Handling Question

Took my 97 328 for a nice drive in the foothills the other day. While thoroughly enjoying playing games with how well I could set up the suspension for each turn and then TIGHTENING it by adding throttle to power through it, I started wondering just why it works this way.

First off, I'm a moderate driver - maybe 5/10ths, so we're talking entering 45 mph turns at maybe 50 mph and powering out with moderate throttle at 55 mph, while enjoying the scenery - I often pull over to let faster drivers pass. When I drive this way, my car TIGHTENS the turn significantly as I add throttle when entering the turn - lifting at this point will produce a significant push to the outside, so that you have to quickly correct to stay in the lane.

I would think adding throttle would produce a push to the outside, not a 'dive' (exaggerating) to the inside of the turn. Can anyone explain to me how this works in terms of traction circles, slip angles, front to back weight transfer, etc. I cannot figure it out, and would really like to understand this.

Frank

Reply to
Raybender
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Reply to
Keith Kratochvil

I believe this is because you are rear wheel drive and the rear tires try to overcome the front during acceleration and, therefore, push the front into the corner as the rear tries to go wide.

This is especially evident in a motorcycle, though a little different. "If in doubt, hit the throttle!"

Reply to
KJ

Most cars "understeer" in a corner. That is, the front seems to push to the outside of the curve a little bit, not quite going where you want it to. It's a momentum/physics thing. Front wheel drive cars tend to do this more than RWD, because they tend to be heavier in the front, and the front wheels are both driving and steering the car. To correct with FWD, you either pull a little harder on the steering wheel, or ease off the gas a little. And what fun is that?

FWD's also end to torque steer. When accelerating, the car will pull a little bit to the side that is powering the car (left/right). This doesn't help in the curves either, as it can exaggerate understeer. This is why it's harder to throttle up out of a curve with FWD than with RWD. FWD corrects understeer slower than RWD, and acceleration\torque steering makes it worse. A limited slip differential can minimize torque steer (which is almost non-existent on RWD).

Well-balanced RWD cars, like yours, have a very nice, built in solution to understeer ... give it more gas! This will push the rear of the car more into the curve, and provide a little oversteer to correct the initial understeer. In your words, the rear will push, and the front will "dive" (they are not mutually exclusive). The results are your car is lined up properly in the curve more quickly, and you can throttle up out of a curve. RWD corrects understeer faster than FWD, and acceleration helps this (plus, the gas pedal is going in the right direction). It's also a big reason BMW's are so much fun to drive!!

As for weight ratios, anything close to 50/50 front/rear is ideal. Not exactly sure what your car's is, but I've seen other BMW's with something like 52/48, which is excellent. FWD cars are more in the 58/42 range. The heavier front end makes the steering work harder, and with the drive wheels up front, you get understeer\torque steer. Big old American Iron RWD cars from the 60's and 70's were sometimes around 63/37. Even though they had a heavy front end like FWD, they were RWD, and tended to have the tail swing out on turns, thus oversteering. It was the poor weight ratios that made them bad in weather and bad in curves.

It was also that Big Iron that made people think FWD was better in bad weather than RWD. Better weight ratios, with more weight over the drive wheels. Old RWD's would just spin out on wet/snowy surfaces, because they had no traction. But, it was all relative. A well-balanced RWD car, with good tires, is outstanding in bad conditions, better than FWD or Big Iron. It has weight over the drive wheels, like FWD, and the drive wheels are separate from the steering wheels, like Big Iron. FWD in general will understeer in a curve, and this is exaggerated in bad conditions, because the fronts are trying to both drive and steer. A good RWD will slide through a curve too, but a little gas will straighten the car out, and since the fronts only have to steer the car, they can grip the road better.

I used to have a Porsche when I lived in Cleveland, and it snowed there. I had good snow tires, on a RWD car, with a good weight ratio. It was the best snow car I've ever driven. And it was fun to drive in slippery conditions, because I knew the car could handle it. Coming up to turn onto my street, I'd turn the wheels a bit, give it some gas, making the back end slide out a little, until I was lined up just right, then take my foot off the gas to stop the slide, and the wheels would grip and I'd be going straight again. A very fun way to make a turn.

Hope this helps.

Bill G '91 Nissan Maxima SE

181,000 miles (yeah, I know, FWD! But I chose grad school over a new Bavarian)
Reply to
Bill G

"Raybender" wrote

The technical term for what you have experienced is "oversteer", as opposed to "understeer". To be precise, it is power-on oversteer. If you google that term, you will find many explanations better and more technically correct than have been already posted.

You need to take a performance driving course to get practical experience in this and other facets of controlling a car.

FloydR

Reply to
Floyd Rogers

Oversteer is when you go through the fence - backwards.

Understeer is when you go through the fence - forwards.

Neutral handling is when you go through the fence - *just* right.

Ask me how I know this.

Reply to
Dean Dark

LMFAO!!!

Reply to
SharkmanBMW

Forgive me if I'm making a false assumption about your reply, but I assume that you're talking about applying enough power to break the rear wheels free, or at least bring them to the limits of traction. This I understand quite well - used to do it all the time on the snow covered streets of Mpls Minn as a teenager. Still practice "swinging the rear end" a bit with my Pathfinder on crushed gravel roads up in the forest - truck has a nice front/rear weight balance and does this quite nicely.

With my 328, I'm talking about being way way below these limits - just Grandpa driving while looking at the scenery - don't understand how I get power-on oversteer in this situation where the rear wheels are way inside their limits of adhesion.

Again, forgive me if I misinterpreted your reply. A Google search seems to turn up the 'limits of adhesion' situation, (discussions of racing and autocrossing) so I couldn't find anything that seemed appropriate for my question.

Frank

Reply to
Raybender

Don't forget that power-on also removes weight from the front wheels, which can eliminate the built-in understeer, which then manifests in the "tightening" you experience. Over/Under-steer is a far more general concept than going through the fence frontward or backward, and describes a wide range of dynamic situations.

A couple of the commentators for NASCAR races actually explain it fairly well during the course of a race, since most of the tire-pressure, track-bar and wing adjustments they make in the pits are designed to change the Over/Under- steer aspects of the car's handling (they call it "tight" and "loose", respectively.)

FloydR

Reply to
Floyd Rogers

isn't this a consequence of the rear suspension (semi-trailing links or whatever the E36 has) I remember reading long ago that for such cars the best way to control understeer is to accelerate in the curve. The acceleration makes the rear end go down on one side and this gives the rear wheels an extra sort of "steering"

Reply to
stuart

"stuart" wrote

Only the compact 318ti/232ti and Z3 had semi-trailing rear suspension. The E30 was the last model to have semi-trailing arms. The sedan/coupe E36, and all E46 and Z4 have a different system.

FloydR

Reply to
Floyd Rogers

I suggest you check out the Autozine Technical School at

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especially thehandling section
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It hasall the information you need. Cheers!

Reply to
Jan Kalin

Thanks Jan. The article explained it for me. Now that I understand it, I'll play with front-rear air pressure to 'tune' things by adjusting the relative contact patches.

Frank

Reply to
Raybender

Under these circumstances, I doubt that you do. You are correct in assuming that power oversteer is a marginal-traction situation. I suspect that you're incorrectly identifying the effect you're feeling in your 'Butt-O-Meter'. As a BMW CCA instructor, I have had the fun of getting to stand in the middle of our skidpad circles as students accelerate gradually until one end or the other of their cars started to slide. With stock BMWs, this is almost invariably the front end (understeer). Almost without exception, even those who should know better identify it as oversteer. Don't ask me why. That's just the fact.

Your car is also an inherent understeerer unless you do something drastic (brutal power application or sudden lifting off throttle in the middle of a turn). I suspect you are being overly sensitive to your car's behavior and you may *believe* it is tightening when you apply throttle when it is actually doing nothing at all other than neutral steering. Either that or something's broken ... =8^O

-- C.R. Krieger (Been there; done that)

Reply to
C.R. Krieger

Your reply just showed up on my computer today - strange beasties these things.

Anyway, I definitely have oversteer - after being set in the turn, if I apply light throttle, car will cross the centerline in a left hand turn, or run off road in a right hand turn if no steering correction is applied. I went to that autozine handling site someone recommended, and it seemed that the discussion about adding throttle increasing the slip angle for the rear tires explained it. Seemed plausible, anyway, and also seems to fit with the fact that I can change the effect somewhat by adjusting front to rear tire pressures. Usually, I enter a turn 'coasting' (just enough throttle to avoid engine braking) and accelerate once set in the turn. With this effect, though, it's fun to get in a groove where I enter throttle on and then set for the turn - car will hold the line nicely, unless I lift.

Ever since I joined BMWCCA, I've been trying to get myself to one of the driving schools - maybe I'll make it yet.

Frank

Reply to
Raybender

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