peteweishaupt

Have not joined potomac pca yet, but was wondering as the previous owner stated "do not break in a corner" what other tips are out there so I don't wrap this thing around a tree?

Thanks,

Pete
1988 911 Targa
Grand Prix White

Paul K

Don't let off the throttle either. The balance will shift forward, and the back end will break loose. Slow in, fast out...

Clipboard

Tire pressure check every time you go out hard. Good luck driving around DC - you'll need it!
john

RacingBeat

slow in....fast out....and find some open road.......

i tried my best this weekend, a nice sunny saturday near some roads recently mentioned on this forum. up in northern wake co, norwood and victory church area: me and the missus in the 84 targa, after a while i picked up a silver 997 on my tail, looked like it was a turbo...

man we couldn't get loose from all those other cars.....hardly even for a second...!!

bmcallister

As far as driving in DC goes, yes, good luck. I live in the downtown / Woodley Park area. There are lots of potholes, very tight parking (to quote someone I wanted to assault: "bumpers are for bumping, right?"), and many cops who do not seem to be car enthusiasts (I find a cop following me about every other time I go out in the city).

On top of that, drivers of SUVs in DC develop a strange vision condition that renders them incapable of seeing 911's. The first one I went to look at was backed into two days before the appointment.

Then again, once you get it out of the city... :-)

JCP911S

Driven at 60% a 911 is a pretty forgiving car.... but if you are pushing it, it can bite you because of the rear-engine layout.

To get the car to corner properly, you must keep the weight planted firmly on the rear tires. This is done by applying the throttle... this shifts the weight of the car to the rear tires and "plants" them. Thus controlling the weight of the engine.

As you enter a turn and brake the weight is on the front tires where it is needed for braking. As you rotate the car into the turn, you lift off the brakes and squeeze on the trottle to shft the weight to the rear, and accellerate out of the turn.... at this poiint, if you lift off the throttle, the rear tires unweight, and this can break the rear end loose resulting in a spin.

So the trick in a 911 is that once you commit to a turn, do not try to change your line, or you can really get yourself in trouble.... if you are going to drive a 911 fast, you have to be 100% certain of exactly what you are doing in a turn BEFORE you commit to it....

Doug&Julie

Watch out for early front end lock up on slick roads. They don't have to be wet, just dewey and cold will do it. Also watch for front end plow under acceleration in the same conditions.

r911

The real problem is if you are on a curve that you can't see all of... or something - a car, a deer, etc. - suddenly emerges onto the curve in front of you. If you hit the brakes you'll spin maybe. If you don't you'll hit the kid on their trike that just came out of their rural driveway. Or the deer or pronghorn ("antelope") that ran up onto the road...

theiceman

so that raises a great question so what DO you do if you have to change your line in a corner because of unforseen circumstances, maybe it is a decreasing radius bend or you just simply came in too fast .....what now ? . you only have about a tenth of a second to do SOMETHING !

Doug&Julie

Floor it and steer like crazy....

theiceman

WOW .. too fast into a corner and you have to floor it .. now does that fight every urge in your body or what !!!

My87Targa

go with your gut man, take the advice given and take some time to get used to the car and what it can and cant do, also try to learn your limits.

i think the best advice i ever got was from my dad and that was when the rear feels like its coming out stay in the throttle.

Auto_Werks 3.6

Iceman peteweishaupt ,

I have found (at least at autocrosses) sometimes you can use the rear weight bias / trailing throttle oversteer to your advantage. In certain series of corners if I was too hot, I could modulate the throttle not only to pivot towards the direction that I needed to point, but to scrub off some speed. Off throttle slides really kill momentum as long as you don't completely lose the car! Once I was a little slower I would get back on the gas, and the car would settle, and if I was lucky I could recover a little speed... but in general if you find yourself too fast for a situation you are probably in big trouble. Thats just the nature of the beast. But this is the case with ALL cars. There is not a car on the planet that can violate the laws of physics, others are just balanced in such a way that they are "easier" to control when they are unsettled. I really hate to say easier, because I honestly have never found the 911 to be "unpredictable", just not forgiving. I think JPC9111S and Doug&Julie are offering sound advice. "Slow in fast out" is pretty much over simplifying things. You CAN trail brake a 911, but be prepared to transition to an oversteer situation very quickly if anything unexpected happens. Basically the bottom line is that when you are driving any car you are putting it in a situation where it either will or will NOT stay on the road. You need to stay relaxed and drive to the best of your abilities, and hopefully you are not going to ask the car to do something that violates the aforementioned laws of physics. A 911 is a very fast and drivable car, but it is one that should be felt out a little in a controled environment (DE, Autocross etc..) before it is pushed in a public place where others could be injured by a screw up.

Auto_Werks 3.6

"WOW .. too fast into a corner and you have to floor it .. now does that fight every urge in your body or what !!!"

After the first time you try it, it starts to seem all to natural.... We also need to be careful encouraging people to "floor it". You will want to roll on to the gas quickly but smoothly! If you get into the gas too quickly you can cause other undesirable situations such as understeer, or possibly further perpetuating a slide by spinning the rear wheels and reducing traction.
Here is one of my favorite quotes, though I honestly don't know who said it and it happens to be about a 930....

"Whenever that long, thin black pedal under one's right foot was pressed smartly against the Turbo's floorboard it took four and a half Mississippi's to reach 60 mph. But it's what happened after that first Mississippi that got your attention: a blastoff that on a smaller scale must have approximated what Apollo 11 astronauts felt when that big roman candle under their butts reached its sweet spot.
Like a rocket, porsche's turbo was short on subtlety. It was either on, or off, which was fine as long as you were pointed in a strait line. In short, the 930 went from power on understeer to trailing throttle oversteer faster than you could say, "Explosively powerful rear engine car with lots of weight at the rear." Or simply, "Oh, S#&%!"

2002M3Drew

Find a local autocross (preferably a PCA-sonsored one, so that the instructors there will be familiar with 911s) and learn how the car handles in a safe environment. I was already a seasoned autocrosser when I bought my 911, and also knew what to do "in my head," and still spun it in my first outing! Once you get the feel, though, it is absolutely incredible. The handling isn't diabolical...it's precise. The very things that make the car so rewarding to drive in track or autox make it a handful for the uninitiated. Nevertheless, these cars are misunderstood, especially by the press who continually faulted the 911's handling until the 996, where they proclaimed that Porsche had finally ridded the car of dreaded understeer. What is "safe" for novices is an understeering pig to the rest of us, though!

Do an autocross or two...you'll be glad you did!!