My car doesn't have the active handling...

What does this actually do?

For example, if I were making a turn and mashed the gas, would it prevent a spin out?

 

What makes you think your car doesn't have active handling/traction control? Is there no button on the console?
To answer, yes, that's what it does. Applies the correct brake and shuts down engine rpm's to correct for incorrect heading in relation to the steering wheel. I thought all 2000's had it though. look on your rpo code list for JL4, if it's there you have it. And of course you'd have the round button on the console, so you'd probably notice. If you also have competitive driving mode, you can hold that button down for about 10 seconds and "competitive driving" will appear on the DIC. That will allow the wheels to spin, but still activate control if you start to slide.

 

it was an option on 2000. After that it was standard.

 

So if I am in competitive driving mode and my tires start to spin how does the active handling work. I thought that traction control cut power to the wheels a bit.

 

Traction control uses brake activation and power reductions to control rear wheel slip. To test what TC does I have switched my front wheels with the back wheels so the rears are turning faster than the fronts. After I did this I had to turn traction control off just to coast down a hill in nuetral as it would apply the rear brakes to keep the rear wheels from spinning faster than the fronts. In normal operation traction control will emphasize power reduction at higher speeds asi power reduction works quicker but it will do either or both depending on conditions.

Active Handling is separate from traction control. It uses brake applications to control the yaw rate of the car. Say you are going into a turn and as you turn the steering wheel the front wheels start to push so you increase steering angle to compensate. AH takes into account the steering angle (steering sensor), the wheel speeds at each wheel (wheel speed sensors), the yaw rate (yaw rate sensor in the dash under the radio), lateral Gs (from lateral G sensor under passenger seat) and determines if the yaw rate (how quickly the car is changing direction) will achieve what the driver is intending. If it isn't changing enough the system will apply the brake on the inside rear wheel to cause the car to yaw more quickly in the direction the driver intends to go. Conversely, if the rear of the car is swinging out too fast the system applies the brake at the outside front wheel to slow the swinging of the rear so the car goes in the direction the driver is pointing it. In other situations it may apply both rear brakes to create the correct yaw condition in high speed corners. It does all this in conjunction with traction control unless you are in competitive handling mode and then traction control is turned off and the operating band of AH is opened up so the driver can throw the car around a little more before the system activates. When you are braking and cornering at the same time the system works in conjunction with the ABS system to control yaw rate.

GM is well ahead of its competitors in this area as the Corvette system is the most sophisticated system on the market and works a lot better than any other. It has been 7 years since the latest version of the C5 system came on the market and the competitors still haven't matched it even though they use some of the same components.

Bill

 

Yea...wish my car had that, but it doesn't!



Does it work to near perfection?

 

As always there are limitations but GM claims only expert drivers are hindered by the system. On track it will cause increased rear brake pad wear but I have actually used the feature for competitive advantage in an autocross (no driver in the world can apply the brake on just one wheel). At other times it hinders the driver slightly. While autocrossing on a Go Kart track with my son who was also driving my car he was running a consistent 1 second behind me. As a past developer of stability controls for GM he had the car set in comp mode. I told him to try it with the system turned off and he virtually tied me on his next run. I have also had it save my bacon. When I first used my Z on the track I put it in comp mode so I could compare it to my 97 which didn't have it. As I was powering out of a turn that I had gone around several hunderd times before the rear end suddenly stepped out and AH intervened and corrected the situation before I could react. I got a very nice video of the sudden yaw and correction.

Bill

 

I've had a C5 WITH it and one WITHOUT Active Handling (but have traction control).

Unless you are tracking the car or acting as an idiot on the streets, it's hard to tell the difference. You should maintain control of your car as if it didn't have active handling in the first place while on a city street or highway. Granted, there are those rare occasions where maybe the street is wet or a corner a bit tighter than you thought or prepared for, or run off the highway with two wheels in the dirt then try to get back on again at speed, then, yeah...it's nice to have.

Everyday driving around town and I can't say I've ever been put in a position where if I had AH, it would have come on.

It is for the most simplistic analogy, a device that assists in correcting severe oversteer or understeer. That's about a simple, even though it is far more complex than that.

 

I recently installed a cartek linelock and took the car to the track and now I have "service active handling" code. Could the linelock install or the burnouts caused this?.....thanks

 

The burnout causes the "service active handling" codes because the rear
tires are turning but the front tires are not during the burnout.

The line lock itself does not cause that code. You should be able to reset it.

The only other thing is that it may be a coincidence that the code came on for some other reason when you were at the track.

Max
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