Opinions on Trac Control off for Autocross

[steverife]

Another long press until the double lights.

I've gotten some interference, but I don't think it is bad interference.


Our primary site is really bumpy with lots of camber changes. We'll sometimes do a turnaround in a bumpy section with a very short straight to the finish lights. You can drive wide on entry and make a smooth arc or you can cut distance and drive a super tight line in the bumpy off camber stuff and deal with traction control, which I think is a result of picking up the inside tire. The tighter line is faster for me.

[Stang70Fastback]

I'm not the most experienced autocrosser here, but I have won my class two years in a row. Never used the pedal dance. The 3 second hold until both lights appeared has always been sufficient for me, and I've yet to ever have it intervene, or kick back on, no matter how sideways or spiny I get.

People need to realize that they might still see the stability light flashing, but I've never felt it actually affect throttle or vehicle direction. I'm led to believe when that happens, it's the e-diff acting to prevent uncontrolled wheelspin from the Torsen diff, without actually trying to affect how the vehicle moves. People just see the blinking light and freak out about how the car is "still intervening" when it really isn't doing anything to hurt you.

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by jtmroczk

Ok, this makes sense of everyone’s opinions a little better...

I had an early 2013, and Pedal Dance was required for that car otherwise any form of traction control would lead to a loss of power and/or understeer.

I’ll have to try again with the new 2018

Thanks everyone

TC off, (long press, two yellow lights, no pedal dance), in the '12-'16 cars has only three forms of aids happening to my knowledge. (There's only 4 modes that matter for the early cars, regular, 'vsc off' (green+yellow lights, this mode is barely an improvement on regular driving), long press off (yellow 2x lights, most aids off), pedal dance).

Multi-channel ABS
Not a bad thing at all, prevents locking up an unloaded wheel and allows for effective braking when the car is loaded in a turn, this is one of the awesome things of traction control advancements and is great if you can realize you've blown a corner and you're way off line and there's still lots of corner to go and you can brush the brakes with your left foot to tuck back into the proper line and do damage control on your mistake. This feature has no downside imo but you lose it when pedal dancing, this goes back to my earlier statement, if you're great at judging corners and nailing it at 99% 100% of the time pedal dancing doesn't lose you much here (which is why track guys advocate it, they've practiced the same handful of corners hundreds of times, autoxers don't have that luxury). I believe this is also what leads to ice mode where the car reduces brake pressure because it thinks you're on a low grip surface so this is the biggest drawback of pedal dance and why most autoxers don't recommend it because the advantages aren't that great for us. Again if you're good on the brakes losing this is of minimal impact to your driving. Most people aren't good on the brakes, only the greats are.

Electronic Brake Distribution
This is probably the one odd thing imho the car does that I understand why the pedal dance is attractive to the average driver and autoxer, the car actively feeds pressure to the rear brakes to slow the weight transfer of the car and getting rid of it via the pedal dance you can really blend your inputs and get some amazing corner entry rotation. I want to try a stock car again and see how pedal dancing affects it because I had a real problem over-driving corner entry with it, I think the weight transfer may have helped with that. From what I understand this is one of the things that lead to CSG's testing and that thread about it.

Auto-LSD
So this car has a torsen differential, when one wheel is off the ground or begins slipping excessively the torsen goes open and becomes useless. To combat this Toyobaru put a function in to brake the drive wheel that's slipping excessively to push power to the wheel that still has traction. When it happens it feels bad because the car is slowing down, the brake is being activated. I didn't really think it ever showed up on autox but a few weeks back on my shit Firestones messing around for once I could feel it happening, what should have been a nice big sustained slide felt like the car was dropping anchor. I think with higher grip tires it's a lot harder to get to the point where the inside wheel is spinning to the point that the car feels like it needs to intervene which is why most autoxers shrug at this point and say they've never felt it since they're on very grippy tires. This can be a big deal on track when you hit a curb and lift a wheel, the brake kicks in and the power delivery does something funky that I haven't experienced that scares the shit out of people that have. In an autox scenario, I'd rather have the car drop anchor than have my dumb lead foot ruin a run.

tl;dr pedal dance makes sense for the track, less sense for autox, don't listen to my bullshit test for yourself.

[Twinz]

2013-2016 model years have no traction control setting that allows the car to get anywhere near the limit without stepping in and slowing you down a lot.

The long-press method that turns off both stability and traction control (two yellow lights on the dash) works great for autocross.

The 2017+ cars get a "track mode" that is what our "sport mode" should have been. IMO

The only "sport" mode that impressed me is a transmission setting for the AT models. We have autocrossed my wife's AT some and that transmission setting has kept me from bothering with the paddle shifters.

[pogofx]

So for the 17-18's would Track mode be the best option? What is that equivalent to for the 13-16's out of curiosity? My first BRZ autocross this weekend and I was planning on staying in Track mode. Haven't given it much thought until now.

[14stu]

Originally Posted by pogofx

So for the 17-18's would Track mode be the best option? What is that equivalent to for the 13-16's out of curiosity? My first BRZ autocross this weekend and I was planning on staying in Track mode. Haven't given it much thought until now.

Just do the long press method. As long as your venue doesn't have any close curbs spinning out won't have any major consequences (if there are close curbs you might want to stick to the track mode).

You're there to learn, so anything the computer does is less you'll learn.

[pogofx]

Thanks!

[nico_rsx]

Originally Posted by pogofx

So for the 17-18's would Track mode be the best option? What is that equivalent to for the 13-16's out of curiosity? My first BRZ autocross this weekend and I was planning on staying in Track mode. Haven't given it much thought until now.

If you've never tracked before and there is a slight risk to do damage to the car, you can stay in track mode. I've autocrossed a lot and for me track mode is around 0.5 sec slower on a 60sec course. So not a huge impact for a beginner, but once you're more confident you should try long press (all off).

[pogofx]

Originally Posted by nico_rsx

If you've never tracked before and there is a slight risk to do damage to the car, you can stay in track mode. I've autocrossed a lot and for me track mode is around 0.5 sec slower on a 60sec course. So not a huge impact for a beginner, but once you're more confident you should try long press (all off).

Thanks. It's been about 15 years since I last autocrossed. Experienced, but basically starting over. So at this point I doubt it will make any significant difference. I'll be more focused on just getting clean runs than pushing it to the absolute limit. With that being said, I think I'll opt for the long push. I think I'd like to feel when I'm approaching those limits if I do. I was initially under the impression that the track mode had everything off. But I think I just misread or misremembered what I had seen about it. I've gone back and looked at it again and realized that the long push is what I'm looking for. Thanks for the input!

[Imp]

What everyone else said... I also am a "long press" and done. Never interfered, even in wet.

Just a nitpick/common usage thing...

No one refers to autocross as "AC" as much as no one refers to moto(r)cross as MC. AX or autox, with the latter being more popular.

I know you're new, just giving you a heads up, if you were on other forums, they'd not have a clue what you're taliking about.

Originally Posted by strat61caster

but whats the point of autocrossing if you're not going to send it into a corner at 12/10ths without a safety net?

One of the last events this year was in the rain/wet. I tried the various versions of VSC (*not* long press) and would fling the car into the turn and the system would come on. It's fun when you can start predicting the timing (hint: turn in earler, but enter at a a faster speed). It takes a sec to figure out and you should have the car straight bu the time it releases - and your foot can stay planted on the gas the whole time.

--kC

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by Imp

One of the last events this year was in the rain/wet. I tried the various versions of VSC (*not* long press) and would fling the car into the turn and the system would come on. It's fun when you can start predicting the timing (hint: turn in earler, but enter at a a faster speed). It takes a sec to figure out and you should have the car straight bu the time it releases - and your foot can stay planted on the gas the whole time.

--kC

Interesting, do you think you were faster with the aids on or do you think you'd be able to get more time babying it through with the aids off?

I totally understand just playing with them for kicks though, I just never found them to feel sophisticated enough to actually help me go faster.

[TrqlessWonder]

I remain an occasional pedal-dancer, owing more to site conditions.

On the long press, If I get a rear up in the air it'll intrude...intrusively. Easier to trigger when Hoosiers were still a thing, but bumps in the middle of a sweeper and some elements that go over a crown in the surface will get the diff intrusion too. It will also trigger if I really get a lot of wheelspin, usually in the snow and going sideways. At which point by the time it's intervened, any hope of being on the fast line was already sort of gone.

I will say that all my instances of ice mode got pretty well resolved with the ferodo's, though.

[cjd]

Originally Posted by pogofx

So for the 17-18's would Track mode be the best option? What is that equivalent to for the 13-16's out of curiosity? My first BRZ autocross this weekend and I was planning on staying in Track mode. Haven't given it much thought until now.

Still intrusive in my experience. I played with it out of curiosity at a test-n-tune. Nothing wrong with starting out in track mode and shifting to long-press later as comfort and practice come into play. The car is forgiving, but also can inspire (over)confidence in a new driver I have found. Take your time.

I've wondered if it would help my stupid in the rain, but figure that's a bad plan of action long term.

[bdtbdtbdt]

During one of the last autox events this year, My (long time pro) co driver and I experimented with the different traction settings in the cold and wet. I use a pedal dance eliminator ( http://www.ft86speedfactory.com/mig-...l#.XEr1VGl7naQ) in STX. Our fastest times came with all the nannies disabled. We agreed that all the traction and stability controls kicking in and out (often mid-turn) really hurt the predictability of the handling. Our opinion ended up being that if you are at all serious about autox, you should learn to drive and get comfortable with the"86" with the nannies off.