Rough and gravel road suspension setup

[D_Thissen]

Originally Posted by Cole

Thought these cars were no good on the track? Didn't you say that a few days ago?

No, he said on public streets.

[churchx]

BTW, i've been my share on gravel roads on completely stock suspension. It's lot of fun, as much as ice/snow roads driving. Few hints with using stock heigh/stock suspension:
- road pavement doesn't mean how good road can be. You can go fast on good gravel road, if it's not full of big stones/potholes and such.
- for worse roads limit never go too fast driving them first time. When you've been driven there few times, you should learn, where the biggest roadholes and such are, drop speed as needed. Normally driving at normal speeds it should not be of impossible challenge, heck, at least front of wrx of my colleague is even lower then my gt86, and he does lot of rallying (has proper CF engine/bumper protection pan though, so bit less scare of hard landings)
- visibility. 3 times highlighted. Gravel roads are often in country, with trees/houses/whatever blocking view behind low radius turns. Always leave big enough safety margin when you don't know what's ahead. There always can be some local driving in opposite direction, or some pedestrian in middle of road or some wildlife animal and so on. Never go too fast to not be able to stop or maneuver around unexpected. Leave excessive speed for visible far ahead stages or for specialised rally roads/stages with blocked off traffic by race officials and so on to lessen chance of unexpected problems / push only in controlled situation. With seeing far ahead you'll also be able to use whole road width.
- be careful with overestimating own skills. Imho even better is to drive fast where environment is controllable and mistakes are less costly - i.e. on track. There, if you loose control, in many cases you just slide outside track on grass till stop, or other track day enthusiasts will see you far ahead to be able to stop in time, one direction traffic. Less hitting kerb and damaging suspension, less damaging body/bumpers (which might get rather costly even for minor crashes. For example - in pre late-2014 even refills after leak from damaged AC heat exchanger may get very costly (guess, how i found out ). It's not always just changing bumper and paying for it's repainting. And yes, big flashy rally jumps or going straight over ditch/cutting corners are not for our stock suspension. I'd even wouldn't turn off VSC off when not on track, somewhere where mistakes are less costly. Not 'because racecar', but 'because paid for repairs', when overestimated my still lacking skills too much/too soon.

[Gforce]

Originally Posted by Cole

Thought these cars were no good on the track? Didn't you say that a few days ago?

They are slower than they could be. The 2017 fixes all that. By changing the front to rear spring rates they have pushed the roll resistance balance forward onto the front axle. They have also improved the quality of the damping and changed the damping rates.

I have yet to drive a 2017 but all the reports are favourable. Since my car is setup almost exactly the same as the current 2017 and now handles perfectly I expect the 2017 is as good as everyone says it is.

I hope that is a helpful answer to your question.

Oh, one further thing. The factory has not changed the rear suspension geometry correctly. It will be the cost that is stopping them. Fortunately the Australians have a fix. Australians are big fans of Subarus and racing, they know what they're about.

[Gforce]

Originally Posted by D_Thissen

No, he said on public streets.

No difference. A car handles the same on the streets as it does on the track.

In the dry the stock pre 2017 BRZ on stock tires lacks rear axle grip. This shows up particularly in low grip situations, such as wet or snow. This is no surprise. Roll stiffness needs to be reduced if road grip is reduced.

This is a deliberate design choice by Subaru. They wanted a low powered car that is easy to drift. It is. That is by definition a slow car.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Gforce

No difference. A car handles the same on the streets as it does on the track.

In the dry the stock pre 2017 BRZ on stock tires lacks rear axle grip. This shows up particularly in low grip situations, such as wet or snow. This is no surprise. Roll stiffness needs to be reduced if road grip is reduced.

This is a deliberate design choice by Subaru. They wanted a low powered car that is easy to drift. It is. That is by definition a slow car.

It is slower than some and faster than many. Does not mean it is defined as slow.

If you are driving the same way on the track as the road you are doing one of them all wrong.

[ichitaka05]

&... done. Bye bye dart17. See you in 2wks

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by ichitaka05

&... done. Bye bye dart17. See you in 2wks

Sorry about my part there ichi. These guys are just too much to bear in silence.

[Gforce]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

It is slower than some and faster than many. Does not mean it is defined as slow.

If you are driving the same way on the track as the road you are doing one of them all wrong.

The car handles the same on the street as it does on the track. You might have noticed today that racing cars can race on a closed street circuit at say Monaco or Valencia or Singapore. Street cars can race on a track. If you think your car will handle differently just because you take it onto a track you are in for a big surprise.

Driving techniques are exactly the same if driving at the limit whether on track or street. The difference is only that you cannot feasibly drive most modern performance cars at the limit on the street unless it is closed for that purpose.

Driving safely on the street (at any speed) requires orders of magnitude more skill than driving on a track. Ask any racing driver.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Gforce

The car handles the same on the street as it does on the track. You might have noticed today that racing cars can race on a closed street circuit at say Monaco or Valencia or Singapore. Street cars can race on a track. If you think your car will handle differently just because you take it onto a track you are in for a big surprise.

Driving techniques are exactly the same if driving at the limit whether on track or street. The difference is only that you cannot feasibly drive most modern performance cars at the limit on the street unless it is closed for that purpose.

Driving safely on the street (at any speed) requires orders of magnitude more skill than driving on a track. Ask any racing driver.

This was my point right there ^.
If you are driving at the limit on the street you are driving wrong.
If you are not driving at the limit on the track you are also doing it wrong.
Many of the techniques used on the track should be reserved for the track.

[Gforce]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

This was my point right there ^.
If you are driving at the limit on the street you are driving wrong.
If you are not driving at the limit on the track you are also doing it wrong.
Many of the techniques used on the track should be reserved for the track.

The stock BRZ is just not a performance car by any stretch of the imagination. Also, you can have no idea whether the chassis limits can be reached legally on the street in a BRZ because you never switch off the stability or traction controls.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Gforce

The BRZ is just not performance car. You can have no idea whether the chassis limits can be reached legally on the street in a BRZ because you never switch off the stability or traction controls.

It doesn't need to be a performance car to exceed what is safe or legal on the streets.
Because I said the traction control can save you In the snow does not mean for one second I don't turn them off. You make a lot of presumptions with nothing to back up your statements.

[Gforce]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

It doesn't need to be a performance car to exceed what is safe or legal on the streets.
Because I said the traction control can save you In the snow does not mean for one second I don't turn them off. You make a lot of presumptions with nothing to back up your statements.

Why do you ever switch them off?

Traction control cannot save you in low grip situations. Neither can stability control which is what I think you are actually referring to.

Traction control just prevents wheelspin from the drive wheels, and winter conditions are one situation where switching it off can be helpful, in loose snow for example.

Stability control reduces the tendency of the chassis to oversteer, primarily. It isn't much use if the chassis is understeering, though it will try to correct that too.

[boredom.is.me]

If you are understeering, you're doing it very wrong.

As for the nannies (TC, VSC, ABS), their objective is to keep the car straight. If you are driving right, they won't really interfere until you start hitting the limit of grip. Then they become more of a nuisance. If I can take a corner at 50 without tripping them, but you start tripping them at 35...well you know where I'm going with this. Or maybe you don't. (Now to continue losing brain cells.)

[Gforce]

A car that steers from the front axle must understeer to initiate any turn. After that, whether it continues to do so or not depends on a number of factors. Every road car I've ever driven, including Porsche 911, understeer.

Traction control is to prevent wheelspin. It has nothing to do with keeping the car straight.

Stability control is intended to keep the car straight.

Neither one improves tire grip.

ABS has nothing to do with keeping the car straight either although it makes it very easy for the driver to do. EBD is intended to keep the car straight under braking. All modern ABS also has EBD. Older versions of ABS did not.

VSC is the same as stability control but the control parameters are extendeded to allow a little instability before stepping in.

Subaru's traction control and stability control systems are not very good. They step in far too early. 2017 versions are much improved.

Driving the BRZ as I would any other car results in the traction and stability control intervening. That's how I know they aren't very good.

With both switched off it is ridiculously easy to step the tail out on these cars, again comparing the BRZ to every other car I've ever driven, including some with 600+ horsepower.