Cornering...

[Adamxck]

To elaborate.

You dont just turn left.

You use visual references, feedback from the wheel, vibrations through your seat and a plethora of other tiny clues, that i cant prentend to know all of to guide the car around the bend.

You probably add a touch of throttle (or a lot of you are Dave) too.

There is a point where to decide to start steering, when to hold position and when you begin to unwind. I think the question was posed to make you think about and explain how you determin each step and why you cane to each conclusion.

Again I could be talking balls.

[Mr Cholmondeley-Warner]

I'm not sure if I'm doing the limit point thing, but all I know is I simply drive at a speed which enables me to stop in the distance I can see to be clear.

Therefore, I see a bend, and start slowing down on the straight section ... until the distance I can see 'around' the bend stops reducing, and I'm travelling at a suitable speed to get around the corner.

Rewording that: On approach to the bend, I adjust my speed so I can stop at the point I can't see beyond the bend, then when the point I can stop at starts to move, I'm at a suitable speed to go around the bend.
Does that make sense?

... and in the process, you've just described limit point analysis. Well done ... "the point I can't see beyond" is the limit point (physical - wait for Horse to come along and explain why there might be an earlier "surprise horizon" that isn't a physical feature of the road and verges).

(now wait for SD to come along and tell you why it's not the right method - but you carry on doing it anyway )

If the road curves to the left, I turn the steering wheel in the appropriate direction to get the car to follow the road.

I do try to be smooth with the steering, rather than jerking the wheel around.

Yup, and you've described steering too. See Dave's description above - "start to steer, and add steering until you have the line you want". If you follow the principle of "trying to be smooth with the steering" back to the point where you start to steer, you'll see that inevitably that means you have to start earlier. If you start just that tiny bit earlier still, moving the steering wheel but not actually changing the direction of the vehicle (yet), that's hinting (or "starting to steer").

[Horse]

They ask you a seemingly silly question,

I like silly questions as I have loads of stupid answers

[Strangely Brown]

Step 2: Turn the steering wheel in such a manner that I remain on the tarmac.

And could you also elaborate on Step 2? How do you determine what steering action will or will not allow you to remain on the tarmac?

Simple?

If the road curves to the left, I turn the steering wheel in the appropriate direction to get the car to follow the road.

I do try to be smooth with the steering, rather than jerking the wheel around.

I have to admit, I'm not quite sure what you're asking me

I think the idea was to make you really think about the different things that are happening and what you are doing/feeling. Its a method coaches use. They ask you a seemingly silly question, but once you start to think about it, there is more going on than first appears.

Maybe. Could be totally wrong.

That's exactly right. You say that you turn the wheel. Is that all you do? How hard do you turn it? How far, how quickly? How do you know when to stop?

To repeat my question: How do you determine what steering action will or will not allow you to remain on the tarmac?

What happens when you turn the wheel? What do you feel?

Please excuse me if I speak improperly here, but does your deafness affect your balance? Does that have any affect on what you feel when cornering?

What you said was simple in the extreme but if you think about what you actually do and what you feel when doing it, you'll see that it's really not just as simple as, "I turn the wheel". And that brings us back to the point of the thread. Cornering is far more nuanced than arrive, turn, drive.

Hope that is a little clearer?

[TripleS]

Sometimes known as "hinting".

Yes indeed, you introduced me to that principle several years ago.

However, I've never been quite sure whether the 'hint' is meant to be a small but important initial movement of the steering wheel, minutely separated from the main stering input; or whether it's just the first part of what is really all one input, if you see what I mean.

I do try to be mindful of the merits of 'hinting', but my preference is for incorporating it by starting to apply steering early, and very gently, as I begin cornering, smoothly increasing the amount of lock as we get into the bend. What I certainly don't like to see is a steering wheel turned quickly through 20 degrees (or whatever it is) to get the lock on at the start of the bend, and 20 degrees taken off quickly at the exit. That, to my mind, is a recipe for unsettling the car on a grand scale.

Basically, I try to get round bends by asking as little as possible from the car, and then the old girl doesn't disappoint me.

[Strangely Brown]

It sounds like you're doing it right to me. It's really about taking up all of the play in the system between you and the contact patch and just starting to get the tyre moving. It takes roughly 1/4 second between you moving your hand and the tyre actually doing what you ask. Therefore, it is/should be all one smooth input.

Politeness. Warn the car that you're going to ask it to do something and then ask it gently.

[Astraist]

If the road curves to the left, I turn the steering wheel in the appropriate direction to get the car to follow the road.

I do try to be smooth with the steering, rather than jerking the wheel around.

If you are slow enough to stop in time, and you are not jerky with your inputs than that's fine. Nowadays cars have quite a lot of grip and you are unlikely to be even halfway to the limit of it on the road.

However, I am thinking along the lines of TripleS: can I ask even less of the car in order to complete the maneuver? Can I use as little as practically possible?

Other than getting the right response from the car, it's worth to maintain the largest reserve possible in case another car swerves into our lane during the bend and forces us unto a tighter radius, or that the grip diminishes in a sudden and unforseen manner (so think black ice patch in the dark).

This puzzles me a bit. My instinct was that as the rear wasn't turning the front would be inhibited from doing so, or at least not added to. And that as soon as the rear began to turn then the whole turning effect would increase. The car would be 'happier' because the stress front/rear (I nearly said on the chassis!) would be reduced.

The slip angle takes time to develop into it's final shape and some more time to generate a cornering force, so it takes a bit over a quarter of a second to develop cornering force at the front.

This initial cornering force doesn't serve to translate the car sideways so much as it rotates the chassis (read: the rear tyres) and effectivelly "steers" the rear, which than start to develop their slip angle.

The more lag, the more is the body of the car rotated into the bend (which feels good at first) but the less stable the car is as the bend continues.

I'd imagined it as putting some stress on the tyre wall. Enough to tension it but not enough to actually create a slip angle.. And feeling this through the steering. I'm wrong there...

As long as you get the road wheels turning by any amount - you are generating a slip angle and therefore a cornering force, Starting to steer earlier (at a constant or linearly rising rate, without a seperate hinting motion) means that, other from reducing lag, you already have some slip angle developed at the front and rear by the time you really need the response.

[Revian]

Astraist... Thank you.

Ian

[waremark]

I recently drove a GT3 RS. I think that has 4 wheel steer. I. suspect that may reduce the time it takes the rear wheels to apply a cornering force by up to half a second. I did not notice anything in particular other than that it was easy to steer the car accurately. (In the 80's I had a Nissan with such a system. I perceived that similarly. )

[IcedKiwi]

I just watched the Chris Harris video of GT3RS vs AM GT12 vs 650s and I don't think he mentioned the rear wheel steer (although it does have it) but said the "turn in" was greater than the others due to the sticky massive profile fronts and wider track. Although as he's a journalist I'm sure SD will confirm he's got it all wrong.