May 5-6, 2012 Ontario Time Attack Driving School
 

This past weekend I attended the Ontario Time Attack driving school at the Mosport Driver Development Track. Here are a couple if clips:

very nice, how much did you pay for it?

It was $500 for the two days. $50 is credited to the next event.

The school was over two days with an instructor throughout the whole day, classroom time, auto slalom track time, and open track time.

Check out the CASC-OR website for details of other events.

^yes i am on there, i did the SPDA school ;)

next i will try out the DDT or other big tracks...
btw you are carrying nice speed and good over all control :thumbup:

^^
THANKS!!

The next driving school is on the big track at Mosport. The first event I ever did was the driving school last year at the track - before even any autocross experience! Same car but on a STOCK suspension. What a track... If you can get out there it's worth every penny.

How is the car handling so far with the new setup?

Amazingly.

Completely different car from last year with the stock suspension. The car felt very solid around the corners at high speed. Played with the air pressure in the rear to try to get the back end around a little bit. Started to get a little squirrelly and eventually lost the back end coming around a quick right turn (turned too early...) and launched it into the grass! Lol! Quite the rush. I think I still have grass and dirt in the back seat.

Alignment is a touch off and lost a small degree of negative camber in the rear left - the side that hit the grass. That's fine because I want to adjuster the camber anyway: - 2.5* front and -2* rear. Everything held up well though and no damage. At the end of the day I did find that the nut that held the sway bar to the end link on the left side was loose enough to spin by hand. I tightened it up and is okay now. Also held tight on the autoslalom course. Very little body roll.

The engine felt great with the new Skunk2 camshaft. I was a little concerned before about the timing but I think that cleared that up. Above 3000RPM it continued to make power right into VTEC and kept pulling up to 7500RPM. Feels and sounds completely different. Next step is to install the P28 with a basemap and get a dyno.

So far I LOVE IT!!!!

Thanks for the input MPR. Your advice was instrumental in putting together this suspension.

^Glad to hear it's working well. :D

Just a couple pointers...

-With a FWD car, when you have lift-off oversteer (when the back end starts to slide when you lift off the throttle and turn into a corner), the best way to save it is to GIVE IT GAS and counter steer. But BE WARE! when it comes back around, anticipate the weight shift and be ready to correct the wheel back straight BEFORE the car completely straightens out. Otherwise it'll quickly snap back the other way before you have time to react and you'll go into a tank-slapper and/or spin out.

It sounds counter-intuitive to give the car gas when the back end slides out, but if you understand what is going on, it makes perfect sense and it works. With RWD when the back end slides out, you let off the gas to allow the speed of the rotation of the rear wheels to match the road speed in the hopes grip can be re-gained and the back end stops sliding. With FWD when you let off you transfer weight to the front so it has lots of grip and the rear has very little. The more you let off, the more the rear end of the car wants to swing around past the front and the less grip the rear wheels have. When you give it gas, it transfers some weight back to the rear wheels to allow them to grip the road again and also because it's FWD and you're counter-steering with throttle, the front wheels will pull the front of the car the direction the wheels are pointed. This all collectively straightens the car back out. But again, BE WARE. This can all happen VERY quickly and you need to anticipate the weight transfer and how quickly the car is straightening while it's happening. Ideally you want to have the front wheels back straight with the vehicle by the time the vehicle itself straightens out. If you wait until the car straightens to then straighten the wheels, it's too late...lol. The stickier the tires and tighter the suspension, the more quickly it will snap around, so be prepared to react and anticipate what the car will do before it does it.

Kinda difficult to explain, but hopefully you get what I'm trying to say. If you have grantourismo or forza, give it a try and you'll see what I mean. Pull the ebrake on corner entry, then give is gas and counter-steer.

The most important thing, of course, is just have fun! :)

^^

I understand what you're trying to say. They did a fantastic job of providing classroom instruction together with the track experience to help explain exactly what you're saying. Acceleration pushes the weight of the vehicle to the rear while letting your foot off the gas or braking moves it to the front. That's why trail-braking works (with practice!!).

The spin happened the first time out on the track that day. I tried to feel what it would be like to have the back end a little looser by increasing the inflation of the tires since the day before they were sticking pretty solidly to the track. I had a few occasions where the back end would start to come loose but I would recover using the method you just described. I would accelerate out of the corner and counter-steer the car back to a straight line. An example of the corner where this happened can be seen at ~34 seconds of the first video. After I took the car to the Brayden Tire service bay at the big track to get all the grass and debris out of my tires I brought the pressure in the rears back down and the rear end became more stable. I started talking that turn a little more slowly to get comfortable with the line and also not to spin the car again.

The spin occurred at a section of the track going uphill with a quick right turn and very little track to th left to use. The edge of the track had a small patch of concrete with an elevation that made for a 6 inch drop behind it with all the tire tracks through there. Behind it was the grass. You can see the turn at ~49 seconds of the second video and if you pause it you might be able to see the fresh tires marks through the grass where I ended up!

My friend spun out in that exact spot with our turbo MR2 during a touge event 2 years ago...lol.

The elevation change really messes with a vehicle's balance and level of grip. Especially cresting a hill... And especially in a mid-rear car. They can be the worst for lift-off over steer that is, at times, not recoverable. With mid rear you have to get back on the throttle immediately, which is a little nerve-racking, but a lot of fun...lol. Mid-rear cars are not very forgiving, where as RWD and FWD are much more forgiving.

Seems like you're a fast learner. Yeah trail-breaking is scary at first, but works amazing with FWD cars in certain situations. I remember many years ago seeing a built 4 cylinder suzuki swift go rocketing into turn one a mosport tapping the breaks all while never lifting off the throttle! Then years later when I learned what it was he was doing, it all made sense. :)

There are so many techniques and things to learn when it comes to racing/lapping. All in all, just go have fun and learn as you go. :)