Norm Peterson
corner barstool sitter
Originally Posted by Gatorac
Close but not quite. Close throttle, weight transfer to front tires and off of back tires. Front tires get traction and rear tires lose the rest of the grip and you have now sealed your fate that you will spin. You can't lift completely off the gas in a throttle on oversteer situation.
You need to lift, but only as far as "neutral throttle", where you're not adding any forward (on-throttle, accelerating) or rearward (fully closed throttle, decelerating) forces. That keeps the full static weight % on those rear tires and lets the rear tires use all of the resulting grip laterally which is the best you can do for them.
Yes, you do have to be ready for the opposite-direction spin. But if the spin in the first direction is unrecoverable, the advice is usually "both feet in", or on the brake and clutch pedals so that you'll at least slide to a stop in a reasonably straight line with the engine still running. That was always the advice for cars without ABS, I'm not sure if it works as well with cars that do have ABS but I don't have any better suggestions.
Norm
Close but not quite. Close throttle, weight transfer to front tires and off of back tires. Front tires get traction and rear tires lose the rest of the grip and you have now sealed your fate that you will spin. You can't lift completely off the gas in a throttle on oversteer situation.
The key word in Gator's response is "completely". Lift completely, and the car will decelerate because of engine compression braking effects - which act only on a Mustang's rear tires. Now you have the situation where the rear tires that are already being used essentially to their max are being asked to do even more, and with less vertical load on them to work with because of forward load transfer from that deceleration. Which they can't and won't do.YES you can, and should.
I hate reading posts like this giving bad information that feed the misunderstanding that staying in the throttle and "riding it out" by keeping weight on the rear is the best thing to do -because it's not.
You need to lift, but only as far as "neutral throttle", where you're not adding any forward (on-throttle, accelerating) or rearward (fully closed throttle, decelerating) forces. That keeps the full static weight % on those rear tires and lets the rear tires use all of the resulting grip laterally which is the best you can do for them.
Yes, you do have to be ready for the opposite-direction spin. But if the spin in the first direction is unrecoverable, the advice is usually "both feet in", or on the brake and clutch pedals so that you'll at least slide to a stop in a reasonably straight line with the engine still running. That was always the advice for cars without ABS, I'm not sure if it works as well with cars that do have ABS but I don't have any better suggestions.
Norm
Sponsored
Last edited: