Driving Round Corners

[redrobbie]

How fast do you guys go around tight bends on the road??

Im a new e30 driver and have an 318iS and compared to most of you have little experience driving a rear wheel drive car and to be on the safe side i dont want to be goin speedin round a corner and have the back unexpectedly step out.

Another thing, for those of you who do go fast round corners do you expect the back to step out and correct it?

[bullitt]

How fast do you guys go around tight bends on the road??
for those of you who do go fast round corners do you expect the back to step out and correct it?

Hell Yeah!! Full of the Rack Sideways!! Thats what a Sport is For!!!

Just drive with care until you get used to it, (Find a quiet industrial est) then push a little harder in the wet and learn to control it by steering into the slide, you can still drift (To a point) without an LSD!

[Martinaston]

No i just shut my eyes

[Adam318i]

[quote="redrobbie"]How fast do you guys go around tight bends on the road??[quote]

Impossible to answer really as the are so many factors that make a difference. i.e road surface, wheels/tyres, suspension setup.

Adam

[Brianmoooore]

The E30 is a pre" compensation culture" car and wasn't designed with this in mind. i.e. It can, and will, bite back if not driven properly.
Above all. don't lift off in the middler of a corner. It WILL swap ends if it's being driven any where near the limit.
As for catching it, when it steps out, that's something that comes with experience and has to be developed as a skill. The low steering ratio doesn't help - you have to move your hands pretty quickly sometimes.

[Martinaston]

Sounds like your already round the bend so you should be right at home in that car

[Brianmoooore]

Consider a driving course on a "skid car".

[redrobbie]

The reason I asked was i turned right in road which was slighlty damp at about 25-30mph and it stepped out . I wasnt prepared for that at all since ive been used fwd cars and its never happened but lucikly me and the car were OKAY!

I am planning on using an empty car park but Can you give me some more details on that skid car driving course

[Brianmoooore]

I am planning on using an empty car park but Can you give me some more details on that skid car driving course

Go the the Silverstone website and you'll see what I mean. Similar courses are available at lots of other places ariund the country as well.

[Richy325iTouring]

dont get too good in the car park nemo is the carpark drift king

[Wilson]

Above all. don't lift off in the middler of a corner. It WILL swap ends if it's being driven any where near the limit.

Always happens to me!!!!!

[Brianmoooore]

dont get too good in the car park nemo is the carpark drift king

Not with his car at the moment, he ain't.

[Richy325iTouring]

dont get too good in the car park nemo is the carpark drift king

Not with his car at the moment, he ain't.

he be back

[psychochild187]

redrobbie
where are u ?

as they say mess about in a car park,
and theres no given speed that it will step out
and snaping back is very fast. in the wet it doent snap back really.
wen on country lanes iam always looking at the road and in the wet ive had it step out on long fast corners. now those moments make the heart do funny thing !



first time it snaped on me on a tight corner, i hit my hand on the window and broke my thumb nail really bad(blood n all), as the speed i was trying to correct was so fast and i slippeed of the wheel and BANG.( but i dont have pas)

[TOURINGDADDY]

Yep that rear end action can get a bit as i found out in my 535 sport , how does it go ( i'm sideways look at me, o crap, don't look at me) Round & round & round bang round bang

[redrobbie]

psychochild Im in London

I think the best bet is to get used to the car as much as possible like empty car parks and "skid car". Im just gonna take it that extra bit slower for now round corners, even if im slowin people down they have a longer look at my sterling silver arse!!!

[Turbo-Brown]

My take on the whole thing is to leave a fairly large margin of safety for cornering. Afterall, ya never know what's around that bend that might force you to lift.

Obviously use your judgement, but I'd say go in fairly slow and when you can see you're not gonna have any probs, have a nice wide clear exit etc then give the ol' girl a squeeze and see what happens.

I know it's not very heroic, but then neither is mowing down a cyclist or pedestrian.

[orangecurry]

all very good advice - I won't add to it

but with the E30 good tyres are very important; check your rears (arf) if they are letting go that easily in the wet

if they are cheap it will be worth buying some quality ones, and don't forget the fronts; 4 the same is best.

yes it might seem like a lot of money, but there's only 5 things that keep you on the road, and a busted car will cost HUGE amounts of money, not least insurance hikes for the next 5 years

IMHO Goodyear.

Good luck

Good night

[redrobbie]

Ive got GoodYear Eagles.

For some reason the front tyres stick out slightley more than the rear tyres.

What effect if any would that have on conering and normal driving??

[SwirlyE30]

I find that the best way to test the limits of my car is in extreme conditions. Now this does have some bad points!


I used to go out in the snow and harsh rain a few months ago, at about 1am +. I used to do a quick drive round town, and make sure not many people were out, then find some quite junctions i knew off, and let it have it!

The problem with this though, is that in the wet you can get some unpredictable effects, understeer, and front wheels hopping when understeering.Also in the wet, its quite easy to give it too much power and lose it all together......i put my hands up to that!


I say, find somewhere quite, quite being the main thing. Its all well and good doing stuff safely, which i think is possible if your not a lunatic, but getting caught is quite a high risk now'adays.



In terms off how to take a corner, i guess it depends ona lot of things, engine (ie power to be able to oversteer and purposlely keep the arse hanging out if you know what to do), tyres, some tyres will grip for ages, where as some will just go straight away. Also the suspension helps, a good setup, with good bushes will help to avoid unpredictable movement when cornering at high speeds. If you take a corner fast and you have shagged shocks/springs, and your bushes and whatnot are shot to pieces it will put a lot of unwanted force on other wheels, so you could lose it.


I generally never go near my limit. I was always told by my driving instructor, who was one of the best drivers ive seen (has literally every lisence going!) that if you feel like your puhsing it too hard, then you are.
Never go beyond your limts. I have, and lost it, and other times ive just got lucky.

Also taking the corner well can make it safer for you. If you are aproaching a tight turn and are pretty quick,always take a wider line, or at least as much as you can within your lane, or look for anything comming and use both lanes to take corners propperly, racing stylee. That way the cars being kept as straight as possible.


You can also use the accelerator to turn,if you go into a corner really hot and feel uneasy about breaking or turning sudenly so the back may step out, you can use more or less throttle to change the way you go through the corner.

[jonbuoy]

I learnt by just goin for it, you soon learn how far to push it when you get it wrong. I did'nt have a clue when i got mine and a mate of mine said put ya foot down and drive into the skid, so i did. I pulled out of a junction, stuck my foot down and spun 270 degrees facing a transit van . Luckily the van was 100yards up the road but still tooooooo close for comfort. I had the arse wip on me and thats when you learn not to back right off but unfortunately you do need to experience these things but it can be

[orangecurry]

back to tyres...

Eagles - nuff said

as you describe the fronts 'stick out' I'll bet you are on 15" wheels with 7J (or 7") width... these are the best tyre/wheel combo for the E30 (IMHO again) and should be 205/55 section

if so and the tread is still good, these's nothing wrong here

get to that car-park

[SwirlyE30]

Make sure theres no cameras, night workers though!


Ive been stopped once by a cop after a supermarket night worker rang up.....cnuts

[redrobbie]

Cheers guys, I think your right swirly about the rain that night probably added to what happened to me.

And OrangeCurry ur bang on it! (I guess I cant blame the tyres then...! after your post)

Ill hit the car park as soon as!

[Turbo-Brown]

Oh yeah, one other thing:

Make sure you're in the right gear for the corner. I know it sounds obvious, but the amount of cars you see lurching in corners when the numpty behind the wheel decides the apex is the best place to change!

IMO, the correct gear for a corner is the one which keeps the revs fairly high but not too close to the rev limit. That way, you can use one pedal (i.e. the accelerator pedal) to both brake and accelerate allowing you to control the balance of grip at either end of the car

[tomstickland]

Very interesting thread this.
I've got a 318IS and I've only been driving RWD for about 4 weeks now.

I had a very nasty experience in the shoddy 320 in the wet. That was running rubbish tyres, so the advice above is very true!

My 318IS has pretty good tyres and I've develope more confidence with it. I'm still careful in the wet though; I really don't know this car like I knew my last one.

One thing that caught me out at first was that lifting slightly on wet corners induced lift off oversteer, but then again putting power down caused oversteer, so I just had to hold it in the middle and live with a bit of the tail coming out. Not so good on narrow B roads.

[Gwynleym10]

Hmmm if its a new car also make sure the suspension is true, and that your rear suspension bushes are in good condition, worn/damaged parts make these cars very unpredicatable...

I manage to spin my car within 2 miles of buying it!! , was on a roundabout that mud on it...

Luckly i used to live in wales, and near where i lived whas a place called ynys las which was about a miles square of flat sand...brilliant for testing a cars handling. Its also very good for rusting a car..so make sure you jet wash it thoroughly after.....

As you in london I always find that Mable Arch is pretty good for getting the rear end out....but do it at 4 in the moring, and don't let anyone see you......or you will be in big trouble!

[redrobbie]

I'll make sure about the suspension condition. Cheers mate I didnt think of that before.

[astondg]

Oh yeah, one other thing:

Make sure you're in the right gear for the corner. I know it sounds obvious, but the amount of cars you see lurching in corners when the numpty behind the wheel decides the apex is the best place to change!

IMO, the correct gear for a corner is the one which keeps the revs fairly high but not too close to the rev limit. That way, you can use one pedal (i.e. the accelerator pedal) to both brake and accelerate allowing you to control the balance of grip at either end of the car

The number of people I see that do this when racing or in rallies always surprise me too . For me I have to go back through the gears coming into the corner with a rev match on each change otherwise it just doesn't feel right but in the rallies I see this seems to be rare. You hear them get off the throttle and onto the brakes and then it's just silence until they get to the apex when they finally decide another gear might be useful so they change (a lot of times with a jerk) and then finally you hear the engine again as they accelerate away. I just can't drive like that.

Unfortunately a lot of the corners I have to go around on the race tracks I go to are just a fraction too fast for 2nd and a fraction too slow for 3rd so I either go around on the limiter or out of the power anyway . In corners I like to keep it in the green area in my avatar (is that what it's called?), especially the solid green bit . About 4500 to 5500 would probably be optimum, 4000rpm to 6000rpm would be ok, much lower and you start to drop out of the power I think.

Aston

[Turbo-Brown]

Yeah BMW did seem to choose some gappy ratios!

1st on my 325i is stooopidly low and so is 2nd with a massive jump to 3rd.

Hopefully I'll have that sorted when it goes back on the road as I have a sport gearbox with non-sport (higher ratio) diff so doing 60 in 2nd shouldn't be a problem etc

Used to love the ratios in my Triumph: could do 50 in 1st, 70 in 2nd etc. made it really easy to keep in the power band (such as it was with 2 litres and 104bhp )

[orangecurry]

interesting points about gears and cornering...

as we all know, left-foot braking is only for FWD or AWD cars... the idea is if you start getting understeer into a corner, you keep the accelerator pressed and also stab the brake pedal on and off very quickly....this shifts the weight of the car onto the front (i.e. the driven wheels) and develops more grip = less understeer.

It works too!

If you do this in a RWD car however, you unweight the driven wheels, lose grip where you are applying power, and off you go into the scenery.

HOWEVER, I did a bit of RWD racing a few years back and the pros do use left-foot braking but more gently, to adjust the balance of the car in the corner - it's a black art.

Disclaimer - I suggest for the purposes of driving on her Majestys highway, that left-foot braking be kept to a minimum

[rusty1983]

Just read this.. I just want to add that snow is a lot of fun but you should know what is underneath and look out for dry patches when wheel spinning.

-Both have lead to bad experiences luckly not my car.

There is a roundabout that i have spun on a lot (cobbles) but if you loose it you have to be prepared to go all the way round due to lack of space!!

I only really get my end out on exits.