Fellow fanatics...

I am a self-professed newb and have to admit that I dont really understand these terms. Can somebody please explain? Grazie!!

 

As per your self addressed n00b issue, I'll make it really easy to understand. Oversteer is when the *** end of the car kicks out in a turn. This requires "counter-steer" to correct, which is turning the wheel towards the outside of the turn while still moving around the turn. Understeer is more or less the opposite of this. If you have even been in the middle of a hard turn with your wheel cranked all the way to the inside of the turn but still going straight or moving towards the outside of the turn then you are experiencing understeer. Drift, if you have ever seen any drift videos, is the art of oversteer. Hope that helps!

TVA

 

Good explanation. I'll just add a few more things to that.

Most cars are tuned from the factory to understeer, even RWD ones. As a general rule of thumb, FWD cars will understeer and RWD cars will oversteer (although, like I said, many are tuned from the factory to understeer). AWD tend to understeer.

 

That is a good point to mention. Most RWD cars, if they don't have a good deal of avaliable torque to break those rear tires loose the stock suspention is generally not tuned to oversteer. Nice suppliment Koan!

TVA

 

Yeah a good thing to keep in mind with understeer is that the majority of new cars come with suspension tuning to promote understeer. This is for legal reasons because to a driver with little skill, understeer is much easier to control than oversteer. If an unexperieced driver encounters understeer in a turn they will usually just slide off the road which is much safer than the spin will result if oversteer is not properly controlled. Messing around with the camber will help to defeat this understeer for the most part. This is helpful if you are going to autox but for the street it will cause your tires to wear faster and unevenly.

 

What the others have said is exactly right. I'll just add my tidbit. Understeer and oversteer are exactly what they sound like:

Understeer is when you are steering the car but it doesn't turn as much as you want it to. The front tires are sliding.

Oversteer is when you are steering the car and it turns more than you want it to.
The rear tires slide out from under you.

 

cool. this helps my vague understanding.

in addition, when you approach a turn / corner with a car that understeers (ala the WRX), do you come "wide" into the turn and cut into it? it seems when you approach a turn huggin the inside bank, understeer will result in a push to the outside lanes at higher speeds

 

Yes, pretty much in any car, you want to enter the turn on the outside, cut to the inside at or near the apex, and then exit on the outside. That gives you higher enter/exit speeds. If you enter the corner too low, too fast, you will understeer, and just at the time when you need to be getting on the throttle to get a good exit speed, you will have to slow down. Not good.

I'm no expert on road racing, so if anyone has anything else to add feel free.

 

so peak acceleration should come just after exiting the apex of the turn?

 

Well, you should be accellerating after the apex (depending on the turn of course), but not necessarially full acceleration. You want to be there before the end of the turn, but you can't just mash the go pedal after you hit the apex because that can also cause understeer. You want to try to be into the throttle at least a little bit after the apex.

Slow in, fast out. Come into the turn slow and high, hit the apex, and then accelerate as much as possible out of the turn to maximize exit speed (which gives you better straight-away speed).

 

thanks vrwrx. you put into words what i subconsciously knew

i brought this thread up cause I recently drove on the PCH and found myself pulling some pretty weak sauce turns. when a v6 passat started to give me a run for my money i thought to myself, "ok, my next mod is driving school."

currently looking for one (hopefully in Northern CA)

 

Not a problem.

 

One of the best investments you can make. Let the pros show you how to get the most out of your car. Its a lot faster and cheaper then doing it by trial and error IMO.

 

late apex is almost always better than early apex. but you can also look at them this way.
use late apex when you are coming from a straight
use early apex when you are going into a straight

My suggestion is to go to book store and get couple of books to read up on these things, go to few autox, read, autox, read, autox, read....

Have fun!