck approach is like comparing Prost with Senna: who's quickest?

SDB

I've missed these types of thread!

ok..

firstly.. GOOD POINT in that

Jza

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by MorayMackenzie:
<B>Sure, LFB will help... but for ultimate cornering of an integra on a wet hairpin you need:

1. Passenger with good throwing arm.
2. Grappeling (sp) hook or anchor from small boat.
3. Length of strong rope.

I shall leave the rest of the details for you to work out...

Moray[/quote]

Moray,

Have you been watching too many Batman films recently or does your scooby have a Bat Rope as an optional extra? If so, do you know if Prodrive do one?



Jza

jon hill

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by Simon de Banke:
<B>

You are aiming for only a TINY TINY amount of a drift... enough to force the slip angle of each tyre into it's optimum. If you've got it right, your steering wheel will be almost straight and you will be turning through the bend.
[/quote]


mmm... practise required I think. My left foot is digital - either nothing, or the brake on the floor.

DavidRB

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by Simon de Banke:
<B>Brake into through the braking zone normally, but only use the left hand side of your right foot on the peddle, leaving the left had side of the brake peddle free...

once into second, switch feet over smoothly by gently supporting the brake peddle with your left foot on the spare left hand side half of the peddle, then slipping your right foot off.[/quote]I can only <I>dream</I> of car control like this...

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by Simon de Banke:
<B>(PRACTICE THIS IN A VERY WIDE SAFE ENVIRONMENT FIRST)[/quote]Where's Britain's biggest car park?

Skippy

Jon

To help the left foot braking i used to do it to stop at junctions etc, nothing flash just straight line stuff, gets you used to the feel of the brake in the left foot, then when you needed it it wasn't so strange, i still do it if for no other reason than to keep my foot in so to speak.

Skip.

SDB

Good advice skippy.

It is important to COMPLETELY get rid of the lead foot syndrome before LFBing on the road... and then be COMPLETELY competent at it (it needs to be second nature) before you use it in any circumstances other than COMPLETELY open roads and slow speeds.

I tend to LFB almost all the time on the road now (particularly if it's wet or greasy) for a couple of reasons...

1) If something nasty happens it affords a lot more control over the car... bare in mind it will make matters MUCH worse if you don't know what you're doing

2) It reduces reaction time by up to .3 of a second, which is a bloody long way at 70MPH.

But in order for it to be really safe you need to be able to tap dance away on the peddles and shuffle around without thinking about it.

Cheers

Simon

PS. DavidRB.. kind words mate, but it really isn't difficult at all.. just takes a lot of practice.

Brendan Hughes

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by DavidRB:
Where's Britain's biggest car park? [/B]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

M25, I thought...

SimonB

Re LFB

An easy way of teaching your left foot how to be smooth and progressive rather than a switch. Borrow or hire an automatic, a couple of weekends practice will bring an improved level of sensitivity to your left foot.

I rarely use LFB on the road in the Scooby but always do whenever I step back into an auto, even with a 1-2 year gap in between each.

Cheers, Simon.

[This message has been edited by SimonB (edited 18 April 2001).]

Skippy

I find the skill really useful on motorways in fog, we all know how dangerous it is but as Simon says a little quicker on the reactions makes a big difference in stopping distances, you then just worry about the people behind !!!!

Try'd tonight on the way home, been a while but when you learn it its like riding a bike !!!

Also useful for overtaking, you can hold the car back on the brakes with part throttle, therefore having the turbo spinning, no wait for boost.


[This message has been edited by Skippy (edited 18 April 2001).]

IWatkins

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by jon hill:
<B>whats the course that you mention ?

jon[/quote]

Hi Jon,

The LFB course is run by Pentti Airikkala and info can be found here:

jon hill

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by IWatkins:
<B>
Some pictures from the day I went can be seen here:

IWatkins

Jon,



It isn't as bad as it looks. It is actually a concrete surface with a little mud/grass thrown in for good measure.

It was worse the day we there as we had a couple of really big showers in the afternoon.

Cheers

Ian

TFyus

We did some testing with a front wheel drive vectra gsi the 17 inch wheeled one with 195 bhp. The testing ground was the road that leads to the nurburgring from adenau where we were staying it had two tight hair pins. the fastest way round them was rally style using the handbrake, we tested it with and without the handbrake.

drive in turn wheel use 1st gear, handbrake on and jab the accelerator to make it wheelspin and pull the car out...

much faster than the understeer method.

tho this was rally driving circumstances

rw

jon hill

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by Simon de Banke:
<B>

&gt;&gt;&gt; snip LFB stuff &lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;

It's obviously totally different in the dry.

[/quote]

'cuse my ignorance, but why totally different in the dry ?

I would have thought that the only difference would be the speeds, but that the general technique would be the same. Instead of getting understeer at, say, 30 mph in the wet, you'd get it at 45 in the dry; but the problem would be the same. Not so ?

What then would be a recommended approach to (say, melbourne at donno) hairpin in the dry ? fwd again....

jon

Robertio

iTrader: (1)

Tried left foot braking on my way into work this morning found out it is important to be in the correct gear, rolling along at 30 in fifth, approaching traffic lights, so gently brake with the left paw, car starts to shake a bit (wrong gear), so try to change gear, plant clutch foot on the floor and reach for gear leaver. It was around this point I realised should probably have moved my foot back over to the clutch pedal oooooops...

I think a bit of practice is necessary to overcome natural stupidity

legacyb4

&lt;chuckle&gt;

All this talk about LFBing reminds me of my early, early days when I first drove an automatic after a year of learning how to drive in a manual... I was driving a pickup and coming up to a light, my left foot went down without thinking to put the clutch down and flattened the oversize brake pedal. Now *that* was a eye-opener when I came to a screeching halt without intending to!

As far as hairpins in the wet, I still get chills watching that clip I took of Burns throwing the WRX down the track and coming up the pit lane in the wrong direction...

Cheers.