I always read about how people have been crashing their FD's and I never thought it would be me. Now I'm not trying to gloat or anything like that but I am a very capable driver and have pushed my friends cars harder and faster than they ever thought of. That being said, my friend and I went out to have a bit of fun on some twisties in the wee hours of the morning. The two cars, my 93 FD and his 95 civic... which has been lowered, thats it. So we do the whole, you keep up with me and you win i get far ahead and you lose type deal. He goes first and I keep up with him, its a civic putting out like 90 hp to the wheels for christ sake. But I have to admit, for some reason he would just lose me on the turns, hands down he would pull away on the corners. Everytime I enter a turn at his speed, my back end comes out without fail, no gas, no brake just the way it was handling. And I'm not cutting the wheel that hard either. The car is just for some reason not doing what its meant to do...handle. I mean if it's my fault, then hell its my fault and you should tell me so; but I've driven a lot of cars and for some reason he's is totally outmanuevering me... I am desperately trying not to brake on the corners but when I did the back end would come way out. It was like a drifting competiton for me. Everytime I turned the front lip would scrape hard on the ground, I'm not lowered. Is this normal? Especially for flat surfaces?
and my tires are fine and its not raining.

Well to get to the point, were flying down the road and of course when Im in front, there is a deer at the top of a hill which you cant see till you reach the top, of course, and you could almost see the smirk on his face. So im like oh ****, hit the brakes as hard as i could before i had to turn the wheel and the car is not stopping, and i know brakes are a weak point but damn i might as well be driving a bus, i get wheel lock up and everything. Let off the brake, cut the wheel to steer around the deer and before I can head back to the right side of the road the back end is coming out again, no gas, no brake not even in gear. and i have to correct as best I can without hitting the trees. Well here there are no metal guard rails, instead they put rocks all around. So I hit one, the car jumps in the air, and decides that it must be trail-rated. I go sliding and hitting some rocks until i come to a stop and my car is now sitting 2 feet higher than it once was. So basically all the damage was on the under-carriage. Where my radiator took the biggest hit spilling coolant everywhere. But I shut the car down immediately after I hit.

So yet again, driving fast/stupid takes its toll. But I still can't help think something was wrong, as my friend had no problem avoiding the deer or taking any of the turns for that matter. And here I am thinking RWD cars handled better.

Well we'll see if its totalled or not but I do have some video and pics that I will post later so you can all point and laugh. So drive safe, especially in the cooler weather.

 

i feel your pain

 

Sorry to hear that. Rip? #34 in the last month




Did you get hurt? Hope everything is fixable at a good cost. Was your suspension shot? I thought the rx-7 brakes were amazing..

 

Cool you had it for almost 1 month before you wrecked it!

Your car likely had crappy tires along with a bad alignment. Of course you probably never even checked the tire pressure...

I have too done the back road racing bit. I had a 88 Civic and a friend had an 88 GTI (it was 1988), both stock, we raced along some curvy back roads in Georgia at 60-100 mph, I kept up with him on every turn. We both decided to stop when we both drifted into the opposite lane after carrying to much speed through a turn. It was then I realized that back road racing was stupid. In a fast car like a FD speeds would have been well over 100mph, hitting a tree at that speed = death...

 

I read your post last month when you bouth your FD and now what?????? Always a said story to here. I sincerely hope that your FD is not lost.

The best of the story is that you are not hurt.

I do not mean it hard but you were a bit fulish to go racing with such a monster only a month after you purchased it. Mine has been with me since May and I am still getting used to it. It is my first rare wheel driven car and it is a hell lot different to get used to. Second I absolutely do not want to see her dameged in any way so I am always careful.

You said you went racing early morning. What were the weather conditions? Humidity???? Road conditions???

 

I know :smacks forehead:!!

I would suspect bad alignment, the tires were fine... and we werent going faster than 70 in the straights, When I say I was having trouble with the runs, Im talkin like 30-40 mph. But then again, youd have to see the turns...

And as for backroad racing, here in burbs of NYC its all we have, there's no track around here. Wide roads are also few and far between. So lets just hope that the car isnt too badly digned up, when we pulled it off the rock which stood at about 16 inches tall, the car was sitting alright. As If I could just drive off with it. But of course I had just been in an accident so I was a little shaky and prolly wasnt in the right state of mind to inspect the car as I threw my keys at the windshield and lost them in the woods... I'll find out tomorow how bad it is.

 

road conditions were dry, i know because i stopped to urinate all over the side of the road, and no i didnt hit that spot and go sliding. I know what you mean I really havent driven it that hard at all, I barely ever bring it up above 3k. And I'd like to say I was going faster and sound cooler, but I can't, cause I wasnt. I went sliding at around 40-35 mph and most likely hit the rock at around 20...

 

Every before this accident did you (when driving) left the wheel free of your hand in a stright road a see what the car did? Well that is a good test for alingment. I try it many time just to be sure.

If you were going that 'slow' you should have noticed these stability problems before and corrected them before going racing/driving again.

You are never too sure with such a car.

 

I'm w/ Jeff on that one. If the car was acting squirrely from the get-go, there's prob an underlying problem.

That's mistake #1. You're obviously taking corners much faster than YOU can handle. The car can handle turns at amazing speeds, but the car will only do what you tell it to. Namely, you NEVER touch the brakes in a turn. That'll whip the rear end out so fast...which is exactly what happened to you. But due to all the low-end power a stock FD has, you can't plow through the turns heavy on the throttle, either - which your friend was prob. doing in his civic. Front wheel drive is MUCH more forgiving than RWD, and a LOT easier to handle.

What you needed to do was trail brake INTO the turn, and once the turn arrived, you let off the brake and get onto the gas, very slowly. As you continue through the turn, you slowly apply more gas, making sure not to boost, and never mash the pedal until the steering wheel is 100% straight.

The brakes are definitely NOT a weak point in the FD. You can brake from 160mph repeatedly, and the car will comply. The stock brakes are phenomenal.

Also, when you lose control of the car, the fastest and best way to regain control is NOT by countersteering, like most ppl may think. That's actually liable to make the back end fly out in the other direction! The best way is actually letting go of the steering wheel completely for a second while lightly letting up a bit on the gas (don't jam the brakes or jump off the gas - that'll make the car even more erratic). Once you let go of the steering wheel, it'll correct itself, immediately finding dead center. Once it does that (it takes a split second), THEN you countersteer, slowly applying gas in your new trajectory. Doing this in a much less powerful car (eg. my 1st gen) is a LOT easier...and once you get the hang of it, you can start messing around w/ the FD, and getting the hang of correcting a high hp car.

Lastly, your final mistake was swerving to avoid hitting the deer. Sure, a deer can mess up your car, but first, hitting a deer is NEVER your fault. Insurance can NEVER find you at fault for it, so no points or premium increase will ever result from it. Swerving, missing the deer, and hitting rocks or a tree IS your fault, and is a great way to get hurt a lot worse, given you don't know what you're gonna hit or where, since now the car's not in control at all. At least the deer you'd hit head on, and can try and slow down as much as possible to lessen the impact. Who knows...maybe it might have dodged the car at the last second...

Oh...one more: I admit twisty back roads are REAL fun... BUT, I learned my lesson the easy way (Thank God) after having a close call or two w/ deer late at night. You simply can't predict road conditions in general, and at night, not only can you not see debris and potholes until it's too late, the chance of hitting a deer or other animal increases exponentially. So at least keep it safe, do it when you can see what you're doing, or better yet, keep it on the track

Good luck, and I hope everything works out for you, and you're more responsible w/ a beast of a car in the future. It's a lot of fun, but it's more of a liability/responsibility than anything else.

 

I think the road racers will disagree with 'phenomenal'. But on public roads it's very difficult to heat soak them.

Interesting point about the liability - I never was aware of that. I do completely agree with the other logic:
deer < tree
deer < guardrail
deer < rock
deer < oncoming car

Dave

 

This is perhaps the silliest way I've ever heard to rate a driver's ability.

Dave

 

I dont think his intent was to rate his driving ability, but rather to lead into his questions on how inferior cars being driven by friends who dont/cant push them are outperforming his 7..

 

Which is why the first half of the sentence says this: "Now I'm not trying to gloat or anything like that but I am a very capable driver and..."?

Later on he talks about getting loose in the corners and continuing to push it.

I leave my statement as it was.

 

You were racing late night + You stopped to **** on the side of the road + You crashed your car = ? That sounds a lot like somebody had a few drinks in them.

 

Cooler weather...

High-performance tires can be hard to warm up in cool weather. If they are cold they can cause exactly what happened to you (oversteer/bad handling). Some brands/types are worse than others.

Don't ask me how I know... <:-(

 

Sorry to hear about this. As for the brakes, I've had them go away on me but only after a good number of laps on a track, never driving around on the streets. Deers... Bah, we have tons of them around where I live. I'm always hesitant to drive fast on the heavily wooded country roads.

Hope you fix your car and be careful next time.

 

/me shakes head and sighs.

You want to drive fast? Autocross! Road race! For god's sake, a few hundred bucks for a track day is a lot less than a new car!

 

Sounds like a Quote from "Rain Man", in which Dustin Hoffman plays a mentally disabled person, who claims "I'm a very good driver". In actuallity, he can't drive. I see some similarities.

21 years old, had the car for an entire month, and wrecked it while racing. Must be mentally disabled.

 

Yes, thank you that's very helpful...

 

You're welcome. I didn't realize that you were looking for help in this thread. I thought it was just another "I'm young, stupid, and wrecked my FD" thread.

 

...and then had a stupid wreck. That's talent! If the car was already trying to get away why keep pushing it until you wrecked it? That's just plain stupid.

Something was very wrong, however, it was not with the car! Use some sense.

Everyone feel free to get on my case about not crying over another wrecked FD. It takes a certain level of maturity to realize we are all responsible for our own actions.

 

Picture could be better.

 

We should re-title the thread - "Making your insurance go up"

 

It's your fault...

 

"Now I'm not trying to gloat or anything like that but I am a very capable driver"

^Yes, rating his own driving ability.


"and"

^Commonly used to compound two sentences.


"have pushed my friends cars harder and faster than they ever thought of."

^Setting a stage for the confusion as to why he was being outmanuevered by a lesser automobile driven by someone who doesnt push it to the limits.


Or so it read to me. {shrug}