ausgang

Question for the instuctors who are participating in this thread and sharing their knowledge:
Does the old adage, 'In a spin, both feet in' still apply? The reason I ask is that in the pre-nannies (and pre-antilock brake) era that some of us cut our teeth in it seemed that one major benefit of that advice was a predictable trajectory when things went badly.

Today, if one watches any video compilation of off-track excusions you see cars making all sorts of unplanned directional changes ---- including some reappearances onto the track and straight into other vehicles who moments ago may have appeared to be in the clear.

jmartpr

We still teach that....2 feet in (1 if PDK ) when crossing the point of no return. So far, so good.....

PaulE

So for PDK, no need to pull both paddles back to disengage? I don’t know if I’d have the memory and reaction to do it if I got in that situation anyway!

0-Day

There's 2 main reasons I'm aware of that you're told "both feet in" when in a spin by instructors. 1) If you have already completely lost control of the rear of the car, then applying throttle will make your situation even worse 90% of the time. 2) In a big spin, the car can end up facing the wrong way with the tires rolling backwards. If the car is manual transmission, in gear, and with the clutch engaged, then this spins the engine backwards. This is generally not a major problem mechanically, but it can be bad for certain types of engines. I was once told that this can be worst on cars that use a timing belt because the sudden change in rotational direction/momentum is more likely to take the timing belt out of time than a car with a timing chain. rolling backwards is not an issue with a torque converter automatic transmission because there is no hard physical connection between the engine and transmission. I won't pretend to know what happens when you roll backwards with a PDK though. I would think it would behave like a manual? But maybe the PDK has some smart safety systems to detect and prevent this...

PaulE

I know some engines, like the Porsche M96/M97 engines should not spin backwards because it can bend the valves. Something in the valvetrain, either the variocam system or the oil fed tensioners for the timing chains only work properly with the engine turning over in the right direction. Turning the engine over backwards can impact the valve timing enough for the valves and pistons to make contact. I wish I knew what the PDK does in a spin situation!

Reedy

The both feet in philosophy also guards against people who in a panic might accidentally hit the accelerator with their right foot instead of the brake. If you jam both feet in as hard as you can, even if you screw it up one of them will still get the brake.

Zhao

Still taught, and you're 100% right it's mainly for predictability. You see the results of cars that didn't go 2 feet in those videos and they often collect another car or 2 on the tail end of the incident when it was totally avoidable, but the 2 feet in cars almost never do. As far as I am concerned any car that rolls randomly after a spin shouldn't be allowed to race until they have taken a licensing school again. Giving up control of the car to jesus like that should be no tolerance.

Brake and gas could serve a purpose though if cars didn't have aids. On a rwd car without abs, if you are in an unrecoverable spin, if you keep the throttle going and apply 100% brake pressure, it'll calm down the rear and regain grip there while at the same time remove all grip from the front (doesn't lock the rear but locks the front), so it'll snap it back to going straight, but it only works if have lots of muscle memory with left foot braking to do it instantly. I've seen that done in a nascar race before.

Porsche444

It’s funny story, long, but here is the key item. I finally found an awesome instructor, who gets in car with you, he actually raced and supports GT4 cars, he told me something very interesting, he said, if your traction control is kicking in, you’re doing something wrong. He told me, keep driving it and once you get to a point it’s not kicking in, you have your car under control. Now, I thought he was a bit nuts, but going from like a 2:08 at Buttonwillow to a 1:56, and not having it kick in, I realized, this guy is a genius. Last few times out there, it was a smooth 1:56, I didn’t feel I was over driving the car and crazily enough, there’s more speed there, probably could do 1:53 or maybe better.

To me, it’s not worth it to turn it off and wreck my car. I turned it off once on my first MT GT4, before I met this instructor, ended up doing 180 on track and went off, no damage, so no harm, but just leave it on and learn how to drive it. It’s well worth and highly rewarding

jmartpr

Funny....just said the exact same thing recently here. Light ON you are doing something wrong.

Avera

So, what I believe has been established in this thread is that stability/traction control on the GT4 does not provide much, if anything, in the way of nanny intrusiveness. . . there seems to be a couple experienced trackers whose opinions differ when it comes to posting lap times. I do not discount their views and experiences.

The feedback provided and my own trials with stability/traction supports the view that there is no reason to turn the safety feature off on the roadways. This is VERY different than experience with ///M cars, although the G8X stability/traction control is much improved over the F8X when it comes to nanny intrusiveness.

Avera

Reedy

I've found for the most part, by the time stability control is cutting in, you have generally overcooked things anyway and it turns your 1/10th loss in time into a 2/10th one. If you nail a perfect lap then it will generally be with little to no intervention.

However there are certain circuits where there might be a bump or camber profile change in the road which does cause it to intervene a little too early and definitely costs me some time. This is track and corner specific.

This equation also changes depending on chassis setting, I find that with it on the harder setting that the rate of change in the car is so great that it causes stability control to intervene much sooner, with it in the soft setting things react a bit more slowly and the stability control isn't as intrusive and I personally go faster as a result.

It's mostly related to what skill level the driver is at, I am getting close to the threshold where on certain circuits I feel like I could probably go faster by switching it off, while a pro would almost certainly prefer to turn it off. There is no one size fits all but I think you have to be quite a highly skilled driver before the ESC starts genuinely slowing you down. Steve Sutcliffe goes into detail on that in his GT4 RS hot lap at Anglesea, he was faster in the firm setting with stability switched off. But he does this stuff for a living. I would prefer not to take the risk just yet.

Avera

Excellent!

Since I am not a tracker, my starting the thread was initially focused on the roadways . . . where I think there is clearly nothing to be gained by turning stability/traction control off.

Also, to your point, it seems the track setting is variable according to driver's skill/experience, the track itself, and what is on the line.

The one curiosity I do have pertains to why Porsche engineered the GT4 to have ESC mode and ability to turn traction/stability control completely off unless they perceived a performance advantage in the proper settings by appropriate drivers? I likely answered my own question in the prior paragraph?

Avera

Reedy

Only reason why anyone would turn it off on the road is to do donuts. If you are driving on the road in a way that is causing the ESC to intervene, you shouldn't hold a licence.

Zhao

Context though, it's everything when being instructed. What is often said to a beginner is not technically true in respect to someone very advanced at driving. You probably heard smooth is fast, and with context to a beginner that is very true. The driver driving at 95% consistently never exceeding grip is far faster than the yahoo driving 150% and then 20% to avoid crashing. However, that type of 'smooth' is slow for an advanced driver. The advanced drivers that are perfectly smooth are not front runners. Senna for example was not smooth at all; his wheel inputs are a mess. schumacher is an absolute mess if you look at his data too. Constant crazy wheel inputs correcting for dancing the car slightly above and below grip in the corner and yet no one can argue those guys are anything but the best of the best. What they're doing IMO is keeping it as close to 100% grip as much of the track as possible, and in-order to do that you must exceed 100% grip to reaffirm where 100% actually is. The guy who never exceeds 100% grip is the guy who also is likely no where near 100% grip. Now guys like senna and schumacher are smooth in a different respect, in that they are not significantly exceeding grip or significantly upsetting the car to cause a loss of grip unnecessarily if they can help it. Slower F1 drivers often did not have as crazy steering inputs, even comparing them to slower teammates in the same car (there is a good schumacher video out there comparing his data to one of his teammates who was much more smooth with the steering wheel, yet was 5mph slower in the corner).

There are definitely types of corners where the aids on will be slower. A corner where you want to use weight transfer to lighten the rear enough that the car rotates above what can be generated with neutral grip levels. The GT4 will shut that rotation down and rob you of taking that type of corner as fast as possible. If someone can execute a corner like that with the aids on, achieve the proper rotation, and never have them kick in ever, they would be someone I have not encountered yet in the flesh. I can't do it and I win races based entirely on my cornering work. I generally race in classes 1-2 classes above my race car for a challenge, so I have run a 19lb/hp car against <12lb/hp cars and still win. largest field was 26 cars so at my peak it's not like i was a crappy driver.

Avera

Thanks again @Zhao

Sounds like what you are saying is you cannot pursue 10/10ths on the track with traction/stability control activated.

Makes perfect sense to this non-tracker.

Avera