Thread: winter cornering

how bad is everyone handling, i know that rear beam needs to be bent, but as of right now whenever i am at a light to turn left, during the apex of my turn no matter what speed i am going i would spin out, ( rear end spins on me) anyone, everyone else's 200sx like this in the snow? its getting scary

one time, doing down a slightly slopped street, barely pressed on the brake peddle to keep it safe and my rear gets in front of me. I spinning out doing cookies in the middle of the street.

A bent rear beam won't keep the rear end from coming around on you. The whole point of the rear beam bending procedure is to make the car more eager to turn in by reducing rear toe-in. If anything, the car will oversteer much more easily than before.

If your tyre pressures are ok and your car's suspension system is in good condition (dampers in good condition, front alignment relatively within spec, nothing broken between the strut mounts and the knuckle), the problem is the way the driver is managing the load transfer of the car. This is what I'm talking about here:

http://www.nasaproracing.com/hpde/weighttransfer.html

Snow will make any car sensitive to load transfer, so if you're used doing things like tapping the brakes to slow the car down, you may need to make some changes to how you drive.

plenty of tire pressure and i have tein full coilovers, i can be stopped at the stoplight and take the turn at like 10 mph and still get loose.

The high spring and damping rates of the Teins means that you will need to be extra smooth with your inputs and extra attentive to where the load is going. It's kind of hard for a shoddy writer like me to explain this fully, but basically:

• Up to a certain point, a tyre with more load will have more grip than a tyre with less load
• Anything you do within the car will transfer load off of one or more tyres and onto the tyres on the opposite end of the car
• Acceleration (pressing on the throttle or releasing the brakes) will move load from the front tyres to the rear tyres
• Deceleration (pressing on the brakes, releasing the throttle, or stepping on the clutch pedal) will move load from the rear tyres to the front tyres
• Cornering will transfer the load to the side opposite to the direction you are turning (i.e.: If you turn left, the load will move to the right side of the car)
• Any combination of the above three actions will cause the load to transfer in both of the above mentioned directions (e.g.: if you turn left and brake, the load will transfer from the left rear tyre to the front right tyre)
  

In practical terms, this means:

• All of your inputs must be as smooth as possible.
• If you brake and turn at the same time, the load will transfer off of the rear tyres and the rear end will want to come around
• If you lift off the throttle and turn at the same time, the load will transfer off of the rear tyres and the rear end will want to come around
• If the rear end starts to come around, you can recover it by gently pressing on the accelerator. This will transfer load to the rear tyres and give the rear end more grip.
• Since you have a front wheel drive car, you can really boot the throttle if you feel the car start to oversteer. Just make sure you have enough room in front of you, because the front end may go spearing off in the opposite direction if you do this.
• If the rear end starts to come around, don't lift off of the throttle or jump on the brakes. This will transfer more load off of the rear tyres and will only make things worse.
• If the rear end is coming around very quickly, you can can also crank in lots of steering in the direction opposite to the direction you're turning to help stop the spin. (e.g.: If you're starting to spin left, steer right and apply throttle)
• Similarly, if the front end isn't turning in the direction you want to go, release the throttle and/or gently apply the brakes. This will transfer the load forwards and give the front tyres more grip.
  

Finally, you can get a good set of snow tyres to increase the amount of total traction you have to work with. The basic principles will apply though. You'll just have more room before you get there.

For a full explanation as to why all of this is, have a look at the Physics of Racing series here:

http://www.getfaster.com/gftechtips.html#anchor52953

We don't got snow here, but I'm always in the learning process:

Could sand bags at the trunk help?

i've never had problems (in the snow) with my rear end getting loose in my b14 unless I do it on purpose. If anything my front end looses traction first...

I guess it all comes down to getting on the gas at the right time. My car tends to rotate a lot on snowy surface streets as well. Someone who would not be used to the car would probably end up rear first in a snowbank. I do put the stock suspension back on the car during winter though, but the rear sway bar remains at full stiff. This way, the car reacts a bit like it is in autocross, just at slower speeds. It's actually kind of fun when your driving is dialed in to the car.

This adds to the fact that I would never let anyone drive my car unless they've autocrossed in it before. That narrows the people who drive my car to 2. My gf and myself

Move to FL, solve all your problems

^ Good advice.