A question for the slalom racers, Why is front-end so stiff you lift a wheel Options

[stewteral]

Hey Slalom Guys,

I've been bothered by the pics of your cars lifting the inside front wheel under cornering. Years ago, this was the set up for 911's to adjust away from the car's oversteering nature.

However, from my past experience I've found that a car that would be too oversteery for the track would be about right for slaloms. As I saw it, it was most important to get the front end to turn-in crisply to carve the very tight turns.

So what don't I understand about running 914's? Are your courses so fast now the a loose car will get away from you? The fastest course I ever ran just barely
got Dad's old Cobra into 2nd gear (80 MPH).

Best,
Terry

[BMXerror]

I've read your post several times and still don't understand your question, so I'll start from the top.
-911s lifted the inside front wheel for exactly that reason. They were a bit tail happy, so they either softened the rear and left the front alone, or stiffened the front swaybar. It's the ability to roll in the rear (lack of a substantial rear bar) and disability to roll in the front (heavy bar) that results in it picking up the inside wheel. It's the same exact thing with 914s, because they like to oversteer a bit under steady state cornering too.
The reason they didn't just go to a heavy rear bar to reduce roll is because it would unweight the inside rear wheel and make it difficult to put the power down out of the corners. I was actually just doing back-to-back testing on the BMW that I race with and without a rear sway and finding the same thing. Front engine, rear drive, but the principle is still the same. The opposite is why front wheel drive cars lift the rear tire mid corner. I'm not sure why you're "bothered" by it. How it looks is not as important as how it works.

-I can't speak to track days because I've never done any, but I do know from autocrossing on many different surfaces that the balance of the car is very surface dependent. In general, the less grip a surface has, the more oversteer will be felt from the driver's seat. This is usually a result of how wavy the pavement is and how that relates to your spring rates. Basically what I'm trying to say is it's very difficult to judge car balance from the track to an autocross course, unless you autocross on the track surface.
We try to achieve balance on an autocross course just the same as you do on the track. You do want the car to rotate around the quick-flick type elements, but those are few. If you're too tail happy the car will be unsettled in the slaloms. If you make it too settled in the slaloms it'll be pushy, and you'll just burn time through the sweepers. However I can't really speak to the relationship between a track car and an autocross car. It may have something to do with the relationship between how fast you're eating up pavement and your wheel rate which is considerably different between the two. But that's a bit over my head, so I won't venture a guess.

-In SCCA autocross a fast 914-6 will top out at 65ish (correct me if I'm wrong all you FP guys) and I know PCA runs a bit faster. I've seen 80 in my 1.7 (in a parking lot) at a rather unusual PCA autocross, but that was ridiculous! No. We don't run all that fast. But a car that's too loose will get away from a driver that's too green at any speed.

I hope that helps. Not sure if that answers your question or not.
Mark D.