Steering drag in high speed corners

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speedsense
speedsense
13
Joined: 31 May 2009, 19:11
Location: California, USA

Re: Steering drag in high speed corners

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Belatti wrote:Still couldn´t be able to measure the car, it has ackerman pretty near to ackerman geometry, so that can be something to work in.

When you speedsense refer to 0 ackerman, you mean parallel?
Yes
Thats what I would choose to in a time limited situation. I wont dare to use "anti-ackerman" because of some tight corners...

I will intall a steering position sensor maybe in the next race there, next month. The in-car camera tells me the driver doesnt move the wheel too much as someone suggested.
The "problem" with video is the frame rate, you can "sense" faster than you can see, so a reaction to something that may or may not be something the driver feels or is reacting to, may look like bumps or some other interaction with the steering. At least with data you can confirm a driver action with car or track input to the driver.. way too hard to do in video, though much simpler with video and data. The movements I was commenting on, are small twitchy movements that are "guesses" as what the car is "going" to do. Getting ahead of the car and acting upon it before the car actually does something. That is what a nervous steering wheel is. Many drivers do this as they go faster, they feel the need to be ahead of the car and because they think this, they react before a reaction is needed. :D
In this car, average lateral G is arround 1.6 too, but mind the car is capable of 1.8 because its over sized in the tyre department. With this I mean you can go through the corner full throttle even if the car sucks.

The major thing here will be to improve that scrubbing there without sacrifizing in other areas.
You already have sacrificed with the wider tires. If the car can take corners flat, even as you stated when the handling is not quite right, it's not the corners you need to worry about but the straights and getting down them quicker.
With the increase in drag of the tires and if others are running the same, being quicker down the straights will net you more with this car. So think less rolling resistance. Are the tires radials?
"Driving a car as fast as possible (in a race) is all about maintaining the highest possible acceleration level in the appropriate direction." Peter Wright,Techical Director, Team Lotus

malcolm
malcolm
0
Joined: 28 Aug 2008, 16:45

Re: Steering drag in high speed corners

Post

speedsense wrote: You already have sacrificed with the wider tires. If the car can take corners flat, even as you stated when the handling is not quite right, it's not the corners you need to worry about but the straights and getting down them quicker.
With the increase in drag of the tires and if others are running the same, being quicker down the straights will net you more with this car. So think less rolling resistance. Are the tires radials?
Careful... remember that if you can exit a corner 10 mph faster due to the wider tires, even if you are marginally slower at the end of the straight, you're quicker on overall time.

Same thing as the downforce/drag paradox. I was faster down the back straight of the Toronto Indy course in a vintage Corvette because I raised the rear spoiler. How? Because I was able to go through corner 2 flat out and carry a lot more speed onto the straight. More powerful cars with less downforce couldn't catch me before we were into the brakes.

Point is, don't allow a major loss in one area for a minor gain in another.