esses

I have a feeling that it's my driving, but I'm not sure.. maybe the audi engineers code like I do! Who knows!

But last weekend when we were on the Mt. Hamilton drive doing switch backs (sharp almost 180 degree turns).... There were a couple of times when I'd feel ESP kick in.. here's the scenario.

The car starts to push in a turn because I either have the wheel wound too tightly or I'm too heavy on the gas. ESP doesn't kick in here though... I unwind the wheel a bit and let up ever so slightly on the gas... the wheels hook up and out I go... as I exit the turn, I start to let the wheel unwind itself a bit (grip wheel loosely and let it unwind and then grip the wheel to stop unwinding).

Not more than 1/2 a second after I grip the wheel again, I'd feel the front outside corner's abs kick in... just a quick ratatatata and it's done.

Is it me? Is it the system? What am I doing wrong? This wasn't every turn, it only happened twice on the drive... so I'd almost forgotten to ask about it.

ryoung

... since there have been no other responses.

My guess is that this occurs because of the way you're unwinding exiting the corner - letting the wheel spin in your hand a bit and then grabbing it. Going thru any corner, the car acts like a flywheel and picks up some angular momentum just from the relatively slow rotation about it's vertical axis. When you grab the wheel, the rotation suddenly stops, and the tires immediately have to provide resistance to this angular momentum in addition to the normal cornering forces. The limits of the tire are exceeded, the car wants to continue rotating, ESP thinks you've begun to spin (oversteer) and brakes the outside front tire to stop it.

This angular momentum that must eventually go to zero as the car enters a straight is not insignificant. I first saw this graphically demonstrated years ago watching Porsche 914's on an oval. Exiting onto the straight, when you'd think the hard part was over, occasional a 914 would begin leisurely spinning down the straight. I was amazed. My recommendation would be to always grip the steering wheel firmly, control the rate of unwinding yourself, and don't stop the unwinding as suddenly as you do when just grabbing the spinning steering wheel.

IMHO, letting the wheel spin in your hands is a bad idea in any case. I believe you should always have the steering wheel under firmly under control.

Also, you might want to cross-post this question in the Motorsports forum. Those folks should have more experience with ESP at the track.

Randy

Dave G

the other thing to do is to try turning off the ESP, and see if you like that better

esses

Hrrm that's cool! I know I should always grip the wheel... bad habits are hard to break.. heh