Q: what is lift-off oversteer?
Discussion
If you imagine powering gently around a curve with the car balanced, if you were to suddenly lift off the gas the forces would move towards the front of the vehicle reducing the load on the rear tyres and therefore possible loss of grip and hence Oversteer.
Hope thats right?
Nick
Edited to correctly spell Oversteer
>> Edited by aprisa on Thursday 5th December 14:23
Hope thats right?
Nick
Edited to correctly spell Oversteer
>> Edited by aprisa on Thursday 5th December 14:23
Go into a corner a little too quickly, lift off the throttle, rear wheels become unweighted, back ends starts to overtake front end, rear wheels clip curb and send you barrel rolling into the nearest ditch. (OK so the last bit was a little dramatic but you get the idea).
Avoid the above by going in a little slower and apply power gradually as you go through.
Avoid the above by going in a little slower and apply power gradually as you go through.
I had 2 cars which were absolute masters of this in the wet.... and bloody good fun for it! I used to live in Peterborough, and if you've ever been there you'll know there are lots of roundabouts, many of the 3 lane variety. Excellent. So I'm 20yrs old, I've got a Citroen Visa GTi (yes, that rare mastrpeace!) and boy does the back end slide in the wet:- enter roundabout at about 35-40mph, simultaneoulsy sharply turn in and snap the throttle closed, back end drifts out, apply enough opposite lock and throttle to balance the slide round the roundabout exiting nice 'n straight up the slip road. Bl00dy marvellous!! Not as challenging as balancing the back end in the Chim but huge fun. The other car I learnt this in was - honestly - the first new car I ever bought: a 96' FIAT Punto 55SX. Steering wasn't as nice as the Citroen and it didn't have enough grunt to pull you out of trouble if you went to far, but the angles you could drift the thing at were insane. Brilliant!
should that be 'susceptible too' or 'accomplished at'?
Podie said: Something that French "hot hatches" are particularly susceptible too...
Personally, a bit of lift-off oversteer can be very entertaining.. wish I could provoke my Primula into it from time to time.. probably to do with the relatively long wheel base compared to the masters of the art such as 205GTi and R5 Turbo..
The only time I managed to provoke it in the Datsun was on a motorway roundabout where later inspection showed that OSR tyre had deflated to about 10psi.
Edited to say: Neil_Cardiff - come on - you seriously think a bunch of lunatics like us haven't had serious sideways lift-off action outside of our PS2s?
>> Edited by CarZee (moderator) on Thursday 5th December 15:07
Something I'll add here - lift off oversteer is damn dangerous in a road car.
"Power" oversteer (foot to floor during turn, rear wheels slip under the extra power, back end of car drifts out) can, with skill, be controlled. For the less skillful of us (and the public!) it can be saved by the instinctive reaction of "foot-off-gas".
"Lift off" oversteer requires a less instinctive reaction of trying to restore balance to the car with more power..opposite lock etc. This is WORSE than trying to remember to cadence brake as you head for the hedge! (For most drivers...I would argue).
Also what happens when cornering hard and the unexpected happens (kid on bike around corner etc). Foot off the gas - foot onto the brake. Lift off oversteer and the car is in a spin...possibly into oncoming traffic.
In general..and on road cars..for most drivers..a tendency to produce lift-off oversteer is a bad thing. And I don't care if the journos want it so they can kick the back end out for the review - its not a feature of the handling of a car that is safe. Understeer is boring...but on a road car its better than the alternative...I will never undertand why anyone would set up the handling of a FWD car to do anything else.
"Power" oversteer (foot to floor during turn, rear wheels slip under the extra power, back end of car drifts out) can, with skill, be controlled. For the less skillful of us (and the public!) it can be saved by the instinctive reaction of "foot-off-gas".
"Lift off" oversteer requires a less instinctive reaction of trying to restore balance to the car with more power..opposite lock etc. This is WORSE than trying to remember to cadence brake as you head for the hedge! (For most drivers...I would argue).
Also what happens when cornering hard and the unexpected happens (kid on bike around corner etc). Foot off the gas - foot onto the brake. Lift off oversteer and the car is in a spin...possibly into oncoming traffic.
In general..and on road cars..for most drivers..a tendency to produce lift-off oversteer is a bad thing. And I don't care if the journos want it so they can kick the back end out for the review - its not a feature of the handling of a car that is safe. Understeer is boring...but on a road car its better than the alternative...I will never undertand why anyone would set up the handling of a FWD car to do anything else.
Don said: Something I'll add here - lift off oversteer is damn dangerous in a road car.
"
I disagree with you there. Driving into a corner too fast so that you have to lift off is dangerous yes, but surely a car that goes where you point it (think 205 GTI) is preferable to one that understeers everywhere in case you can't drive.
I drove a 205 GTI for over 100,000 miles and NEVER had lift off oversteer on the road, only on the track and then only when I deliberately induced it.
My old Integra Type R was setup for this sort of carry on and is often rated as one of the best fwd chassis to date. It had (iirc) 65%/35% weight distribution to provoke it 
.
The Cooper S is also a superb LOO merchant as it's got just enough power to drag its arse back into line.
Mrs Fopps plain old Cooper doesn't have enough power for this and just sort of digs in and slows down.
. The Cooper S is also a superb LOO merchant as it's got just enough power to drag its arse back into line.
Mrs Fopps plain old Cooper doesn't have enough power for this and just sort of digs in and slows down.
moleamol said:Now should that be 'touché' or are you calling CarZee an arse?
Podie said:
CarZee said:should that be 'susceptible too' or 'accomplished at'?
Podie said: Something that French "hot hatches" are particularly susceptible too...
Mole - something to do with the fact that I have a crap keyboard, I can't be arsed to dig out some poncy French character, and as for the real meaning - well choose whichever YOU think fits Carzee best.
NikB said: I had this happen to me on the road when I was pushing my 306 a bit too hard. I think the 306 has some sort of passive rear steering mechanism which makes this worse.
Nik
It's called a French designed chassis.
One of the testers that I worked with in a previous job believed that Pug hot hatches should be banned, as it was very easy to provoke a lift off oversteer that was simply "uncatchable"
Oh no, my choice of fwd has been blown wide open!
Not at all Early 911s are better at this than any other car,( you simply do not back off the power mid bend ever!!! although perhaps those Czec rear engined (V8- & air cooled i think) Tatra's are rather worse..
Ive not driven Elises but im told with the wrong tyres on and espicially in the wet they can- in the words of Benitzio DelToro in the Usual Supects 'flip you for real'
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