Understeer

[Kazumz]

Well, I finally was able to push my Clio properly with confidence yesterday. I covered a few miles distance through roads (plenty of visibility and was extremely early in the morning) in a miniscule amount of time. Quite impressed actually. However, when going around long corners I was pushing the car with traction control on and it was still understeering, nothing I cannot control of course; I've had plenty of practice in the Turbo Charged 1.1 that I had previously with decent amounts of torque which was in fact not far off the car I have now.

Anyway, point is, I need you guys to recommend me some fat ass front tyres that I can push to near edge and use on a daily basis. Would it be a good idea to put fatter tyres on the front and keep the back standard or is this a no-no? I seriously can't take this to the track and push it that hard on the standard ones on the front. I think they are Bridgestone Potenza's that came with the car when I bought it? To be frank, I pushed it in the rain and they were nothing special, it actually felt like my old car in the rain which was disappointing.

 

[Fernandez]

Your search for grip is over..

http://www.cazanracing.co.uk/nankang-ns-2r-93435-p.asp

 

[jakehewitt]

The tyres do help massively, but I would have thought putting fatter at the front would ruin handling.

 

[Mentalpen]

If they are RE050A then they are not a wet weather tyre.

Depending how old they are the tread pattern has also been changed on them to improve grip in the damp/rain which they have.

 

[Fernandez]

The tyres do help massively, but I would have thought putting fatter at the front would ruin handling.

Not according to Audi. When they were testing the RS3 it suffered badly from understeer so they fixed it by chucking wider tyres on the front

 

[jakehewitt]

Learn something new every day!

 

[Fernandez]

Learn something new every day!

So did Audi :rofl:

 

[Dedespo]

Not according to Audi. When they were testing the RS3 it suffered badly from understeer so they fixed it by chucking wider tyres on the front

The RS3 is quite a different car in terms of handling dynamics compared to our babies though. The problem with the RS3 is that its too heavy , with bad weight distribution and the 4wd system is haldex which means that the car is essentially a FWD that only redirects power to the rear wheels when it detects slip on the front. All that makes for a very understeery recipe .

In our case, i believe that going wider on the front and keeping the narrower rears will make the car a bit too lift-off oversteery in more slippery roads..not necessarily a bad thing though :001_rolleyes:

 

[ken182]

Should buy my wheels and tyres of me (OZ ultraleggera a and AD08s) and the understeer will go

 

[Matt W]

I would suggest changing your driving style to counter any understeer.

 

[Chrisgti6]

Tyre pressures, age/wear of the tyres, driving stye etc can all change the handling of the car. Start with the basics!

 

[Iain 007]

I would suggest changing your driving style to counter any understeer.

This, If you are consistently understeering you are using too much throttle mid corner or have entered the corner far to quickly.

 

[Foxspeed]

Tyre pressures, age/wear of the tyres, driving stye etc can all change the handling of the car. Start with the basics!

This, If you are consistently understeering you are using too much throttle mid corner or have entered the corner far to quickly.

start with these 2 first...

 

[Kazumz]

The RS3 is quite a different car in terms of handling dynamics compared to our babies though. The problem with the RS3 is that its too heavy , with bad weight distribution and the 4wd system is haldex which means that the car is essentially a FWD that only redirects power to the rear wheels when it detects slip on the front. All that makes for a very understeery recipe .

In our case, i believe that going wider on the front and keeping the narrower rears will make the car a bit too lift-off oversteery in more slippery roads..not necessarily a bad thing though :001_rolleyes:

Have no issue with lift off oversteer, the car follows through on the front anyway so if that happened I'd just plant the throttle and pull the back in to shape again.

I would suggest changing your driving style to counter any understeer.

Why? I am 10x faster with the TC off pulling hard around corners, obviously I understand I'm not a race driver and you have to believe that I wouldn't be silly IE: Hitting a roundabout hard with speed, turning left immediately, then right to go around it would cause understeer but roundabouts are predictable so all you need is steady throttle and opposite lock and the car will take you around it. That's my main issue with this car. I don't want that. I want to keep TC off, still hit it at a controllable speed and having the car pull much more in the corners without the need for inducing understeer to keep the car at speed.

On another note, I put TC on last night around 1AM and it nearly killed me. Yes. TC nearly killed me. Great for straight lines but when you need the power it says no. I hit understeer about 55-60MPH and when I needed the power to pull out of the turn, it didn't let me which resulted in the car slowing down and hitting the lift off oversteer hard. Plenty of room on the road I do it on, it's dead in the middle of the night and lights can be seen miles away so don't worry about dangerous driving, it's a near enough unused road.

On another note, any of you suggest a video where I can learn the driving style for these cars from?

 

[Kazumz]

This, If you are consistently understeering you are using too much throttle mid corner or have entered the corner far to quickly.

It's more mid corner, I've never gone in to a turn where I know I can't 'turn' if you catch my drift. (Pun intended).

 

[Kazumz]

Your search for grip is over..

http://www.cazanracing.co.uk/nankang-ns-2r-93435-p.asp

What size should I go for on the front? Can I get 225's on the standard 205 Alloy? Medium compound good enough for the road? I don't want to change the Tyre every 10 miles.

 

[Matt W]

Your driving style sounds very aggressive. I've only once had the traction control kick in and that was on a greasy nurburgring. IMO it shouldn't kick in during road driving.

 

[Kazumz]

Your driving style sounds very aggressive. I've only once had the traction control kick in and that was on a greasy nurburgring. IMO it shouldn't kick in during road driving.

It is. But it's not stupid. Always plenty of room for a high speed spin, not that I'd ever want to do that. Wouldn't do something silly in such a nice car. I believe it's more down to the front tyres being total shyte though. You're traction control should always be kicking in on 1st and 2nd gear throttle with a tail off in 3rd.

 

[ken182]

No way. TC rarely intervenes in these as they don't have the torque. I would suggest learning to drive properly.

leave the TC on and learn to drive without activating it (I.E smoothly) then turn it off. A good way to learn throttle control is to leave TC on and not activate it.

Learn to trail brake on the way in and learn throttle control on the way out.
i don't know what your used you but the brake pedal on FWD is just as important for turning as the steering wheel is. Start to thing about weight transfer.

expecting the front axle to do everything is not going to happen.



in post.
#14 you mention 'opposite lock' on roundabouts - that's NOT understeer.

Not to sound rude you should learn to drive before even thinking about turning off any driver aids

these cars practically never intervene with ESP or TC or even ABS for that matter on the road. I you having problems with ESP or TC coming on your doing something seriously wrong.

 

[Kazumz]

No way. TC rarely intervenes in these as they don't have the torque. I would suggest learning to drive properly.

leave the TC on and learn to drive without activating it (I.E smoothly) then turn it off. A good way to learn throttle control is to leave TC on and not activate it.

Learn to trail brake on the way in and learn throttle control on the way out.
i don't know what your used you but the brake pedal on FWD is just as important for turning as the steering wheel is. Start to thing about weight transfer.

expecting the front axle to do everything is not going to happen.



in post.
#14 you mention 'opposite lock' on roundabouts - that's NOT understeer.

Not to sound rude you should learn to drive before even thinking about turning off any driver aids

these cars practically never intervene with ESP or TC or even ABS for that matter on the road. I you having problems with ESP or TC coming on your doing something seriously wrong.

Apologies, not opposite lock, lock in general. If I turn off Traction Control, I get wheelspin in 1st, 2nd and 3rd unless I use the throttle generously with Potenza's. Understandable with traction control coming on during a corner but if you're pushing a car, it is inevitable especially without the cup setup. Is it a bad driving style to drive on the limit of the tyres? I can balance the car very well around a corner with understeer and keep the car turning as much as I like with throttle, it's almost as if the steering doesn't exist anymore and you just use it to point right of left. I find it is much faster to do this than 'smoothly'. So what you're saying is back off the go pedal once I hit limitation rather than keep pushing? TC always flips on when I am going in a straight line especially on gear changes.

Were talking about roads here, I'm not going to be doing 130 around a corner at the ring; that would be a totally different driving style and experience. Where I enjoy my car, there is plenty of room to mess up and you can have serious amounts of fun at 40-60MPH