From 370z to Mustang GT

[ChromaticGrey]

If you start spinning the tires unintentionally, ease up on the throttle.

Don't mash the throttle mid turn. Smooth and controlled steering and throttle, brake. Drive with your brain and respect the car, and it should remain planted.

Sponsored

 

[Adamone92]

If you start spinning the tires unintentionally, ease up on the throttle.

Don't mash the throttle mid turn. Smooth and controlled steering and throttle, brake. Drive with your brain and respect the car, and it should remain planted.

People that struggle with these things in a car should never operate a motorcycle.

 

[Gregs24]

Fundamentally there is only a finite amount of grip out there depending on tyre compound, tread design, road surface and conditions. If you exceed that grip the tyre will lose traction and the TCS systems only have the same amount of grip to work with - they can't magic up grip.

You always have to drive to the grip levels, it is just that with modern cars / tyres those levels are usually not a limiting factor so tend to be forgotten. Driving cars in the 70's and 80's grip level was nearly always a limiting factor even in the dry!

A skid pan session is a really good way of learning about grip and how cars respond to inputs.

A Mustang is a relatively light rear, rear wheel drive, powerful car - it will only do one thing !

 

[EmCel]

Easy... get used to the car yourself. Took me a while to get used to corners and turns. I've driven a lot of Z's. They're cute little cars and fun in corners. Each car has its own capability and limits.

If you're worried about driving it like the Z and ending up in a ditch, good luck.

 

[Norm Peterson]

Fundamentally there is only a finite amount of grip out there depending on tyre compound, tread design, road surface and conditions. If you exceed that grip the tyre will lose traction and the TCS systems only have the same amount of grip to work with - they can't magic up grip.

You always have to drive to the grip levels, it is just that with modern cars / tyres those levels are usually not a limiting factor so tend to be forgotten. Driving cars in the 70's and 80's grip level was nearly always a limiting factor even in the dry!

Actually, I think it's less a case of people forgetting that tires (OK, tyres ) force hard limits on vehicle performance as it is a case of people not understanding that bit of physics in the first place. Never mind understand that tire limits also apply to combinations of braking while cornering and acceleration with cornering.

What I suspect has been happening over the past 20 years or so is that people have come to rely on such technologies as ABS, TC, and ESC to keep them from getting out past what their skill set can successfully cope with. And what people tend to take away from that is that tires can't be a limiting factor because they aren't in their normal everyday driving. This absolutely does happen in spite of the text in every Owners Manual cautioning drivers against placing such reliance on the technology . . . I wonder how many people never read anything at all in their cars' OMs, never mind that part.

A skid pan session is a really good way of learning about grip and how cars respond to inputs.

That, or better yet an introductory training session for autocross.


Norm

 

[K4fxd]

The first thing I did when I got my stang was find an empty parking lot got up to 60 MPH then I yanked the wheel to the left and floored it. The car would not spin. I even tried it again in the rain. No spin.

Then I turned off all the nannies, by unplugging the connector at the air box, and was able to spin like a top.

I grew up driving high HP rear wheel drive cars in Wisconsin. Before traction control. When you have a high torque big block on ice and snow covered roads, you learn throttle discipline.

If you wipe out with the TC on you are really doing something stupid.

 

[Stevefreestyle]

Learn somewhat more throttle discipline than your 3.7L car needed - and use it - and you should be fine. For some of us who grew up where snow was likely, the advice used to be to "drive like there's an eggshell between your foot and the gas pedal". Now while you probably don't have to develop that much sensitivity where you live, it's a fair description of what you're needing to do now compared to before in the other car.

It's crossed my mind that if you can set the driver seat as low as you can live with that it's easier to modulate the throttle in finer amounts than if you have it set at a more chair-like height.


Norm

Well said Norm, especially the "Eggshell" analogy. 4 Cyl drivers never need the Throttle Discipline V8 drivers do every day, so it is a whole new experience that soon sorts out the idiots.

One other key suggestion and difference to a 4 cyl is - Ford V8s DO NOT like Flattening the accelerator- for max acceleration always connect the brain to the pedal - with progressive application, which you get a feel for over time.

 

[jwt]

am I the only one who feels I messed up (in normal driving) if I see the nanny lights come on, sort of like I made a mistake and teacher had to step in and correct my mistake?

 

[Norm Peterson]

am I the only one who feels I messed up (in normal driving) if I see the nanny lights come on, sort of like I made a mistake and teacher had to step in and correct my mistake?

I would argue that your driving at that particular instant wasn't exactly in line with Ford's definition of "normal driving". Which doesn't necessarily mean that you made a mistake. More like you were briefly trying to color outside the lines.

I would further point out that at such times your eyes need to be looking out the windshield at where you want the car to go, and paying zero attention to anything down in the instrument panel.


Yes, I've felt some nanny in the WRX intervene a couple of times. A bit too early in my estimation based on driving that car with the nannies turned off. so it felt more like it wanted me to color inside Subaru's smaller outline instead of my own larger picture.


Norm

 

[jwt]

Years of driving craptastic cars has allowed me to develop phenomenal peripheral vision attuned to blinking red and orange idiot lights in the dash hence my superhuman abilities to spot the blinking orange nanny light while keeping my eyes on the road. Similar to my super hearing than can hear the minutest of difference in mechanical noise and immediately diagnose any one of a hundreds catastrophic reasons why the car is going to die at any moment. Those of you who have driven similar cars will know exactly what I mean

 

[raptor17GT]

i drove a gen3 mr2 turbo as a daily for 15 years. That thing would snap you in half the second you weren't paying attention but dear lord could it make you smile

Sponsored