SCCA F-Street Setup. What's Everyone Done so Far?

[TeeLew]

To add, one of our alien drivers gave the advice that a lot of front-back weight transfer upsets a car and makes it slow...The advice seems plausible.

and it seems plausible that I’m using front tire scrub as a brake.

Lumberg voice - "Yaaaaaa, so I'm just gonna go ahead a disagree with that..."

What you do with your feet is every bit as important as what you do with your hands and giving the front vertical load to turn on entry is crucial. It's a little ambiguous, but, while a lot of front-back weight transfer may upset the car, the appropriate amount (which is not zero) is necessary to really go fast. As far as you using the front tire scrub as a brake, that's what I saw.

This course had a bunch of slaloms (a Miata driver must have set it up!), so that's a mostly steady throttle maneuver, but in more 'normal' corners, you have to present the car to the corner loaded enough to make it want to turn or you'll induce understeer. If you try to fix *that* understeer with chassis adjustments, then you'll end up with a car which still has the understeer, but also has an alignment or roll-couple which tends toward oversteer.

Brian mentioned Alonso's driving style in the Renault. There's a YouTube analysis that contends he was using the fast steering inputs to put heat in the front tires and *reduce* understeer. I don't agree. My analysis is that his car was quite unstable on corner entry (if you watch his in-car from those seasons, he has plenty of problems with the car wanting to spin on entry). Because of this lack of stability, he would intentionally break front grip and induce understeer. Once he did that, he was very patient and would wait on the car to rotate without touching the throttle. As it did, he could unwind the wheel, with less demand, the front tires would recover grip and give a reasonable balance for the middle-to-exit throttle application.

I have driven corners this way at times in a kart, but I certainly don't have the ability to pull it off consistently. In a car, I intentionally keep the rear end stuck enough that it's not really an option.

I've got a bunch of race car rules. Here's one: The point which you initiate throttle application is of little consequence. The point which you reach full throttle is vital. Never sacrifice the latter for the former.

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[Dana Pants]

Those parts you don't like are the corners that a Mustang can make up for its size/weight. They represent heavy combined cornering and throttle, or straight full throttle accel...unless your signs are backwards

The red arrows point to braking...which means that I used less braking. The acceleration areas of the traction circles are unaffected.

 

[SteveW]

Those parts you don't like are the corners that a Mustang can make up for its size/weight. They represent heavy combined cornering and throttle, or straight full throttle accel...unless your signs are backwards

The red arrows point to braking...which means that I used less braking. The acceleration areas of the traction circles are unaffected.

Makes more sense then. What don't you like about them?

I'm with Brain...looks like you can multitask the front tires with more work and no trade-off elsewhere. I'm thinking you have even better corner entry and opportunity for trail braking to carry more speed to the apex.

Unless I'm totally reading the circles wrong, which I could be.

 

[strengthrehab]

Definitely losing some with braking and turning in corner entry. Not a whole lot if trailbraking going on there. Seemingly less than when you had the previous bar setup.

Are you getting loose on corner entry?

 

[Dana Pants]

Why would I brake more than is necessary to make the turn?

Advice from alien driver’s I’ve gotten over the years:
“everyone brakes too much”
“If you are braking just a little bit, try just lifting”
“Hard braking is upsetting the car”

If the course had a real braking zone, (it didn’t) I would have happily pushed the brake pedal through the floor.

 

[strengthrehab]

Do these "aliens" drive heavy ass, powerful cars? Slow in, fast out. Are you trailbraking at all?

 

[TeeLew]

Do these "aliens" drive heavy ass, powerful cars? Slow in, fast out. Are you trailbraking at all?

This is a great point. One of the cars you're comparing against is an S2000. This car will get it's lap time in a completely different manner than a relatively heavy car with a lot of nose weight and power. The driving style that optimizes one will be detrimental to the other.

 

[TeeLew]

Why would I brake more than is necessary to make the turn?

Advice from alien driver’s I’ve gotten over the years:
“everyone brakes too much”
“If you are braking just a little bit, try just lifting”
“Hard braking is upsetting the car”

If the course had a real braking zone, (it didn’t) I would have happily pushed the brake pedal through the floor.

1. That's a interesting, but loaded question. You don't brake more than necessary, but the amount of braking necessary is dictated by how fast one approaches the corner. So I'll turn your question around. Why would you go any slower on the straight than is possible? (Remember my rule?)

2. There are better and worse drivers. I know plenty of very good ones. None are alien.

3. You are right, that course didn't really have a good brake zone. There were places where you could have been full-throttle longer, though, which would have meant you had to brake for the corner. Had you done that, it probably would have meant a better responding front end, a tighter radius corner, a lower minimum speed & earlier full throttle at exit.

 

[Dana Pants]

Another event with the Strano rear bar on kill (full stiff). This run I was intentionally aggressive with the steering inputs... which produced my best time of the day.

Man was I on the edge of death. I can’t watch this video without laughing a little bit.

Feedback from the course workers was that the car looked good from outside.

I think the bar allows the car to whip around into a good position to attack the next element... if you do it right.

 

[Dana Pants]

I don't know what I expected to see, but I took some thermal camera pics of my tires after 3 runs. Last left hand sweeper makes the inside front tire shockingly hot to me indicating that the rear bar is doing its job.

Inside of rear tires is also pretty hot. Maybe an indication that -1.8 deg camber is a bit aggressive... or maybe that the body roll is just too damn high.

 

[strengthrehab]

were you sliding?

 

[Dana Pants]

were you sliding?

watch the video a few posts up and decide for yourself.

 

[strengthrehab]

watch the video a few posts up and decide for yourself.

Ah yeah, you were doing A LOT of sliding. Nice tight line, though.

 

[Dana Pants]

If your inside rears are hot it can mean a lot of things:
1) Too much camber - this is highly improbable given stock springs, though you do have a quite stiff rear bar...
2) A lot of straight line wheelspin
3) A lack of rear grip, meaning the tire never generates enough force to cause a lot of rear body roll, just slides, therefore not using the outside half of the tire as well

Or a combination of them

I think you missed the most likely reason:
4) inside wheel spin while turning.

 

[strengthrehab]

I think you missed the most likely reason:
4) inside wheel spin while turning.

Wouldn't it be better to be able to put power down and not spin?

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