Adjusting my driving style for RWD cars?

[rick_172]

I may be making my first foray in the myserious world of RWD ownership shortly with a BMW 323.

I've always driven FWD motors, at the moment I have a Clio 172. Is it necessary to make any amendments to my driving style to favour RWD?

Also, whats the procedure for if things go wrong? lol Obviously in the clio I'm careful never to lift off in a corner, even if I'm going in a little hot, can you 'get away with it' with RWD?

Cheers in advance

Rick

[cptsideways]

Looks like the snowy weather will help, either wrongly or rightly I suppose snow has to be the most entertaining way to learn to drive RWD

[rick_172]

Yep, not the best time of year for it! Hopefully the snow won't be too bad....

[GreenV8S]

You need a completely different driving technique, RWD is a completely different kettle of fish and habits that you can get away with in FWD can put you into a hedge with RWD. I suggest you start by reading up on oversteer and opposite lock, and also practice the mantra 'engine braking is not my friend'.

[fidgits]

Well,

The basic fact is, your rear wheels are now driven, rather than your fronts - as it should be...

What this means is - you car is no longer being 'pulled along' - its pushed, and that has an effect on the dynamics..


Basically, in a front wheel drive car - you brake, turn in, accelerate - let the car pull you through the corner.
With rear wheel drive, you brake, turn in, wait, wait, gradually power through the second half of the corner.

Im sure you understand understeer/oversteer - you shouldnt get lift-off oversteer, unless you being a complete idiot, but braking on a fast bend will certainly be a no-no...


The best advice i can give is - be smooth and progressive. If you have a flowing driving style, the car will be much more stable and settled.

You do need to watch out for ice/snow this time of year - traction control is worth nothing if you hit black ice with the throttle open, just lift (dont brake) and correct with the steering.

I'd reccomend getting yourself on a skid pan for half a day if your not sure how to handle - but in my opinion, RWD is actually safer than FWD - because you will instinctivley correct oversteer, whereas understeer you have to do the opposite of what comes naturally.

[Flat in Fifth]

fidgits said:

You do need to watch out for ice/snow this time of year - traction control is worth nothing if you hit black ice with the throttle open, just lift (dont brake) and correct with the steering.

CLUTCH! ffs first thing is declutch!!!!!!!!

Then the limited grip you have is only having to be used on steering without the rear wheels having to drive the engine on overrun, or being driven by the engine which has not yet slowed down.

[fidgits]

Flat in Fifth said:

fidgits said: You do need to watch out for ice/snow this time of year - traction control is worth nothing if you hit black ice with the throttle open, just lift (dont brake) and correct with the steering. CLUTCH! ffs first thing is declutch!!!!!!!! Then the limited grip you have is only having to be used on steering without the rear wheels having to drive the engine on overrun, or being driven by the engine which has not yet slowed down.

NOT IF YOU HAVE TRACTION CONTROL



If you have traction, you dont declutch, so the moment you get grip again - the traction can do its thing

[Don]

GreenV8S said:

You need a completely different driving technique, RWD is a completely different kettle of fish and habits that you can get away with in FWD can put you into a hedge with RWD. I suggest you start by reading up on oversteer and opposite lock, and also practice the mantra 'engine braking is not my friend'.

Listen to this man. He knows what he's talking about.

[Flat in Fifth]

fidgits said:

Flat in Fifth said: fidgits said: You do need to watch out for ice/snow this time of year - traction control is worth nothing if you hit black ice with the throttle open, just lift (dont brake) and correct with the steering. CLUTCH! ffs first thing is declutch!!!!!!!! Then the limited grip you have is only having to be used on steering without the rear wheels having to drive the engine on overrun, or being driven by the engine which has not yet slowed down. NOT IF YOU HAVE TRACTION CONTROL If you have traction, you dont declutch, so the moment you get grip again - the traction can do its thing

Utterly disagree, you introduced the black ice scenario, ie near zero grip.

[fidgits]

but black ice generally is in patches - not large expanses...

I wouldnt say declutching is wrong - it wouldnt hurt in either situation - but it is just a 323, rather than a high performance car.

[900T-R]

fidgits said:

RWD is actually safer than FWD - because you will instinctivley correct oversteer, whereas understeer you have to do the opposite of what comes naturally.

If you mean having to unlock the steering to make the fronts follow their intend path again, instead of applying opposite lock - yes, the latter is more intuitive. To apply the correct amount of opposite lock and time it right to avoid an even harde to correct 'second skid', however, takes a fair bit of practice.

In truth, however, I reckon 95% of understeer situations can be corrected by doing something that comes very naturally when entering a turn 'too hot' - back off the throttle. This is the first technique you learn at a skidpan training - you got in trouble because of too much throttle - now take the cause away by laying off the throttle.

Mind you, I did almost get caught out the other week in the company parking garage when steering around a sleeping policeman at 30 mph on what turned out to be a slippery surface: the front end ploughed on, I let off the throttle and instinctively applied more steering lock! Needless to say, when the fronts gripped again I almost rammed the cars parked on the opposite side of the aisle...



>> Edited by 900T-R on Friday 25th November 13:25

[Flat in Fifth]

Doesn't really matter about the type of car performance or rwd shopping trolley imho.

The point is that the rear wheels have lost lateral grip and are sliding due to whatever reason, xs speed, coarse steering, coarse throttle.

You lift off the gas and at that point the rear wheels with the amount of grip available have to
a) regain lateral grip
b) drive the engine on overrun? If sheet ice that is a bit like pulling the handbrake on a bit, recipe for backwards through a hedge.

Not sure what traction control can actually do at this point as there is no throttle input. Maybe I'm missing a point here, or my understanding of what traction control actually does, if so please explain.

If you de clutch all the tyres have to do is regain lateral control, and they do it a lot quicker without interference from drive train, traction control or no tc. First time I tried it amazed at the speed which stability regained.

So my opinion is, declutch, get control asap, back on the gas and engage drive smoothly.

Of course if you want to play at being "Sideways Sydney" then a different kettle of fish. Then it is a case of keep in gear, and balance steering / throttle., but not what is being discussed here and we need to be clear about that.

Just to go off at a tangent....

The bit I always have trouble with on the skid pan is with the "extreme" fwd front wheel skid scenario. Declutch, straighten steering, gently add lock back in. Nerves of steel required in a real scenario never mind heading towards the chief instructor's car by the control tower. We KEEP telling him not to leave it there. ;D

[fidgits]

okay, i see your point, im not going to argue...

I was told at a skid pan centre though, dont de-clutch if you have traction - or more specifically, VSC - which i believe he has...

I guess thats the distinction though - he should have more than a basic on/off traction control system, and de-clutching stops the VSC from operating (IIRC)...

but, your right - if he wants control your way is best

[rick_172]

GreenV8S said:

and also practice the mantra 'engine braking is not my friend'.

Is that to say that I should pay extra attention to getting the car 'set' before turning into a corner? To be honest I can take some pretty big liberties with the Clio so where as I do try to be smooth at all times I know I will have to be extra careful when jumping into a bigger RWD which isn't going to leap into the corners quite so enthusiastically.

I think I might find a course locally that can give me some refresher training on my driving. The last time I had any 'advanced' driving training was a good year ago and that was only a 1 day course. I dare say some old habits have creeped back in by now.

Keep the advice coming.

Rick

[rsvmilly]

It is because the engine braking effect at higher revs/lower gears can overcome the grip of the rear wheels. If you are braking hard into a corner, most of the weight of the car is transferred to the front. This, coupled with the braking effect of the engine, can mean the rear wheels moveing slower than the road speed - which is not good.

[wee_skids]

Sorry, but that doesnt' really make any sense - unless you are trying to describe what happens when you downchange and do not match revs...

To be honest, for the road, you shouldn't need to change much if you are already a smooth driver. All you need to remember is that the rear wheeels are accelerating you now and that if you use to much acceleration the rear of the car will accelerate around the bend faster than the front. That is oversteer.

You can read 10 billion books on the subject but you need first hand experience to get the right feel for the amount of throttle and steering angle needed to control the slide. in 90% of cases a panic lift and stab of opposite lock will get you somewhere near by - Unless you are going very fast!

Too much mystic about RWD around these days - years ago everyone had it and didn't worry like you are doing. They do not spin the first time you show them a picture of some damp tarmac, they are quite friendly. You only run into problems if you are hamfisted!

Tony

[Hasbeen]

Don't worry too much about the rear wheel drive thing, it comes naturally. I can't imagine why anyone would want to drive any thing else. The only reason for front wheel drive is packaging. Its easier to get a quart into a pint pot, by putting the engine, & the drive at one end, & you can't get a decent boot in a rear engine car. I have driven a lot of cars, & the only front wheel drive car worth driving was the original Mini Cooper, & that was only in gymkhanas. I don't know if I have ever hit black ice, I've had some hairy moments, & if it was blabk ice, I got out of it by backing off. The cars I have driven in those conditions were not high powered, so probably easier, & although I agree that declutching would be the best action, unless you did it every time the tail went, it would not be an inatant action, & it would be all over before you had a second bite at your responce.
When the stuff hits the fan you will probably only be at 6 or 7 tenths, & will have just stuffed up. Backing off will get you out of it. If you ever arive at a corner at a genuine 11 tenths, you are going off the road. The advantage of RWD is that you can chose how. The FWD car is going off on the outside & thats that. The RWD can be spun off on the inside, if thats the best place to go, with a little technique. For example, I was driving a GTB Ferrari in a 12 hour production car race, when I arived at a 120 MPH corner. It was pitch black, & a rolled car was lying about 50 ft off the track, just passed the exit, [we did not have safty cars in my day]. This time was different. The car 100 yards ahead of me had put a rod through the sump at the apex of the corner, & coasted through the corner on line. When I hit the oil, the front washed out, then the tail let go in a big way. I backed off & got it all back, & as I got back on line [still at about 110 mph],I hit the throttle, & the oil again, at the same time. This time I knew I was not getting it back, & remembering the rolled car, I hit the clutch, & locked the breaks, as the tail went through 90 degrees. This flicked me off on the inside of the track, still spining, but clear of thr rolled car. A bloke in the pits later told me he counted my head lights 6 times. The next car, a Mimi Cooper S missed the rolled car by inches, [on the out side], and an LM 250 Ferrari parked about 20 Ft from me. The funniest thing about the whole thing was that the motor had stalled & I could not find the starter button in the dark. It took me about a minute to remember that this was a road car, & if I opened the door, a light would come on. It was easier to learn in my day [don't we old far*s love to say that] with tail happy cars, with 4" rims, cross ply's & no horse power. I don't think you can learn the handling of modern high grip cars, even FWD cars on the road, & although a skid pan may be fun, & may teach you something about ice driving, you can only learn the dynamics of your car at speed, & preferably on dry road, with nothing comming the other way. Get your self to a track day, or a drift day. You will be amazed at how much you will learn. I started racing in a Morgan +4. I hade done 5000 road miles in it & a few races before I went to a track with a 75 MPH corner & discovered just how much the thing could under steer. It took me 3 months of mods to fix that, & then it started bending stub axles, but thats another story.

[GreenV8S]

Hasbeen said:

Good stuff

I'm not too sure I agree that it all comes naturally though. I think you need to have a rwd mindset, and once you have that it all comes together. But there do seem to be a number of people these days (sounding like a bof now!) who simply don't know what happens to a rwd car when it starts to slide, and don't know what they should be doing to control it (or even that they do need to do something to control it). I think the modern trend to ultra-stable FWD boxes that will take whatever you throw at them without any surprises tends to spoil people.

A powerful RWD car (or any RWD car in slippery conditions) is fundamentally different to a FWD car. A modern FWD car is designed to be stable under almost all conditions. If you pile into a corner too fast and lift off the gas, it will plough on. If you hit the brakes, it will plough on. If you give it too much gas out of a corner, it will plough on. If you yank at the wheel, it will more or less respond but keep going in more or less the same direction. You have to work quite hard to get a modern fwd car unsettled.

A RWD car is totally different. The most important difference is that under some conditions, the car will be unstable. That is, if the driver freezes the car will spin. Under these conditions you need to actively balance the car. And when the road is slippery, it is quite easy to find yourself in conditions that make the car unstable. Understanding which areas of the car's handling 'envelope' are unstable is very important. The biggy is to apply engine braking to the rear wheels. In the wrong conditions you only need to ease your foot off the throttle to produce gentle decelleration, to make the car unstable. Even in quite good typical conditions it is quite easy to make the car unstable by clumsy footwork during a down change.

If you get the car unstable, you are liable to encounter oversteer. In most cases, you need to respond correctly to prevent the car from spinning. The later you respond the hader it will be to catch, so recognising the symptoms of oversteer and knowing (without having to think about it) what to do to correct the slide is vitally important.

If you have this basic degee of control (what I think of as the RWD mindset) then you can start thinking about the finer points of steering technique, feathering the throttle versus declutching in a slide to prevent a tank slapper, what is your best strategy to bail out if it starts getting away from you, and so on.

But while you are thinking about all that:

Smoothness is far more important in a RWD car than in a FWD car, because if you upset a RWD car it can easily become unstable. A RWD car is typically most stable under gentle acceleration. So get used to driving smoothly, practice driving with a slow entry/late apex line and accelerate through the bend, and for goodness sake get your head around oversteer and opposite lock because sooner or later you're going to need it.

[rsvmilly]

wee_skids said:

Sorry, but that doesnt' really make any sense - unless you are trying to describe what happens when you downchange and do not match revs...

Yes. A mixture of that and the fact that matching the revs becomes more imperative whilst the rear is light. Very prevalent behaviour on a V-twin motorcycle.

[wee_skids]

I thought this was about driving a car, not a motorcycle?

And even a FWD modern car can be very unstable in the wrong hands, and contrary to what may be posted above, you chuck any short wheel base FWD into a bend and then snap the throttle shut will result in it being very unstable, or switing it left hard on the car then swing hard right and ease of the gas, or just swing to hard right before the car has settled from the previous manuver.
In fact, even a ul;tra stable longwheel base FWD (say a current Laguna) can be made to be very unstable quite easily with hamfisted use of throttle, brakes and steering. Most car dynamics are about weigth movement and if you move the weight of the car around those 4 wheels badly using the controls at your disposal then it will become unstable: RWD or FWD. You just have a few more options to make the car unstable with RWD
In the right conditions, if you stamp hard on the brakes in RWD it will plough on, not oversteer, in some situations stamping on the gas will result in the RWD just ploughing straight on - esepcially if you have an open diff.


Frankly, there is far too much mumbo jumbo 'RWD is only for the masters ' speak in car forums and even car mags these days. Which is utterly ridiculous.