getting over understeer

alignment and tyre pressure should help

 

With a welded diff in the wet you are going to get understeer in an MX5 when trying to initiate a 'power over' drift (turn in and floor it), especially as it's so light.

1. Buy the best 'wet tyres' you can afford for the front.
2. Check your front tyre pressures (26 psi in the dry) maybe 24 psi in the wet?
3. Soften the suspension for more grip in the wet (if possible?).

To eliminate understeer on initiation either:

1. Slow down and clutch kick.
2. Turn in, dip clutch and pull handbrake momentarily, lift clutch and floor it.

Once the car is sideways use the weight of the car to transition between bends, lift off and when the car straightens hit the throttle to push the back out the other way. Timing is key to get the car swinging. Too much throttle n the transition and you'll spin. Not enough and you'll grip and have to initiate again.

In my MX5 I use 70 psi in the rears in the bone dry and 35 psi in the soaking wet, somewhere between for mixed conditions.

Ian.

 

Hard to say without seeing what you're doing but... When learning a lot of people tend to try to turn too much to start a drift. As soon as you break traction you are going to get the steering onto near oposite lock anyway so before you start sliding try turning in a little less, this will give the front tyres more chance of gripping. After all they have most grip whilst facing in the direction of travel.

The other thing that happens is you may add steering at the same time as you add power. Say you are riding a push bike, if you pedal really hard and at exactly the same time turn the handle bars; the weight goes to the back, the front goes light and you dont turn. Treat the car the same. Try getting the car to near enough the point of understeer just whilst driving round in a circle or roundabout or wherever you are practicing, then lift off, let the weight shift to the front (giving it grip) and then get back on the power quite agressively. This should make the rear tyres spin and start you sliding.

I hope this helps. Like a couple of people have already said make sure you have the right set up. Decent front tyres will be money well spent, soften up the front, make the back really stiff as a base setup then work from there. Keep us updated!

If you try any of this and it ends up in an accident I accept no responisbility for your actions. But i'm not making this stuff up, it is my job lol

 

IMO your driving it wrong. Same reason most UK drifting sucks total ball.

Flick it in, upset the rear end with your driving.

99% of top drift comp cars would understeer like a pig if you tried driving em like that.

 

10:50... What Stavros is talking about.

12:45... What I was talking about.

 

Better front tyres, more aggression on the flick in. Throw the car in hard don't just corner normaly and add more throttle as the mx5 probably doesn't have enough power to spin the wheels up as easily as something turbo'd

So you use the weight of the car and steering to initiate, not the power

 

I think i experienced a total different style of drifting a few weeks back when i went to snetterton for the first time in the dry, found it such a grippy /fast track, that my usual style of drifting was virtually redundant.

Having only really done santa pod/teeside it was a learning curve, requiring a lot more speed/weight than im use to using.

 

Go faster


If that fails, toe out and camber upfront and silly pressure in the back

 

i get the total opposit in my mx5, mine is really tail happy fighting to keep the thing from skidding i have dunlop sport tyres all round its a mk1 1.6 on hsd coilies set quite soft as im an old fart who has back problem's due to driving a classic mini for years. i run 29 psi rear and 27 front i can baiscly lift off and put the power back on in 3rd on a roundabout and the things sideways i am running standerd alignment too

 

According to the 'understeer gradient':

To tell if a car is prone to understeer or oversteer, you need to know the weight over front and rear axle, and corner stiffness. Corner stiffness is a product of spring rate, tyre pressure, tyre compound etc.

(Load over front/corner stiffness at front) - (Load over rear/corner stiffness at rear)

If the result is positive, you have an understeer prone car
Zero is neutral
Negative result is an oversteer prone car.

So with that in mind, you can play with tyre pressures, spring rates, tyre makes, bushes etc. to setup your car how you want.

 

Or get off the internet, in to your car, find out yourself, and simply adjust a few things to suit.

 

You can apply both schools of thought. Driving dynamics are best learnt by chucking the car around, and getting the weight where you want. But fine tuning a car to suit your needs, you need engineering..

 

Its all about practice really.. i personally use a scandinavian flick(?) to initiate usually, my handbrake isnt that great, and up until recently i was being way too aggressive with the clutch kicking so i'd end up spinning every time!

 

You were still getting understeer last night from what I saw. From my perspective you need to be kicking the clutch more. It looked to me as if you weren't setting the car up properly before the big corner at Matchams, and kinda burying your foot to the floor just as you entered the corner, which pushed the front out as the rear still had grip.

 

LOL like

 

Sounds like an improvement to me. Careful on clutch kicking, unbalancing the car using weight transfer is going to be better for the longevity of the car and in the long run should make you a better driver. Stick at it, tbh a lot of learners don't even notice understeer and keep just nailing the power untill they get close enough to an object and come off the power out of fear, hey presto...grip back to the front wheels.