quattro handling at the edge

John Shost j_shost at excite.com
Mon Aug 9 21:42:23 EDT 2004


A lot depends on tires and alignment settings. Lower performance tires in general have a broader breakaway characteristic. Track rubber can be stealthily silent, even beyond the point of breakaway. Tow-in tends to make the car more stable, tow-out can quicken the cornering response but it’s not unusual to get bitten with aggressive settings.

 --- On Tue 07/27, Matt Evans < matt at mattevans.org > wrote:
From: Matt Evans [mailto: matt at mattevans.org]
To: quattro at audifans.com
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 00:48:39 -0500
Subject: RE: quattro handling at the edge

As Ti pointed out, this is situational and vehicle specific.<br><br>However, I have the following observations:<br>- don't buy any bridges from whomever told you to lift in an RWD car when<br>the rear starts to come around.  Guess what lifting does.  It unloads the<br>rear even more, reducing rear traction, meaning the rear is now sticking to<br>the road even less than it was when it was already sticking so poorly that<br>it could come around.  Congratulations, you've spun.  OTOH, LTO (lift<br>throttle oversteer) is fun if you are expecting it, or if the point is to<br>spin out :P<br><br>The safest advice I've got for you when the rear comes around in an RWD car<br>is to STEER through it and keep the throttle constant, or SLIGHTLY add<br>throttle to get some more weight on the rears.  The key here is STEERING<br>through the slide though.. As if the rear moves AT ALL your steering is not<br>pointed where it used to be.  Just associate the two naturally - "rear<br>moves, so does the steering wheel"<br><br>Disclaimer - my summer car is a RWD 1988 BMW M5 :)<br><br>- Now, onto quattro at the limit -<br>Honestly, this depends on a bunch of things, tires being the biggest part of<br>it, but also the weight distribution of your vehicle, your alignment, and<br>your bar settings (and lots of other stuff even).  Also, "at the limit" can<br>have a few different contexts.  There is such a thing as car that will<br>understeer on turn in and oversteer under power, or understeer at speed but<br>not at lower speeds.<br><br>In my 88 90Q, with blown rear shocks and bushings everywhere, I found the<br>handling to be very neutral if not surprisingly biased to oversteering.  In<br>the snow I've found that mid way through most turns I can get the rear to<br>come around without significant mucking around, so the car seems to be<br>moderately biased for oversteer.  Its very easy to get the rear loose and<br>keep it loose in this car; you can do some wonderful figure 8 drifts just by<br>squeezing on and off the gas pedal (with wheel input, naturally).  If you<br>want to turn 90 degrees INSTANTLY, left foot brake as you're starting your<br>directional transition.. Just a quick stab on the brakes.<br><br>This is also possible on pavement with low grip tires.. Even with the NG<br>motor.  People following me on the street tell me that I lift my inside rear<br>wheel on turns, so, assuming that's not just a function of blown shocks,<br>that's definitely a FWD characteristic.<br><br>The best advice I've seen is to go find a skid pad (snowy parking lot will<br>do) and just try different stuff.  You'll need to try a variety of speeds<br>and surfaces to really know, but ultimately its irrelevant - nearly any car<br>can be made to understeer or oversteer, so you need to anticipate and<br>correct for both :)<br><br>Matt<br>88 BMW M5 (tail wagger in the dry)<br>88 Audi 90Q (tail wagger in the snow)<br>00 Passat Wagon (no tail wagging due to "dynamic stability control module"<br>installed in passenger seat)<br><br><br><br><br>> Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 10:56:09 -0500 (CDT)<br>> From: lws at o-o.yi.org<br>> Subject: quattro handling dynamics at the edge<br>> To: quattro at audifans.com<br>> <br>> Hi, I have a question about driving a Quattro when you start to lose<br>> traction.<br>> <br>> The rule of thumb for RWD is to back off the throttle when <br>> the rear comes<br>> around, and with FWD the rule is to hold steady as long as <br>> you still can<br>> feel traction through the steering wheel.  What do you do <br>> with quattro,<br>> when the balance keeps dynamically shifting back and forth?  <br>> Do you get<br>> any warning that you're about to totally lose traction before all hell<br>> breaks loose?<br>> Or does the car just handle fine, right up until the moment <br>> it doesn't?<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>quattro mailing list<br>quattro at audifans.com<br>http://www.audifans.com/mailman/listinfo/quattro<br>

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