[DeTomaso] <detomaso at realbig.com>Re: Oversteer/Understeer
Göran Malmberg
hemipanter at hemipanter.se
Tue Aug 28 16:21:55 EDT 2007
Allright, we talk about the same language. Resentley I heard a discussion
about
passenger cars where over-under steering tendency was reffered to as some
sort of turn-in or feel in the steering wheel effect. Pleas let me explain
my way
of looking at it.
If for example the rear wheel is l
If we drive the car on the 200f diameter skidpad slowley building up speed
and
the front wheel is the axle that is loosing its grip first, the car is said
to be
understeering. Ok, if sideway acceleration is 1G the car is speeding 44 mph.
Lets say we use a bigger diameter skidpad so that the car has to speed 144
mph.
then we need some 300 rwhp to propell the car. Now the car is probabley
badley oversteered since a lot of the tire grip is used for maintaining
speed.
Now, is the car in general term to be named under or oversteered?
Myself I am in to that the car should be described as under-oversteered from
only
lateral acceleration, which mean that the slower diameter circle should be
used
and that we should use almost zero trottle when the brakes loose to see what
happen to grip balance.
Also, as speed builds up on the skidpad we should note the steering wheel
position. If steering input needs to be greater to keep the car in the
circle at
an increasing rate that ends up with the frontwheel is loosing all of its
grip,
the car is understeered.
Even if the car is oversteered it will need a little amount of increased
steering input
during speed buildups, but as slip enter the picture a more sudden loss of
rear wheel
grip will take place.
So, in the first part of speed build up we couldnt tell for sure what the
steering
tendency of the car really is. What it comes down to is that in a dynamic
situation
the car is never really neutral since it is under influence of more forces
than the
steady state skidpad cornering situation. Therfore I have a term of my own
i call "average neutral", which means that the car is set up to neutral seen
over
the whole lap around the track. Which means that the car is not true neutral
in any situation around the track. Excuse me for using a racing track for an
example, but how do we handle the neutral situation on the street?
I am not saying that hte car not could be said to be more or less "neutral"
or a better
or worse driver, what i am telling is my way of looking at this problem.
Goran
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