For the time attack guys, Traction Control on or off?
 

I know I know it's supposed to be completely off when we're racing (and during open days that's exactly what I do because it's fun to slide around), but when I compete in Time Attack I'm finding that I get better times with the traction control on and VSC engaged.

With it on, my turn in speed on big corners is much better

With it off, my time through the multiple low speed corner sections is much better

Overall, I get better times (on each track I've been on) when I leave it on but is that just inexperience on my part? I've only been tracking for 3 years now and up until this past season it was in a FWD Integra. Am I limiting myself by leaving it on? I'm on Ventus V12 EVO's fyi.

I think most guys do the pedal dance, turning off ABS and all traction control.

You should be faster with it off, as there is no intervention/braking being done to slow down wheels. Chances are, at those big turns where you are faster with it on,, your brain is telling you it's "off" so you take it a little bit slower because you are scared.

How do you know you are faster or slower? logs?

When I compete all of the time info is taken from the mounted transponder.

And honestly I think you might be right, I distinctly remember that going through my head mid corner lol. Any tips as to how to work around this?

It means you need more seat time.

TC actually cuts ur power. So ya .....

<-keyboard warrior

Nothing about VSC will make the car mechanically faster around a corner. You are simply more comfortable knowing that it's on and willing to dive deeper at the entrance. It's simply mental. Your tires have a limited grip threshold but they are progressive and predictable when you begin to exceed their limit. Early on I committed a couple sessions to exploring VSC and quickly realized that it is nothing like some of the PTM systems now available in higher end cars and in fact many factory race cars. It is extremely intrusive and unpredictable when driving the car beyond what the system is designed for.

I was curious about TC last year (normally track with it off) and so I left it on a few sessions. One of faster guys in my group told me he noticed I had slowed down in corners, so it's definitely a noticeable change in speed. You can feel when it intervenes.

Personally I never thought it destabilized the car or anything like that, but everything felt artificial. I was just flooring the throttle mid-corner and there was no rotation at all (and barely any acceleration). Very strange feeling. I turned it off again and never looked back.

Pedal dance does not turn off ABS AFAIK.

Honestly if the stability control isn't bothering your intended driving then keep it on. As you progress it will eventually become obvious it's interfering with how much slip angle you're trying to achieve.

Traction control is something on an NA car that may only be useful in the rain. On a high power FRS, traction control is more useful. Now on our car we use the Hydra EMS to tune the traction control for each gear independently as I have found this to be critical when trying to go faster with TC. Now on our car and the Hydra EMS we can turn all stability control off but still run programable traction control but I don't believe you can on the factory ecu.

If you're driving right, there's no way it's faster with TC/VSC on. If you're running faster laps with it on, you're making mistakes that the ECU is protecting you on.

+1. The OEM TC/VSC is super intrusive on any setting besides "off."

I keep pounding this drum around here: learn to drive your car without your electronics. Make mistakes and learn from them.

This is not a GTR, the electronics WILL impede your performance.

Thanks for all of the advice guys, I'll be sure to keep it off in this upcoming season and progress that way. I have a feeling it's the mental/fear/no fear aspect that I need to get over (and obviously improve on some techniques as well).

Just to clarify I have driven with it off at the track multiple times (open days) its just when I was doing time attack I was pulling slightly faster time overall so I'd leave it on for that when the laps counted.

Use the pedal dance; the 5 second hold does not fully remove the nannies and electronics.

Will do sir, I appreciate the help!

Does the pedal dance also work with the 2015 WRX?

No need for the pedal dance. If you are getting into the area where the pedal dance is effective, you aren't driving the car smooth enough.

The regular 2-button hold for 5 sec is what you need and should leave the ABS engaged.

-mike

Probably not, since it's a Toyota thing, not a Subaru thing.

Pedal dance leaves ABS on... it just disables EBFD and "ice mode". If you're running staggered pad compounds, or like to trail brake hard it can make a big difference compared to just holding the TC button for 5 seconds. Doesn't mean you're not driving smoothly.

I beg to differ; if you're ever on the west coast, try driving WSIR without the pedal dance and you'll very quickly change your mind. T8 involves a lot of undulating bumps at 120+, and the e-lsd will try to "fix" inside rear wheel spin, and instead make the car try to kill you.

Hmmm. A car that tries to kill you?
That sounds like a great concept! You should write a book. Maybe they'll adapt it to a movie too! :respekt:

I can attest to the fact that the pedal dance does not eliminate ice mode.

I suppose I should add that after being one of the biggest fans of the pedal dance, I have actually quit using it for autocross. I still try it now and then but I've gotten too used to (or good at?) letting the EBD sort it out for me, and the dance inevitably results in the ABS freaking out anytime I dive into a corner on the brakes (BIG front sway bar, stock springs).

I'm sure I could tweak my driving style to make it work but it's hard to justify that when I'm getting good results. On a road course with higher speed turns it would be a different story.

It's tempting, when competing, to do what get you the best result NOW, but learning to threshold brake may end up with you becoming faster in the long run, especially if you left foot brake.

I don't left foot brake, but interesting academic discussion here at the risk of hijacking the thread.

For starters, philosophically I agree with this guy. The short of it is it's just as important, if not more important, to make sure you don't go too long on the brakes as it is to make sure you're threshold braking.

Now let's look at autocross. These are the top things that determine your lap times:
- car placement
- distance traveled
- apex speed before longest straight
...roughly in that order. Threshold braking is certainly important, but generally only at large National events - smaller local events might have one or two heavy braking zones max. Some of the really small lots are 100% momentum maintenance.

At a local last weekend I used third gear twice. Using it even once is pretty rare unless you're at a national event.

We're forgetting one thing though, average speeds. In general, the amount of speed I need to scrub to make a turn at an autocross is much smaller. For some features, if I only need to scrub 10-15mph I actually don't want to threshold brake, because by the time I've reached the threshold I've scrubbed most or all of that speed; at this point my choices are to overslow or to upset the car by treating the brakes like an on/off switch. Stock springs are required in my class, so keep in mind every input to the car takes some time for the suspension to react, and it needs to finish reacting before you put another input in or you're asking for trouble (like a nose that's porpoising while trying to turn in).

Last but not least, I in particular have a big front sway bar, and this is where I lean the most on the EBD. Even a small amount of steering wheel lock at corner entry is enough to lighten the inside front such that in pedal dance mode, the ABS will lose its shirt (remember, you are reverting to single channel ABS). With EBD, it'll release brake pressure on just that wheel; without it, ABS reduces pressure for the whole system.

On a road course, would the pedal dance help me? Yeah.
If I switched to using real springs and smaller bars, would the pedal dance help me? Yeah.

As it stands now? I'm not convinced, and the lap times from one-off use of the dance back that up. That said I'll take your challenge on and do a whole event with the dance to see if I can adapt my driving.

If your traction control is kicking in you suck at driving. Removing it is denial.

Using more than 6% slip??? you have a lot to learn about racing.

Unless you pirouette around pylons like a wanna be keep it on.

Racing a car you cant just change out flat spotted Avons every lap. To post laps you must take care of your consumables, transmission and power train. Baggin your Frs heat cycling and acting like "TUNERZ" cus you read a thread has got to stop.

I'm doing it wrong. Thanks for educating me :cry:

lol :laughabove::laughabove:

Are you serious or is this sarcasm. If its not sarcasm i would tell you to just keep quiet

:laughabove::laughabove::laughabove::laughabove:

:barf::barf::barf::barf::barf:

Funny video reminds me of this thread.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFsY6GO1uSY#t=176"]2014 Lexus IS350 F-Sport AWD Quarter Mile Drag with & without traction control - YouTube[/ame]



You think you can neutral steer better than the Active Torque Vectoring?
Vehicle Dynamics Control (VDC) stability and traction control system can apply brake pressure to the inside front wheel

You have better chance avoiding scrubbing of your speed during turning with nannies on.
Most owner have never pulled more than 3G lateral acceleration. You simply cannot do it without computer aids. Formula One cars are brake by wire for a reason.

If I was wrong you wouldn't just respond with smiles.

I think he can. I however cannot. I doubt the active torque vectoring is as you say. I don't recall that this car ever had it at least they don't call it that. Torque vectoring is more for understeer in 4wd cars which our car is not. It's rwd and understeer can be neutralized by other means. And he is very hard on his brakes and needs to control his brake temps, and this torque vectoring you speak of would foul that up.

F1 cars are not brake by wire for the sake of this torque vectoring. There is much more to it than just that. Brake bias, boost, changing conditions, tires, etc, etc... us mere mortals probably couldn't grasp it.

I doubt any non-100% race car can hit 3g's without F1 type downforce and full race slicks.

What you smokin?

If you never push the limits you will never surpass it.

Wtf did I just watch? It's an automatic IS350 going down a drag strip. I'm not sure what your point is.

Yes, I absolutely CAN neutral steer better than a production based passenger car better than any computer system. Last I checked, there is no production car that will let you throttle steer a car around a corner.

3G lateral? I, in fact, have. Not in a street based car, but I have.

Yes, you are, absolutely, wrong. Something production based is far, far different from a performance based traction control. I've both programmed and used such systems, and will say, beyond a doubt, that they work, but not in the way that you think they do.

You are dead wrong if you think VSA is faster.


VSA will never let you do this. It is, 100%, absolutely faster, than VSA:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.n...15055517_o.jpg

Why are you talking RACEcraft in a TIME ATTACK thread? You might have gotten lost :thumbsup:

This thread is about getting the fastest possible single lap time, not winning races.

But, to answer your question, you train for that final half second gain, because that can make the difference between becoming a winner, or first place loser, when that half second is what separates you from the race leader.

I lost that post. none the less.

Time attack or endurance make no difference. Tire wear ect. is out of the equation. The line you can take or the line you should be taking is based on track conditions.
If you learn to read what the computer assist is telling you at that moment your next lap will take advantage of that feedback.


Cars are driven are either fast or slowly improving on your compensation for bad driving.
Perhaps you also think a manual transmission get better times than multiple shift clutches.

Have you actually ever driven a car on a track before?

lol, even in the r35, which has a much more sophisticated tracting control system, people fully disable the vdc in order to get the best lap times. in every test video in japan, the drivers(keichi tsuchiya, nobuteru taniguchi) stress how much the car(86/brz) sucks with vsc on. they refuse to drive it lol.

AT FRS vs MT FRS? The MT is almost always faster.

Now, with the "properly fast cars" you mentioned above... I've logged a few hundred hours seat time in various Ferraris and Lamborghinis, and, well, most of them aren't even offered in MT.

I think he is one of the internet racers/experts who has never had any track time but just reads one article here or there and then takes it as gospel.

A few race car drivers acting as my instructors have driving my car with and without TC and for them with the VSC on it prevented them from getting the best from this car. Even i realised it was holding me back

The VSC in this car is not tuned to performance, it kills the power way to hard and way to early

BTW what the hell does a drag strip video have to do with VSC on a track day:bonk::bonk:

He is truly lost :lol:

I think it's pretty obvious the answer is no.

Or he is delusional.

This guy obviously has not driven on a track yet. On my local track TC on or VSC on gets me 2 seconds more than with the nannies off. Of course if you don't know what you are doing yet then you don't notice the nannies.
It just sucks when the VSC cuts the power when exiting a turn, or the inside wheel braking by itself when you enter a corner fast.