Wild Weasel

Right... but the light will flash, won't it?


This is why I brought it up. I'm wondering whether when you're noticing that the car is "intervening" but the light isn't flashing is when the car is actually doing it's performance thing rather than the safety thing.

the_vetman

For minor corrections, the light will NOT flash. I can tell you for sure from personal experience. And also from pro drivers who drove my car and felt it stepping in. One pro asked me to turn it all off because it was too disruptive.

I can only speak for my experience regarding PTV because my Porsches did not have PTV. So when I felt it grabbing rear brakes (often without light flashing), it was definitely not PTV but PSM.

Gofishracing

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2BWise

There is a federal requirement regarding how long an intervention has to occur for the light to go active. Therefore, it is entirely capable of doing an intervention and not needing to flash the light. Usually this is due to it being a very small or quick intervention. If you are in some sort of PSM Sport mode where it is already displaying the lamps it is not required to flash.

Wild Weasel

Interesting.

So even if I never see the light flashing and don't feel it doing anything, there's no telling whether it's actually kicking in to help me out or not.

I've got no desire to turn it off. I just thought that the lack of flashing lights was a reasonable indicator that I had the car mostly under control.

the_vetman

Correct.

You'd have to have a pretty sensitive butt-o-meter to feel subtle corrections. Note: my butt meter is not that good either TBH.

Well, the lack of flashing light tells you that you didn't do anything majorly wrong.

As you gain more seat time and advance along, turning PSM off can be an eye opening experience. I used to think I was hot sh*t until I was "advanced" and began turning PSM off. I spun 3 times at the first no-PSM event...

Part of the reason why I have a Spec Miata now (no nannies).

Veloce Raptor

IMO, any driver focusing on PSM warning lights is looking at the wrong things...

the_vetman

Agreed.

Wild Weasel

Sure. But there's people mentioning that the instructor can keep an eye on them and point out to the student when they're coming on. If they don't come on then that's a bit moot, right?

Manifold

There are a lot of other things an instructor needs to keep an eye on.

The decision of whether to turn off stability control needs to be customized to the car and the driver, since it depends a lot on both.

Berringer

Well, this has turned out to be a great topic. I'm obviously a genius.
That being said, I have to say that it has been the learning experience that I had hoped it would be. It has also helped me understand where many of you are coming from, but mostly the ones I don't know.
My reality is this: There is no less than a dozen of you on this forum (lurkers and participators) that have been in the right seat with me driving, both pros and club instructors so as I comment, those guys know that I am first and foremost a student with his ego in check, but I think i'm the "Modern Student". You can see what I'm driving in my signature. I use sport plus, don't have PTV and keep the traction control on (changing that this summer) and use R-comps. I run in the highest PCA group possible without being an instructor, so i like to think I keep a good pace on track. I've made agreements with my instructors as I've moved along that I would keep my settings until I can:
1. Feel all the interventions and understand them (I'm at about 85%)
2. Turn them off once I have the sense of them well enough to understand when they are slowing me down

I think this has been a pretty good plan for me. Now, i have moved along the progression in run groups much quicker than most and I say that as a consideration to what I hope to be as a suggestion to instructors for their other "Modern Students". As Porsche has said, these modern cars make drivers faster, sooner. I would imagine as an instructor, that is a scary proposition, but consider these things about the modern "assistants" that you may not be as familiar with as you think you may be.
I am able to play slip angles in nearly every corner, meaning I'm managing under and oversteer regularly... it's not non-existent. I am also able to manage deceleration and acceleration grip unobstructed by the car to the extent that it won't let me get in trouble without warnings, but I have been able to find the limit safely in all of these respects, which I think may have contributed to my being able to dial in certain skills very quickly because the risk to life, limb and car note are greatly reduced.
I know that I am a "digital" driver in an "analog" group. I'm probably not going to be racing wheel to wheel anytime soon and I'm having the time of my life driving in advanced levels in DE's. I think I am representative of the bulk of your "new students" and along with me, comes a new way of thinking about instruction that doesn't lessen the importance of the the analog skills that have to be learned to be a safe, fast driver. It does; however, necessitate a new strategy and approach to the modern PCA student.

All that to say I still haven't received any DE trophies, so I'm pissed about that. Hope this was helpful to some and that it creates interesting follow-up via forum argument for our entertainment.

MaxLTV

Here is what you can do - get a data logger (e.g., Solo DL) and set it up to log throttle position and pedal position and individual corner brake pressures. That will show stability system closing throttle (e.g, when the throttle is closing without you changing pedal position) or applying individual brakes. Also, PSM applies front brakes as well for stability, not just rear (e.g., outside front corner to reduce oversteer).

I think PSM may be also using ignition timing for finer traction control adjustments. It's probably possible to see these via some other logged channels, but I did not try that.

MarcD147

Sports chrono track app shows when the nannies intervene and it shows slip angles separately.

Jabs1542

I graduated to 'nannies off' this year, my experiences have been:

a) The car actually feels and responds the way I expected it to. I have done a lot of wet skidpad drills with nannies off to feel the edge where the rear end starts to break loose and even learned to throttle steer without touching the wheel (they teach that in our advanced skid pad drills, let go of the wheel and clap, the goal is to see how many claps you can pull off while throttle steering a controlled drift before you have to grab the wheel). The problem I had was that I never felt this on the track while the nannies were on, I just couldn't feel that subtle initialtion of slip. Turning off the nannies solved that problem.

b) My car has PTV and I was going through the rear brakes faster than the front brakes. This was very frustrating because I had no control over it, I tried more trail-braking, less trail-braking, more straight line braking, nothing really helped (there's another thread on RL about this somewhere). Turning the nannies off took care of that. Now I go through two to three cycles of fronts per a set a rears.

c) Am I faster than before? Not yet, but I am matching my previous laptimes with less wear on the rear brakes and better feel of the car. I've got about 8 track days so far with the nannies off and am rebuilding my skills, I'm pretty confident I will end up faster.

d) Confession: Ok one day this year it was raining at VIR - I left the nannies on during those sessions (I don't know if that means I'm smart or lack cahonies).

the_vetman

^^ If it makes you feel better, I almost always left PSM on when it was raining. Rather than sit in the paddock like many do, I drove in the rain but wanted a safety net just in case.

As a matter of fact, I usually started the day off with PSM on. Once the tires warmed up and both my brain and muscles got used to track driving again, I'd progressively do away with PSM, i.e. PSM on -> Sport mode (less intervention) -> PSM off -> PSM off + Sport mode (least intervention). I've seen way too many cars crash during the first couple of laps of the first session.... most commonly in advanced and instructor groups.