PaulW

So going into corners (a great twisty road on the way to a nuclear power plant in Byron, IL) I practiced trail braking and on the entrance to all highway ramps since then.

So what am I doing? I'm driving fast into the corner, so you have to brake before entering, then instead of lifting of the brake when starting the turn, I just keep a little bit of brake on.

It defintitely minimizes the push on the car (especially compared to no brake), but I find that the car just really scrubs speed quickly if even using just a very slight pressure.

I guess that means I can enter the corner at a higher speed? It seems like when I don't have brake on when entering a corner, I control the car with the gas maybe right before or at the apex, plus then after the apex, and can get on the gas hard.

With trail braking, it just seems to scrub so much speed off, but the car doesn't push nearly as much.

Comments?

pw

airbil

Happened across this just yesterday while attending to some other marqui sickness

ps BTW nav+ could be here next week.<ul><li><a href="http://www.motormeister.com/suz/ptw_book/index.htm">Racing 101</a></li></ul>

PaulW

You'll have to wait for me to help, you know I want to do it! I bet all the radio plugs are exactly the same as your old unit.

Defintely want to throw that one up on audipages when complete.

JimR

They're the track guys. And a few others.

ryoung

You probably shouldn't push the envelop any further on the street. A few comments though,

1. For most corners, steering wheel input should be gradually increasing all the way to the apex. In your mind, you want to attach your hands on the wheel to your foot on the brake. The more you turn the wheel, the more you release the brake. Unfortuately, the relatively narrow lanes on highways and exit ramps usually have a fixed radius and don't allow you to adjust the radius as much as you could on the track.

2. If you feel you're scrubbing off too much speed, it probably means you could be at a higher speed at turn-in :-)

3. When you're at the limit, the feeling of scrubbing off too much speed will change to feeling that the rear end wants to come around -- which is why you don't want to get carried away on the street (pun intended).

4. Don't try trail braking at Road America's Turn 5, just be happy that you can get the car slowed for the corner!

ryoung

The car can corner at 0.88g steady state at the apex, but with understeer. You could corner faster if you could get some load on the front tires, and sure enough, with 0.26g of braking, the car's neutral at cornering 0.91g. Note, though, with more braking than this, the car oversteers at lower g's.

So, the trick is --

1. Max straight line braking at 0.95g
2. Release the brakes enough so you have &lt;0.26g of braking at turn-in.
3. Continue releasing the brakes as you increase steering input and slow to the apex.
4. Back on the gas for corner exit.

Needless to say, the optimum amount of trail braking for a specific corner, if it even benefits from this, depends on the corner; but I'm sure you get the idea.

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