Throttle control and steering with the gas
 

Just wondering if any has done this at the track or something similar. I must confess I haven't had the chance to try it at the since I "discovered" this technique but I plan to as soon as I can.

It is in short, I think, the purest form of throttle control. I thought up the idea in my daily driver(civic), as i felt that no matter what the speed it seemed like i had to turn the wheel to a position that felt like it was wasting grip, or in english like the wheel was turned too much in a turn. I started experimenting with things and found that if I brake a little late and turn the wheel to one point I can manipulate the "steer" of the car with just the gas. By that I mean turn in to where you feel a little bit of over steer and get on the gas until you feel under steer and modulate from there. I'm having decent success in a variety of cars, but it can leave you in sticky situations if you are not careful.

Anyone?

Did I ask the wrong question, or was I unclear?

seems plausible, I never raced on a track, but I play racing simulators and a few cars seem to drive better that way in the virtual world, yet anyone with racing experience should chime in any time...

With my stock FC, and decent street tires, I find that using throttle steering doesn't really work (at least in autocross), unless I'm trying to just break traction entirely.

If might be different if you've got more front grip and power.

An front-drive car like a Civic will be different from the rear-drive car, since instead of using power to create oversteer and eliminate understeer, you're using power to create understeer and eliminate oversteer.

On the other hand, the rear-drive car is using it's tires evenly, whereas the front-drive car is overworking it's front tires, while the rear tires are basically just going along for the ride (unless it's set up to slide, in order to help limit understeer).

...or rather, you're better off just setting up and driving the car whichever way is faster and wears the tires more evenly.

I thought that when driving a go-cart the cart would stay at its optimum speed the longer all four wheels were facing forwards. I've only been carting a few times, but I thought I could apply that knowledge to cars. My civic I'm not too worried about, but in an FC or similar RWD car I'd like to find a way to remove the feeling of "wasteful steering" in corners by using the gas to get around. In a go-cart I know you will feel instantly when you've turned too much and the cart will move slower than you want. So in a car a properly set up suspension will correct 90% of this, but there will still be times when you can, I'm guessing here, steer less and throttle on more to catch the same amount of over/under steer you'd have if you just turned the wheel more. I don't know if that makes any sense, I'm just wondering if any one has done something like that at the track and had any success.

Tell you what, when I bought my first f body firebird there was so much power that braking around sharp corners seemed to make you slide off the road, you had to brake on the straightaway and turn the wheel and accelerate hard and the ass-end would kick you into the turn and keep you from sliding off the CLIFF I LEARNED ABOUT THIS ON!!LOL lucky it was the test drive and the owner was with me, I was 16..didn't know much. And IT was an automatic. Would bark its tires when it shifted into second. Pretty badass motor, the car was a piece of shit but thats how THAT one drove from your description.

^ Interesting story. My first car was like that(1991 Trans Am Auto). Its hard for me to get this right in my head, so you'll have to excuse me if I'm being unclear in word. As I'm driving i turn in very little, just enough tho get into the corner, and then get on the gas modulating if it understeers and applying more pressure if it oversteers. Once I'm in I don't move the wheel until I'm through the corner, or about to crash.

what your describing sounds a lot like powering over. modulating throttle response to negotiate a turn. I've not been on the track and done this,but is a drift technique or at least works as one for me when out with some of the guys around here basically being dumb asses playing with our cars.

Yes, what you're doing sounds like throttle steering.

Throttle steering can take place when your wheels are at the limits of grip. You're in a turn, pushing the tires hard, keeping the wheel still. Just applying the throttle is enough to shift the weight front/back, and alter the balance of grip so that less throttle will make the car turn in and more throttle will make the car push out.

In a front wheel drive car, the exercise is probably less optimal, and you're simply controlling the amount of understeer because your front wheels are the only ones at the limit of grip. With a good neutral RWD car you can produce oversteer or understeer.

I recently attended an autocross school where we practiced this exact technique by doing big figure-8s around a 2 turn course. They put a bunch of cones boxing out each end of the 8 and you could drive the end turns with your wheel locked in one location - you simply use a little off/on throttle to get the car to enter/exit the corners with great precision.

Dave

Thanks Dave. I was originally thinking this was a throttle control technique, I just hadn't put 2+2 together to realize that you were also shifting the weight. I don't know how often you'd use it, but I'm going to venture a guess that it would be real good when the tires are at or beyond their limit of grip. If I can remember I will try it next time I'm at the track.

You can get a sense for that around a skidpad. I would think that this technique is more useful for FF's than FR/MR cars. Since FWD's have literally no weight in the back, you can easily induce throttle-lift oversteer, as well as power-on understeer. If it's setup right, you could just use the gas to control oversteer and understeer by getting off and on the gas, which simplifies things a lot.

With RWD cars, throttle steering combined with trail braking is a very useful combination. Rotate the rear with the brakes, and use the throttle to regain traction and pull ahead at the right time.