yemenmocha

Do you guys get a lot of understeer in road conditions such as this:

I have several roads that have a flat right 90 degree turn onto the highway entrance ramp & frontage road that is 3 lanes wide. It's one way, it's enormous, and after you come out of the turn the entrance ramp goes down hill sharply so it's a lot of fun. Entry speed is around 30mph and of course the exit of the turn is as fast as possible because it's a nice long entrance to the highway.

What's troubling me is that in 2nd gear under hard acceleration I have tons of understeer in this situation compared to similar but faster turns in 3rd gear or 4th gear. It's as if there's a ton more grip and less understeer at those speeds, and low down around 30mph or so in 2nd gear it feels like my front end is hardly on the pavement and understeering significantly, almost like I'm nearly doing a "wheelie".

I complete my braking before the turn. But I can't take this turn anywhere near as fast as in my M3 and my exit speed is the almost the same as in the M3. At a recent Porsche track event the PDE instructors were driving and didn't seem to be in this situation of managing the sliding front end like this. They seemed to have all 4 wheels experiencing some slide and had the car at much higher cornering speeds, whereas for me it feels like I'm just controlling the front wheels sliding only.

Am I too aggressive in the throttle?
Am I on the throttle too early or late?
Do I probably not have the right line through the turn?
Is my entry into the turn too fast?

Any advice appreciated.

RF5BPilot

On the throttle too early. Allow more of your turn to complete before the strongly accelerating. You might find that you can brake deeper, turn sharper, then accelerate harder than you're used to.

Ride with an instrutor -- DE or Driver Skills to dial it in with your car.

yemenmocha

Thanks!

adfsouth

In slow, out fast...remember where the engine is

yemenmocha

Yes, but to get the optimal "out fast" it can matter a lot if I'm on the throttle too soon or too hard and inducing too much understeer.

Bob Rouleau

Go in with constant speed, I.e. No acceleratio so the weight is correctly distributed. As you unwind the steering then you accelerate progressively. Odds are your entry speed is too low you compensate by accelerating hard moving the weight to the rear and losing grip in front.

MJones

The string between the accelerator pedal and the bottom of the steering wheel analogy is appropriate.

The more steering input...the less throttle can be used.

ADias

Ah! Vic Elford's book. Priceless!

Edgy01

Just from your description I think you're on the gas a little late. Don't worry. That's a normal thing for novice 911 drivers. There is so much apprehension about losing the tail that they wind up underpowered and still slowing down as they ENTER the turn. You should be on the binders just before the turn and as you're entering the turn go full throttle, tweeking the steering wheel back and forth to keep the thing reined in. If you really want to learn how to drive the 997, buy a pre-89 911 and drive it for awhile. Once you have one of those mastered, the 997 is a breeze. So much control has been dialed into these. I didn't catch whether you have the 2WD or the 4WD. It's going to be a bit different between the two. It's a bit like snow skiing. When on a steep slope you have to be aggressively attacking the fall line,--staying on top of your skis and remain aggressive. Ditto for the 911. You have to be more aggressive. Have your eyes watching where you WANT to go, and the car will follow. The cornering capability will leave you breathless. Porsche dialed in that understeer for a reason. With some work (in your driving methods) you can work with it.

yemenmocha

Actually this is what I'm worried about - being on early, or too aggressive too early, and the car just pushes forward. If I correct even more with steering I get the flashing nanny light on the RPM guage that is saving me from an oversteer/spin situation. So, what you're saying is what I thought was my error.

Later braking, keeping the weight forward and not on the gas too much too soon would help to get the car smoothly established into the turn so that once I do hop on the gas, most of the work that the front wheels were doing in a turn is already over with so it doesn't matter so much that the weight is now starting to come off them.

rijowysock

not exactly the question, but a side note from personal experience.. i find my 997.1 was far more prone to understeer in your situation than my 997.2 but looking at suspension arms and such everything looks the same to me..

i would almost say the 997.1 front felt flighty to me under almost any accel, and 997.2 does not..

not sure why, anyone can explain? i know the .2 has a lower center of mass, and the pdk changes weight ratios around from my old 6 speed.. but still not sure why it feels totally different to me, almost as if being a different car.

yemenmocha

At the PDK track event they mentioned that the 997.1 had a floaty front end and that it was fixed in the 997.2. Other than the lowered center of mass I'm not sure what the explanation is.

In my case it isn't just floating though, it is definitely understeer.

rijowysock

by floating, i guess in essence i mean understeer.. under hard straight line accelerate the steering doesn't feel as direct (hence feels floaty), under hard cornering as you posted, where your heavily decelerating before the turn and accelerating out of the turn.. the front slips out very oddly in the turn.. but is controllable with the accelerator to a degree.. which i would say is understeer..

there is a turn by me which i guess would be considered "an on ramp" of sorts... it is slightly downhill before the turn and then levels out during/after the turn.. there is a light before the turn that is setup to where when it turns green you only have a very short amount of time before the turn to the on ramp turns yellow/red.. so if i am first in line at the previous light i will get on the car hard, brake hard and then turn in to the onramp just as turning yellow to make the (holy crap its so damn long) light..

in my 997.1 i would start to lose the front end in this corner just after the road leveled out.. and would have to work hard with the car to get it perfectly thru the corner... in my 997.2 the car doesnt even act strange at all. ive taken faster than i did with 997.1 and still nothing, but i am not willing to take it even faster for the risk of hurting myself or others..

just odd to me because when i look in the wheel wells, the only difference i see are the brake ducts... everything else looks the same, and i even swapped over the same coilovers i was using before with the same settings.. so it just makes me go ?????... that they could change the handling (so drastically imo) without having anything look different..

yemenmocha

The front sometimes has a floating up and down sensation under throttle changes even when the tires are still gripping just fine. It's almost like a "wheelie" sensation, and is most apparent in 1st & 2nd gears. The 997.2 doesn't have that same bobbing up and down feel, though you can still feel the front tires sliding.

I didn't notice it so much when I was in a 997.2, but I sure as hell did when I got back in my own car to drive home.

Edgy01

These sorts of sensations are virtually impossible to put down in writing, and then to solve. Suggest you get out with a driving instructor on a track sometime and go through this scenario with them. Often times we as drivers are not familiar with the terms needed to adequately describe what we THINK is happening. You'll save a lot of frustration and time by going to a race instructor soon!