race911

^^^ He ain't getting two seconds on varying the line. Everything's good, within a couple of feet, of what I'm doing.

Bring YOUR car out here, and you'll see a 964 chassis go sub-2:00. But none of our warmed over street cars has, absent ringer drivers or running sticker A6s or slicks.

Current ultimate comparison is Tony Colicchio (TC Design, the roll cage guy) with his brother's E36 M3 GTS3 car on fresh BFGs--1:53s. That's a 2800ish lb. car with ~250 wheel HP.

tahoelife

Thanks to both of you and I agree with trying to keep car settled and carry more speed rather than down shifting for now. I believe there is 1-1.5 seconds on the table in my car in its current form 2850 lbs with driver and 1/2 tank fuel on Nitto NT01s . I agree that the under steer is mostly due to my input but i did have my coach go run the car alone to get his feed back and with out me saying anything he thought it was under-steering a bit to much as well. However i do think i could be a bit more patient for the turn in point allowing the car to bend in better again with better trail braking.

KaiB

You'll do well this year, have fun and go get that free time!!!

Coach is the best $$ spent after getting the car sorted out, is it not? Well done to go get one...

J richard

A few thoughts to those just begining to explore the lmits of their cars and the mistique of driving an aircooled 911:

I think it's real important to get some left seat time with a fast 911 drover in a 911. Particularly if you can get them to drive your own car. You will be amazed at how much slip angle a fast lap will take. Given the fact that the statc weight of the car is biased to the rear when you are in a corner weight transfer shifts the balance to the the outside rear tire, is the most important point of contact with the road. this is what i meant by driving it from the rear; in a 911 im focused on how I'm managing outside rear. i almost dont care what the rest of the car is doing. You get most of this feedback through your butt in the seat.

A tire develops its maximum grip at a slip angle of 5-10 degees. With a 911s focus on the rear to get the most out of the contact patch the car will be at a 5-10 degree slip angle at the REAR of the car. This is very noticeable in the seat with a fast driver and hard to see in videos, but is the fundament way of getting fast in a 911. If you are driving your 964 straight around the corners like its"on rails" you have much more left. This tends to be the scariest thing for a 911 driver, on good tires the car will take a huge slip angle before it gives up, the instinctive reaction is to let off which is the classic 911 looper, the car will want more power not less and unless your foot is to the floor, you could be faster, and that's what makes the pros the pros...

Youre taught early on your taught to brake/downshift in a straight line and then deal with the corner. This is still a good way to probe a new track or feel out the car the first session. But as you progress you'll be using me sets of rules to get to the limit. One of the primary ones is transition to throttle and maximizing mid corner speed. A important measure I use is this: if you are back on the power (not throttle to keep the car balanced) before the apex you slowed the car too much and you could carry or speed in. Conversely if you are still trail braking past the apex you carried too much speed. This all assumes you are hitting your marks and have the right apex. This gets a little fuzzy with double apex corners and 911s love double apex corners...

Starting with the straight line braking and moving to trail braking and power on at the apex while carrying the optimum slip angle is what makes these cars soooo much fun to drive. Just my .02...

Vandit

The comment regarding driving w/ the outside rear at a slip angle resonates w/ me.

When hustling my car, it always feels fastest when the outside rear is begging for dear life, fast right up to the point the car gets away from me.

I'm definitely barely learning the ways of fast 964 driving, mostly by trial and error (i.e. spinout).

KaiB

And you're experienced enough to be there. This is a good time to go back to one of the basics.

Next hot session, spend the entire time working on insuring that you begin to unwind the steering early enough and actually COMPLETE the unwind process before the car forces you to.

These "back to basics" things can really help us get going; 2 degees of unwind seems like nothing, but 2 degrees of slip at the rear can mean mucho time at the end of the lap.

race911

Past couple of comments bring me back to my original post--that most of these (hell, ANY) cars are set up wrong. We're great at learning and compensating. But they're still bad. And I'll raise my hand first to say I've spent a lifetime (going on 34 years now with 911s, nearly all competing or track driving in some way) with POS, ill handling, completely compromised hardware. But I wasn't exactly well funded until about 12-13 years ago, and then like many of us life got in the way more recently when we thought we'd be on EZ street.

Doesn't mean in the least that you can't learn to drive what you've got, and probe the limits of that car. Just understand that you may have a "one of" car that a well-seasoned, used-to-an-unlimited-budget coach may pretty much laugh at.

Finally, to the point of slip angles and 911s--wish you all could have come up from the short wheelbase cars. That '68 I started with, probing "limits" on dirt roads hoping to follow John Buffum's path in rally set a great foundation. Or even driven stuff in anger on bias ply slicks. The 910, and before that several 914-6s I prepped in the Phoenix days, are/were an absolute blast.

ja78911sc

Back to heel and toe.

I roll my foot. Some use their heel. What technique do you guys use?

KaiB

There truly is no "correct" way to do it, but....

The vast majority of people I've seen for over 45 years now roll their foot; ball of the foot (left side) on the brake and the outer ball/side of the right side of the foot for the blips.

In high heels, the technique is a bit different!

The most important things to address are: timing of the blip, even pressure on the brake and proper rev.

J richard

I feel ya brother, grew up on a 67. Should be mandatory seat time for anyone intersted in driving a later model 911...

boxsey911

This is one of my faults. Is there a drill I can use to teach my brain to stop me braking too much? I don't believe I brake too early (or too late for that matter). I believe I brake too much. Instructors often comment that they can feel the nose come up too quickly as I come off the brakes.

J richard

Big focus to resolve this is a shift from the focus on initial braking to the end of braking...

KaiB

Steve, Jim has a good tip here - this also helps get your eyes up, as often just as we begin to get niddly about the brake zone, they go down. This can also help soften up your release (a very important issue), as you won't be suprised when the time comes to do so.

One trick I really like asks you to brake earlier, but far softer. This way you can sneak up on corner entry speeds and help soften the brake release.

Try this for an entire session, each and every corner - I'll bet you'll find your corner entry become much smother, as the car will be happier. Then....run the same softer braking exercise but sneak the application point back in a bit. Rinse and repeat.

boxsey911

Thanks J and Kai, sounds like my eyes do indeed go down in the braking zone. I'll use those ideas and thoughts to get them up.

KaiB

One trick I use sounds goofy (actually it probably is, but...):

As I'm heading towards those high speed corners - the skeery ones - I relax and wrinkle my forehead as I open my eyes larger than normal. This little reminder helps force me to scan out and through the corner.

Vision is HUGE and something we all have to work on all of the time. Unlike some of the more mechanical basics which become second nature (like heel/toe), it really requires effort often - virtually every time we reach a plateau, working on vision can help get us over that hurdle.