porscheralph

Going to auto x tomorrow - use PSM or not? Other pertinent advise or suggestions?

ehuggins

Do not use PSM. You can feel it fighting you and locking down the car.

cosm3os

Sounds like you are a novice. Find the guy with the biggest hat and do everything he says.

Hella-Buggin'

Leave it on until you are good enough to know that you should turn it off.

z3mcoupe

I lol'd at this. 100% correct.

911-997

Can someone tell me what PSM is? Why it seems very important feature on this car?

Hella-Buggin'

Porsche Stability Management
AKA: Please Save Me!

Dan GSR

Turn it off. Will slow you down a lot

Hella-Buggin'

Other advice:
Bring a chair to sit in. Lots of water. I usually bring some apples. Sunscreen. Hat. Comfortable shoes. You'll be doing lots of standing.

No Coasting... Gas or Brake :-)

Don't hit the cones! They add a second a piece to your time.

LiquidSunshine

I recently did a Driver Skills Clinic run by the Oregon PCA in my new to me 997.1 C4S. I ran the first half with everything normal, then slowly added Sport mode, PASM Sport and then PSM off. I felt faster and more in control with everything Sport and PSM off. With PSM on, I could only get the car to under steer and had a much harder time getting it to rotate going into a corner. With it off, pop off the throttle or tap the brake going in and the front grips, the rear lightens and the car turns. Get back on the throttle and the weight goes back to the rear and oversteer was controlled nicely.

Try it both ways, starting with it on. I learned a lot about my car (and my skills) and I suspect you will, too.

StormRune

I'm sorry, but I disagree with many of the other posters about PSM, especially if this is your first time out. As long as you have Sport Chrono, put the car in Sport or Sport Plus and leave PSM on. It will not intervene in Sport Plus unless you are completely on the verge of losing control. I've autocrossed quite a few times now in both a 997.2 and a 991.1 and have never had Sport Plus with PSM turned on slow me down. I've even been able to hold a mild sustained drift in a sweeper with no intervention (I wasn't trying to drift on purpose, but once I was in the drift it was kind of fun to hold it!).

You will have a hard enough time keeping track of what is going on with the rapid success of cones coming up and reading them and the line correctly your first few times out. You don't need to be distracted by worrying about completely spinning the car.

Once you start getting the hang of autocross, which will take several outings, then you can experiment with turning PSM off. If you have PDK, start out with PDK in automatic... again so you can concentrate on hitting the best line and not worrying about shifting. You won't ever get past 2nd gear on most autocross courses anyway.

Note that autocross is normally a lot tighter circuit that something like a DE or track event, so what applies there doesn't necessarily apply to autocross. What does apply is you generally either want to be fully on the throttle, fully on the brake, or turning as hard as you can.

One last note. Don't let the placement of the cones fake you into thinking that staying tight against the inside cones is the best line. The inside cones are often not on the best line. Try to find the smoothest arcing lines that get you through the lanes defined by the cones.

Edit: After a better reread of the posts, it seems like Hella-Buggin and I are right in sync! Also adding, beyond hitting a cone, going on the wrong side of a cone disqualifies your run completely. Don't do that if you can help it. But if you do... don't give up... just do your best on the rest of the run to learn more about the course for the next run.

cosm3os

^^^ Its an autox, not a hot lap around Road America. Who cares if you spin. In fact, great way to learn the limits safely. Turn RSM off.

ghostcow

Agree, turn it off. I'm pretty new at this and did my first 3 runs with PSM on and then tried it with it off. Man what a difference, I could feel what the car was doing and times improved, more fun also. I have spun twice, but my times are pretty good, great fun. With our PCA we get 7-8 runs usually so plenty of time to try different things. Have fun!

StormRune

My only quantifiable data point is that I managed to win Novice class on my second autocross outing against 42 other cars in Novice class that day with PSM and Sport Plus on... both before and after handicapping... so it couldn't have interfered with me much if it all. But I guess my experience with this differs from some of the others here.

I'd tend to think if you are getting a lot of PSM intervention then you almost certain aren't being smooth enough for the fastest times anyway. I know when I did the "drift" thing I mentioned earlier it really ate into my time despite the fun of it. If you watch the fastest guys out there they aren't sliding around much at all.

OP, please be sure to post your experiences after your outing today! I'll be looking forward to hearing how you did.

rellim

+1 Smooth is fast , Faster is smoother ect....