Understeer
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Le Mans Master
Joined: Feb 2008
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From: Lake Worth Beach, Florida
Understeer
I recently experienced understeer while making a 90-degree right turn. Very similar to a front wheel drive car. Just happened to have to replace the front tires due to a road damage incident and accidentally purchased Michelin Summer tires rather than the all-season tires. The weather here in South Florida is OK for summer tires year-round, so may work out well.
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You can't go wrong with a set of Michelins on your car, I prefer their summer only max performance tires
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interesting. You put grippier summer tires on the front wheels and that resulted in more understeer. How does understeer work? I thought it referred to the tendency to plow straight ahead even with the front wheels turned. To be distinguished from the case where the car tends to turn more than intended, potential spinning out in a turn. How do grippier tires on the front cause more understeer? I would have guessed that keeping the all season Michelins on the back and the Summer tires on the front would tend to reduce understeer.
Tadge is on record as saying the car is designed to have a slight understeer - in this article - and I think other places as well:
https://assets.techbriefs.com/EML/20...vette_0917.pdf
There's more, but here and excerpt:
Juechter is on record not wanting C8 to be a handful at the cornering limit — a preference dating to his youth under the wing of a fighter-pilot father who enjoyed owning and driving Porsche 911s. “We definitely didn’t want our first mid-engine effort to earn a reputation as a car that’s tricky at the limit.......By that, I mean near-neutral characteristics on the track with a bit of understeer during normal street driving.”
Tadge is on record as saying the car is designed to have a slight understeer - in this article - and I think other places as well:
https://assets.techbriefs.com/EML/20...vette_0917.pdf
There's more, but here and excerpt:
Juechter is on record not wanting C8 to be a handful at the cornering limit — a preference dating to his youth under the wing of a fighter-pilot father who enjoyed owning and driving Porsche 911s. “We definitely didn’t want our first mid-engine effort to earn a reputation as a car that’s tricky at the limit.......By that, I mean near-neutral characteristics on the track with a bit of understeer during normal street driving.”
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This is one of the biggies we learned at Ron Fellows. Where the C7 tended to oversteer and the backend pushed out, C8 as with all mid engine cars would understeer coming into a turn hard, but as the car settled, it would grab and rail through a turn. Once you learned the understeer feel, you would get the car to settle asap, and the accelerate through the turn!
Race Director
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How new were the tires? If truly brand new, there may still have been mold release compound on the surface from manufacturing, Takes some miles to wear that off.
How fast were you going into the turn? Were you braking, or accelerating out of the turn?
How fast were you going into the turn? Were you braking, or accelerating out of the turn?
Thread Starter
Le Mans Master
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 5,644
Likes: 1,221
From: Lake Worth Beach, Florida
I encountered the understeer with the all-season tires. The summer tires are stickier and should give me a little more grip in the turns. As was noted mid-engine cars have a tendency for understeer. Oversteer is more fun.
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^^^
That wasn't at all clear (that it happened on the A/S tires) in your first post.
And mid-engine cars don't have a tendency to understeer. If anything, the exact opposite. But GM and others tune the suspension and electronics to provide understeer, because on the street that's far safer for the average driver.
That wasn't at all clear (that it happened on the A/S tires) in your first post.
And mid-engine cars don't have a tendency to understeer. If anything, the exact opposite. But GM and others tune the suspension and electronics to provide understeer, because on the street that's far safer for the average driver.
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This is one of the biggies we learned at Ron Fellows. Where the C7 tended to oversteer and the backend pushed out, C8 as with all mid engine cars would understeer coming into a turn hard, but as the car settled, it would grab and rail through a turn. Once you learned the understeer feel, you would get the car to settle asap, and the accelerate through the turn!
Thread Starter
Le Mans Master
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 5,644
Likes: 1,221
From: Lake Worth Beach, Florida
