Driving courses
Discussion
Hi All,
Well I took the plunge and bought the car I went to look at last week :D I pick it up in a weeks time :D
So now I'm thinking of how to get the most out of it without wrapping it round a tree. This will be my first rear wheeled drive car and I'm not under any illusion that I'm the greatest driver on the planet.
So are there any courses I can take to learn how to get the most out of the car? I've been on two MAC courses in my Type-R - they concentrate on reading road conditions and positioning the car etc - so I think I'm fairly safe. But I'd really like to focus on reading what the car's doing and having the confidence to slide the back out in a controlled manner. Aside from my supreme mastery of GT4 on the playstation I've not experienced a proper oversteery car yet ;)
Any suggestions?
Mark
P.S. Thanks to those who emailed me previously when I was looking to buy. My email is knackered at home so I've been unable to reply.
P.P.S Anyone want to buy a Civic Type-R???
Well I took the plunge and bought the car I went to look at last week :D I pick it up in a weeks time :D
So now I'm thinking of how to get the most out of it without wrapping it round a tree. This will be my first rear wheeled drive car and I'm not under any illusion that I'm the greatest driver on the planet.
So are there any courses I can take to learn how to get the most out of the car? I've been on two MAC courses in my Type-R - they concentrate on reading road conditions and positioning the car etc - so I think I'm fairly safe. But I'd really like to focus on reading what the car's doing and having the confidence to slide the back out in a controlled manner. Aside from my supreme mastery of GT4 on the playstation I've not experienced a proper oversteery car yet ;)
Any suggestions?
Mark
P.S. Thanks to those who emailed me previously when I was looking to buy. My email is knackered at home so I've been unable to reply.
P.P.S Anyone want to buy a Civic Type-R???
I agree Ride Drive are your people. Just a word of warning though be careful with Rear wheel drive. Especially with your new purchase Tivvers are light and can be tail happy. I've been driving various powerful rear wheel drive cars for years before I bought my Tuscan and they can still catch you out more so than a powerful fwd car. Especially when you are tired and not concentrating. I hope you get all the enjoyment from your new purchase though 
Good Luck and happy driving!
Good Luck and happy driving!Mark,
Your likely gonna give it some before you get to a driving course....so
On the good side you have a fairly long travel accelerator, which aides tremendously in controlling the power delivery. The steering rack is so damn quick too but a basic rule of thumb is (for any high performance light weight):
Pick a quiet time on a dry day, ensure tyre pressures are correct, fluid levels etc. Explore the horse power curve (but thoroughly warm the engine and tyres through first) get to know (RPM) when the power surge comes in.
Meantime if the British climate does not allow for the above weatehr, then in the wet....dont even think about goosin it away from lights or worse still off roundabouts or bends.....you will see your life flash by if you do this....and a blur of scenery before the thud, and then comes the horrendous repair bill.
Treat the car with respect and you will love it....rear wheel drive is so much more fun than FWD or AWD.
Does your car have a Hydratrak fitted?
>> Edited by yzf1070 on Thursday 2nd June 18:22
Your likely gonna give it some before you get to a driving course....so
On the good side you have a fairly long travel accelerator, which aides tremendously in controlling the power delivery. The steering rack is so damn quick too but a basic rule of thumb is (for any high performance light weight):
Pick a quiet time on a dry day, ensure tyre pressures are correct, fluid levels etc. Explore the horse power curve (but thoroughly warm the engine and tyres through first) get to know (RPM) when the power surge comes in.
Meantime if the British climate does not allow for the above weatehr, then in the wet....dont even think about goosin it away from lights or worse still off roundabouts or bends.....you will see your life flash by if you do this....and a blur of scenery before the thud, and then comes the horrendous repair bill.
Treat the car with respect and you will love it....rear wheel drive is so much more fun than FWD or AWD.
Does your car have a Hydratrak fitted?
>> Edited by yzf1070 on Thursday 2nd June 18:22
yzf1070 said:
Does your car have a Hydratrak fitted?
To be perfectly honest I don't know! I emailed the dealer today to get the EXACT spec but they haven't replied yet. I know its got a different exhaust but I'm not sure what that is either.
But what exactly is hydratrak - some sort of traction control system? I always thought it was a name for the alloys
Cheers,
Mark
yzf1070 said:
Mark,
The Hydratrak is a viscous cartridge limited slip differential which aids traction, mostly under hard acceleration. It was an optional extra on the mk 1 cars.
Aha, I see. In the Civic Type-R world we were constantly cursing that Honda saw fit to give the Japanese market an LSD as standard but not fit it to the UK model (and they both get built in Swindon)
Any more course ideas anyone?
Thanks,
Mark
I know u might feel a bit of a nobber doing it, but I can't recommend the following enuf:
late at night in wet and dry.. go to your nearest out of town car park (park and drive or tescos or summit), and play.
turn to much... brake in a corner... throttle too much coming out of a corner.. start to feel the car under you. After a while you'll get to know when it's going to come out at the back and slide it. where does the limit of adhesion kick in, what happens then, etc..(light weight and heavy non abs brakes are very very different from a type R and they behave very differently at speed too..).
nice open private place like this is the place to do it (failing a track, etc).
Don't be too cospicuous, and stop if other people are around.
most accidents in tuscans seem to be caused by the back coming out 'unexepectedly' by the driver... there is no such thing...it's only unexpected because they didn't know to expect it :-). Then they didn't know how to control it, over corrected (fish tailed) and ended up in a lamppost or whatever.
You should know, and it should be no big deal to control it when it does... no more than a bit of understeer. One driving day isn't gonna teach it, and until you master it, the road isn't the place to do it either. car parks every time.
Goes without saying that stuff like heel and toe, etc are worth learning too if you've not already.
stu
late at night in wet and dry.. go to your nearest out of town car park (park and drive or tescos or summit), and play.
turn to much... brake in a corner... throttle too much coming out of a corner.. start to feel the car under you. After a while you'll get to know when it's going to come out at the back and slide it. where does the limit of adhesion kick in, what happens then, etc..(light weight and heavy non abs brakes are very very different from a type R and they behave very differently at speed too..).
nice open private place like this is the place to do it (failing a track, etc).
Don't be too cospicuous, and stop if other people are around.
most accidents in tuscans seem to be caused by the back coming out 'unexepectedly' by the driver... there is no such thing...it's only unexpected because they didn't know to expect it :-). Then they didn't know how to control it, over corrected (fish tailed) and ended up in a lamppost or whatever.
You should know, and it should be no big deal to control it when it does... no more than a bit of understeer. One driving day isn't gonna teach it, and until you master it, the road isn't the place to do it either. car parks every time.
Goes without saying that stuff like heel and toe, etc are worth learning too if you've not already.
stu
Stu,
I will definitely try finding a quiet place to experiment a bit but thats going to be quite tricky - I live in the centre of london and deserted car parks are hard to find (particularly those without cctv).
But I think thats a good idea and something I will try in due course.
Heel and toe... I've had trouble with that so far because of my big feet, the placement of peddles, twitchy accelerators and general inexperience. Size 13s don't fit sideways onto many peddles so I find I use the outside of my foot. So far I've not been very successful with heel and toe in the type-r, but then again it is extremely rev-happy and lowly geared and the peddle placement doesn't help me. I find the accelerator in the Tuscan much easier to control so who knows, I might have more joy.
Cheers,
Mark
--- Counting down the seconds til thursday ----
I will definitely try finding a quiet place to experiment a bit but thats going to be quite tricky - I live in the centre of london and deserted car parks are hard to find (particularly those without cctv).
But I think thats a good idea and something I will try in due course.
Heel and toe... I've had trouble with that so far because of my big feet, the placement of peddles, twitchy accelerators and general inexperience. Size 13s don't fit sideways onto many peddles so I find I use the outside of my foot. So far I've not been very successful with heel and toe in the type-r, but then again it is extremely rev-happy and lowly geared and the peddle placement doesn't help me. I find the accelerator in the Tuscan much easier to control so who knows, I might have more joy.
Cheers,
Mark
--- Counting down the seconds til thursday ----
heel and toe: well.. using just the ball of your foot is the real way to do it anyway (in race cars). so all the better.
It's just part of the fun, it's not gonna make you any faster on the road really, but it's fun to master and get right, nothing sounds better than a bit of matching the revs under heaving braking while downchanging before a corner...sounds great.
I hear u about London. But you driving day isn't gonna be in london either is it ? So treat it like a 'driving day' and go out to bluewater or summit sunday night.
When I had my 300zx (300hp rear wheel drive) I came across another owner in Ipswich. A week later I met him and he'd drove it into a house.
"yeh mate, dunno what happened, I was just driving up this hill in the wet... and the back just came out.. no reason..no warning...and I drove through a stone wall into the front of a house. thing is written off".
This was a 30 limit main street up a hill. He must have been doing 2x that... and on acceleration in the wet he lost the back end.
total muppet. but he really did believe it wasn't his fault... just these 'rear wheel drive cars' just 'goin on you'. tw4t.
The 300zx is a pussy cat compared to the tuscan. 4 wheel steering, abs....
Spent many a night blasting round tescos in that too :-)
It's just part of the fun, it's not gonna make you any faster on the road really, but it's fun to master and get right, nothing sounds better than a bit of matching the revs under heaving braking while downchanging before a corner...sounds great.
I hear u about London. But you driving day isn't gonna be in london either is it ? So treat it like a 'driving day' and go out to bluewater or summit sunday night.
When I had my 300zx (300hp rear wheel drive) I came across another owner in Ipswich. A week later I met him and he'd drove it into a house.
"yeh mate, dunno what happened, I was just driving up this hill in the wet... and the back just came out.. no reason..no warning...and I drove through a stone wall into the front of a house. thing is written off".
This was a 30 limit main street up a hill. He must have been doing 2x that... and on acceleration in the wet he lost the back end.
total muppet. but he really did believe it wasn't his fault... just these 'rear wheel drive cars' just 'goin on you'. tw4t.
The 300zx is a pussy cat compared to the tuscan. 4 wheel steering, abs....
Spent many a night blasting round tescos in that too :-)
Mats said:
--- Counting down the seconds til thursday ----
I am also, I dont get my baby back until next Thursday. Having a 24K service at 21K and Nitrons fitted. As well as some remedial work (loose seat back etc) What colour/spec did you go for Mark?
2000 model Tuscan 4.0, 29k miles, one rebuild, 18s, reflex purple, grey leather, air con. Also got some loud exhaust, but no idea what
I think I'll be taking it easy to start with, leaving extra room between me and other cars, not trying to pull away fast etc etc
Just need to get used to it before I explore the performance side...
Roll on thursday
Mark
Well here it is as promised. I know everyone thinks that their Tuscan is the best but bless 'em they're all mistaken and here's why: (why is it the best - because its MINE that's why 
www.marksdomain.org.uk/tvr/tuscan1.JPG
Oh yes
Look forward to meeting fellow TVR owners soon
Mark
P.S. It came with an absolutely kick-ass headunit too which was an unexpected surprise! Way to go TVR-Centre!
www.marksdomain.org.uk/tvr/tuscan1.JPG
Oh yes
Look forward to meeting fellow TVR owners soon
Mark
P.S. It came with an absolutely kick-ass headunit too which was an unexpected surprise! Way to go TVR-Centre!
Mark, if you've already done the road use stuff like observation and conditions etc., on top of that, you might want to take a look at what Don Palmer can offer.
www.donpalmer.co.uk
It sounds like Don's 'limit-handling' could add to the tuition you've already experienced.
Pete
www.donpalmer.co.uk
It sounds like Don's 'limit-handling' could add to the tuition you've already experienced.
Pete
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