wanderfalke

Today I used the G-Force gauge to measure limits of speed on hairpin curves. The highest recorded numerical value was .98, no tire squeal or sliding. Is this gauge really accurate enough to get a sense of when the auto will start to slide?

chuck911

No, it reads acceleration only. Nothing to do with traction. In other words it doesn't know if you're on wet or dry pavement, dirt, snow, ice, etc. Also all by itself it gives no idea if or by how much you are sliding. In other words, you could be drifting like Chris Harris at .97 or doing the exact same curve at .97 and not sliding at all. (This is why you hear guys complain that all the drifting we see in videos isn't really fast, it just looks good.) Its a neat thing to have. But what you want, that sense of how close you are to sliding, can only be developed by working the tires hard (driving fast!) and learning to read the feedback tires give as they approach their limits of traction.

wanderfalke

The tires really do give off a distinctive odor. Well I hope that is what I smell.

wanderfalke

I thought it mapped G-Force . I think I read that a CS model would pull 1.04g on the skid pad.

Nicoli35

haha, ok - after reading this I had to go back into the garage, turn on the car, and check mine after tonight's scoot. Certainly could do better, but I like those summer 20s!

chuck911

G-force is acceleration, expressed as a fraction of the earth's gravitational attraction. Drop a hammer, here on earth, it will fall at an accelerating rate of 9.8m/sec/sec. So when you are Nicoli and you pull 1.0 g turning right that's another way of saying the car is accelerating at a rate of 9.8m/s/s, which is more acceleration thanthe .96 he gets turning left, more still than the .94 he gets braking and of course less than the .91 the engine puts out.

So yes it can be used as a driving analysis tool. Just looking at Nicoli's numbers it shows he corners harder turning right (a lot of people do, the door is there for support turning right but not left) and doesn't brake as hard as he corners. Mostly though its your tires that will tell you how close you are to sliding.

chuckbdc

As Chuck points out, its like orbital polishing. Nicoli has his work cut out. He has to go out and turn harder left more and brake and accelerate harder. That will get the wrinkles out of his car and help with the earths rotation.

LexVan

I've not used this gauge yet. Might not ever.

extanker

use care...........at a certain point the Gravity gauge will change to Guardrail gauge.then your driving tools will change to body repair tools

wanderfalke

^^^ More like cliff launch gauge in the mountains.

Dalema

Sure it isn't the brakes?

On my run back down from Mt. Hamilton here in the Bay Area I paused for a while - boy oh boy - the smell of satisfaction

Nicoli35

Brilliant!!! Thank you sir. (And sir).

Eyes Open!

Team Plutonium

Nope. The tool is a cool gimmick but nothing more.

Just J

I didn't even realize that the G-meter kept track of maximums. So when I was out this morning I had to check what they were. This 2014 TTS with 2600 miles on it (2000 of that on winter tires). No track driving, just having some fun every now and then.

L&R - both 0.98
Braking - 0.94
Acceleration - 1.30!! Launch Control FTW

chuck911

I thought it was wrinkles too but turns out its a cabriolet.