question about traction/stability control

[grue]

two questions actually, first is the tc and sc tuned differently on the performance pack (gt in my case) than non-pp? i don't have the premium either, so no driving modes.

second question, i've read some threads about not tracking with the sc/tc system turned on, even in sport mode or whatever. if you do happen to be in sport or track mode (for those with premium), but never engage it due to exceeding a limit, is it still bad to do that?

my second question speaks to eventually getting used to the limit of the car... for example you might grow used to the point where you know abs will kick in, so you modulate to just be at that point of it turning on.

thanks,

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[XLR8EDMUSTANG]

I believe some of the values are programed different for the PP cars over the base, as far as tc and sc are concerned. I would think they programed the nannies to be a bit more lenient with the intent that the PP cars are marketed towards track use and to get max use out of the torsen diff and 3:73's.

Some one recently posted an article by Randy Pobst, and he talks about the use of tc and sc for track use, his recommendation is keeping nannies on and learning the car in that mode before turning them off. Ill see if I can find the link and post it.

 

[Plimmer]

I ran COTA a few weeks ago in my base GT non PP. I tried the car with TC and SC on at first, but then turned them all off, and to be honest I couldn't tell the difference in the corners

In fact the flashing TC light was a distraction, and the system seems to be really hard on the brakes.

Run your first 2 sessions with it all on, then turn it all off and see if you can tell the difference, I couldn't.

 

[Brent Dalton]

I could tell a big difference with TC on vs all off on the road course. Not as invasive as most cars and I think Ford did a really good job with TC, but it cuts power and messes with my slip angle. Advancetrac seemed to work pretty well at the AutoX I did a few weeks ago. Everyone has different driving styles so how TC or advancetrac intervenes for each driver may compliment(as an extra layer of safety) or hinder them.

 

[Norm Peterson]

First off, I have to assume little or no previous really hard driving experience or recent experience driving cars that don't have nannies other than ABS . . .

So I think it'd be better to first turn off only the TC, rather than go from "everything on" to "everything off". One thing at a time, and let the throttle modulation lessons sink in first while there's still some level of AdvanceTrak backing you up for getting too enthusiastic with the skinny pedal on corner exit.


Norm

 

[Hawk296]

Ive read that only stability control and ABS are programmed differently on the performance pack cars. That leads me to think the traction control is the same.

For the record, I have not had my gt at the track yet. First one isn't scheduled for 2 more months yet.

It might be useful to leave it on the first session out. You will be able to see the light flash if you get too agreesive with throttle at the wrong time. You can kinda reprogram your foot off of that.

I'm in the camp of leaving everything off at the track. I like having it there on the street to save me in the unpredictable day to day driving, But one of the main reasons I go to the track is to learn the car, its limits and mine. I've never had a vehicle with these features before and have always started off slow to get a feel for it and progressively get more aggressive. I'm also not someone who goes to a track and tries to push the car beyond its limits in effort for the best possible lap time at an open track day.

Also as others have noted, with the stability control using the brakes to keep the car in line, if you end up triggering it often you will end up wearing the pads out and heating them up quicker and in extreme cases can lean to premature fade.

 

[dontlifttoshift]

Some one recently posted an article by Randy Pobst, and he talks about the use of tc and sc for track use, his recommendation is keeping nannies on and learning the car in that mode before turning them off. Ill see if I can find the link and post it.

Strongly disagree. You will not learn anything about your car or your abilities if you leave the traction control on.

If you get used to matting the pedal on corner exit and letting the TC do its job, it will end badly when the TC isn't there to save you. Shut it off and learn to drive.

 

[Norm Peterson]

It might be useful to leave it on the first session out. You will be able to see the light flash if you get too agreesive with throttle at the wrong time. You can kinda reprogram your foot off of that.

You should be programming your foot off of what the car feels like it wants to do, not on what some little light might be doing. If the car does feel like it wants to go a bit looser than expected, you need to be looking down track at where you want the car to go.

Learn to 'squeeze' into the throttle rather than stomping on it like you would if you suddenly found yourself in a street race.

The light is perhaps of more benefit to your instructor, who through experience will be better equipped to add noticing that to everything else that'll be going on . . . while NOT having all of your tactile input sources (steering wheel, pedals) to tell him what you should be feeling.


Norm

 

[Hawk296]

You should be programming your foot off of what the car feels like it wants to do, not on what some little light might be doing. If the car does feel like it wants to go a bit looser than expected, you need to be looking down track at where you want the car to go.

Learn to 'squeeze' into the throttle rather than stomping on it like you would if you suddenly found yourself in a street race.

The light is perhaps of more benefit to your instructor, who through experience will be better equipped to add noticing that to everything else that'll be going on . . . while NOT having all of your tactile input sources (steering wheel, pedals) to tell him what you should be feeling.


Norm

I totally agree with you. Just suggesting a possibility.

 

[NightmareMoon]

If you need the TC to keep from spinning out and trashing your car at the track, then please run with it on as long as you feel like you need it. Personally I'd recommend doing a number of lower-speed events like autocrosses first to get the feel for handling at (and beyond) the limit with TC turned off. You can get in big trouble in a hurry cornering at 100+ mph on a road course.

If you have driven a bit at a track with it turned on, and you don't feel like its gotten in the way, then you probably aren't driving at the limit yet. Again, there is no hurry to push your personal limits too soon.

If you want to learn how to drive at the limit of traction, the TC will stop you from being able to do that. You'll need to turn it off eventually in order to learn to drive at the limit, but how soon to do that is a personal choice. There are more risks/rewards with it turned off.

 

[XLR8EDMUSTANG]

Strongly disagree. You will not learn anything about your car or your abilities if you leave the traction control on.

If you get used to matting the pedal on corner exit and letting the TC do its job, it will end badly when the TC isn't there to save you. Shut it off and learn to drive.

You can disagree all you want, all the article was saying is that it can be a stepped progression towards turning all the nannies off. The track or autocross is the place to learn the car and as you put it "learn to drive" but you might not want to learn the hard way your first time out going 120 into turn 1.. just saying.

Agreed that tc can and will hinder how the car reacts on corner exit, but people have different driving styles and anyone that has been to an autocross or the track has seen out of control drivers before, that don't understand throttle manipulation.

 

[XLR8EDMUSTANG]

http://www.randypobst.com/index.cfm?template=magazine&mag_id=17512

 

[Norm Peterson]

It appears that Randy's article was published a few years ago (before stability control systems had become mandated). He doesn't say you shouldn't turn the nannies off, just to not turn them off before you're really ready. And that's going to take experience in lower speed environments (typically autocross, which is a great introduction to driving out toward the limit).

I think you'd better be able to describe what any nanny is doing that's getting in your way better than just noting that "some flashing light is bothering me". Better still would be if you notice something "off" about the driving/handling without ever seeing any little light on the dash illuminate at all (your attention doesn't belong there at such moments). Frankly, I'd expect that last situation to be achieved sooner among the more, ummm . . . senior drivers who drive "enthusiastically" but who never had any driving assistances available. Randy would certainly fit into that category, but so do many of your instructors as well as some of the "Road Course/Autocross" regulars here and elsewhere.


Norm

 

[EcoBlue68]

A few things,

If your goal is to progress as a driver and find the limits of the vehicle you can approach that in a few ways. Many drivers who don't track their cars regularly simply don't push the cars hard enough all the way around in order to approach the limit.

Traction control and stability control absolutely changes the "balance" of the car in a few phases of cornering and also changes where the limit occurs. If you can't feel the difference than that's probably due to the way your driving, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

If your slowly building up your confidence in the car feeling for the limit it ( and I cant believe I'm saying this) could be beneficial for you to keep traction control on during HPDE events. Reason being is that the mustang understeers pretty heftily from the factory, and until you throw some big sway bars and a lot of front camber at the car it will continue to understeer. Traction control and stability control help "de-yaw" the car and promote stability. What I mean by that is that these programs essentially keep the car understeering longer and make it harder for you to lose it on corner exit.

So point being keep driving the car harder until you feel that understeer in full affect, that should indicate your close to the limit (maybe under, maybe over). This should occur in corner entry, then play with your steering angles, steering rates, braking rolloff rates etc to try and get the balance sorted out a bit better for corner entry and rolling into the mid corner phase. Once you can get the weight to settle onto both the front and rear tires and maintain that limit balance through the first three phases (corner entry, turn in and mid corner) then you have a pretty good idea of where the limit is and should turn off all the nannies.

Advance track and the like are really intrusive at times and cause you to have really exaggerated throttle inputs to get what you want out of the car, they form bad habits for the driver and most of all they dont let the car smoothly rotate the way you would like.

Once you do turn these programs off though be very careful with your throttle application for phases 3,4,5 of the corner (mid corner, turn out, corner exit), as it is very likely that the same throttle input will send you for a spin, or instead more understeer if the car isnt balanced properly. Remember these cars are heavy and so once you make a mistake it takes a lot more distance on the track to correct that mistake. But then its just practicing what you just mastered on phases 1-3 while now slowly adding more and more throttle through phases 3-5 until youve got your balance down perfectly.


Theres more than one way to skin a cat but this is just one idea of a beginner technique to find the limit of the vehicle while staying safe and keeping the traction control on until you can really feel the difference and/or are ready to utilize the abilities of the car with the traction control off.

Have fun at the track!

 

[M3Convert]

A few things,

If your goal is to progress as a driver and find the limits of the vehicle you can approach that in a few ways. Many drivers who don't track their cars regularly simply don't push the cars hard enough all the way around in order to approach the limit.

Traction control and stability control absolutely changes the "balance" of the car in a few phases of cornering and also changes where the limit occurs. If you can't feel the difference than that's probably due to the way your driving, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

If your slowly building up your confidence in the car feeling for the limit it ( and I cant believe I'm saying this) could be beneficial for you to keep traction control on during HPDE events. Reason being is that the mustang understeers pretty heftily from the factory, and until you throw some big sway bars and a lot of front camber at the car it will continue to understeer. Traction control and stability control help "de-yaw" the car and promote stability. What I mean by that is that these programs essentially keep the car understeering longer and make it harder for you to lose it on corner exit.

So point being keep driving the car harder until you feel that understeer in full affect, that should indicate your close to the limit (maybe under, maybe over). This should occur in corner entry, then play with your steering angles, steering rates, braking rolloff rates etc to try and get the balance sorted out a bit better for corner entry and rolling into the mid corner phase. Once you can get the weight to settle onto both the front and rear tires and maintain that limit balance through the first three phases (corner entry, turn in and mid corner) then you have a pretty good idea of where the limit is and should turn off all the nannies.

Advance track and the like are really intrusive at times and cause you to have really exaggerated throttle inputs to get what you want out of the car, they form bad habits for the driver and most of all they dont let the car smoothly rotate the way you would like.

Once you do turn these programs off though be very careful with your throttle application for phases 3,4,5 of the corner (mid corner, turn out, corner exit), as it is very likely that the same throttle input will send you for a spin, or instead more understeer if the car isnt balanced properly. Remember these cars are heavy and so once you make a mistake it takes a lot more distance on the track to correct that mistake. But then its just practicing what you just mastered on phases 1-3 while now slowly adding more and more throttle through phases 3-5 until youve got your balance down perfectly.


Theres more than one way to skin a cat but this is just one idea of a beginner technique to find the limit of the vehicle while staying safe and keeping the traction control on until you can really feel the difference and/or are ready to utilize the abilities of the car with the traction control off.

Have fun at the track!

+1

It's your car, you drive it how you feel comfortable and build slowly towards from your limits to the car limits.

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