Did someone say utilizing the nannies makes you a better driver? Nah dude lol.

I’ve heard too many nanny users say things like “the car puts down all of the power possible on exit because you can just mat the accelerator and let the tc/esc handle it”, but in reality 9/10 times they have not rotated the car properly to allow the tc/esc to put down the maximum power exiting said corner, and they will never learn how to do so or more importantly why they should do so. Reason being, they have not learned what upsets the car, and subsequently what the car does best with, and how to straddle the line between.

 

What's that..? I can't hear you mincing words from your high horse...

PTM can be a learning tool to make you a progressively better driver (not best), or... ..it can be a total crutch. Everyone has to start somewhere and starting with 'everything off' is terrible advice, especially for an instructor. Yes, I know we should all sell our Corvettes and start from scratch with go-carts and eventually Miatas and so on...

And PRE, buddy.. You have your head so far up... You can't even recognize blatant sarcasm and satire.

 

The funny thing is the championship level race drivers in LMP cars use traction control and all the way down to the professional c8r GTLM / GTD racing cars all utilize engine based traction control.

Conversely you look at the experience level of many many hpde drivers and they track between 1 and 10 times per year. ... usually a handful at best. If you're telling a driver with that limited amount of ongoing experience to turn off all aids then we're going to have a legal discussion about culpability when that student plows into me.

 

Serious question for those that are experts with PTM, how is it affected by changes to the car?

And those cars run one PTM program for all conditions and drivers right?

It’s their car and they can do with that as they please as I never suggested the first thing I do is tell them to turn everything off, I’m there to get them around the track safely. You should take my place instructing, since you’re clearly better at it. I don’t understand the defensiveness to discussing PTM as flooring the car at the apex is not something I recommend doing to students, so forgive me as people have survived track days without PTM for many years. I’d rather the student understand throttle application rather than relying on the computer system to work as designed as modifications could put it outside of its parameters of working as intended. I mean do guys run Wet mode on the out lap when it’s under 50*, dry if it’s over 50*, then switch to sport 2 once the tires come up to temp and then to sport 1 if they start to get greasy as don’t want it sliding around too much and definitely don’t recommend race unless you have a death wish and signed the additional waiver? My novice student Saturday was in a modified Cayman GTS he ran in Sport and when he asked me to drive his car around the track he put it in Sport+, I’m not an expert of how every manufacturer’s traction control, stability control, PTM, PSM, etc system works though know how to get a car around a track without it safely. I also worked with an intermediate student and advanced student which were in a modified Mustang GT and modified C7GS, what skill level or run group is the OP in?

 

Not an expert, but.. An instructor buddy has a fully built ZL1 1LE, caged, 680WHP and runs Pirelli DH. Some tracks he runs with everything off but I do know he was in Track mode at VIR (and running sub-2s in traffic with a passenger). So it seems to function as intended regardless of modification. Maybe in the lower modes it would be problematic with the extra power, etc..

Race mode is really a last resort safety net and it only intervenes if you get way out of shape or are blatantly over-driving the car. It is slightly more intrusive in the C7Z vs C8 but it is absolutely not a 'floor it at the apex and the PTM will sort it out' mode, not at all. It will let you get out of shape so you can exceed the limit and then you can dial back to fine the optimal balance, hence my point that it can help you (more safely) become a better driver. If you're driving the car optimally, 99% of drivers are not going to be any quicker with everything off. Instead, you've just removed the possibility that the car will make an attempt to save you from yourself if you eff up.

 

The original poster got good advice anyway and the thread really has just devolved into fun talk about what we prefer for PTM modes or not.

I personally find value in them but I also find the way that general motors connected the suspension programming with the PTM modes really annoys me because tracks like Sebring you can't use them anyways because you don't want a full stiff suspension on Sebring.

Some people may invite find value in the PTM modes and some may prefer the most analog experience possible and that's just fine.

The PTM modes allow everything from massive intervention in wet mode where you can literally put the pedal to the floor out of a turn and you're not going to go anywhere fast to race mode 2 which allows no intervention.

Even in the more intrusive PTM sport mode how many of us have seen Ron Fellows level 2 or level 3 drivers have off tracks with that on. I've seen multiple.

That said many cars on the track don't have the luxury of having any type of adjustable traction modes. I'm sure we've all seen 350zs and 370Z in the weeds left and right.

For people new to lap days or new to a particular track I think they can be extremely useful. I know many drivers that I have right-seated with that I would never get in the car again with them without them on lol.

It always reminds me of one of the funnier days in my life when they were doing the 12-hour race at Sebring and all of us at the Porsche corral had a chance to do a parade lap. This is a parade lap. Let me say that again this was a parade lap. I hear two different guys get into their cars and say make sure you turn off the traction control. I immediately said to my passenger.... Watch what happens.

Yes both of those cars had an off track on a parade lap and will never be allowed there again haha.


Parade lap....2018 12 hour race

 

I’m not going to give advice on PTM to a student as I haven’t fully experienced it in every situation to feel qualified to do so, especially if the car is modified. On my C5FRC with a NA 6.0 I built that was making 200hp more than stock I could blow through traction control on wider Z06 wheels/tires, on my C6GS that doesn’t have PTM it only has bolt-ons I’ve run 305/315/325/335 rear tires from 340tw run flats to 40tw Hoosiers and it doesn’t act the same in comp mode. Lap times to me speak to how well a driver is doing, but my question is would he run the same time with it off? If it’s just a safety net then I get it, but I question if the driver even understands why it stepped in? How many guys overheat their brakes to failure and cause an accident because they’re leaning on the stability control? I’ve never ran VIR Full, but I think I might be able to pull off a sub 2 with my measly 425rwhp and 200tw tires based on my buddy whom I run within tenths of on our local 2.7mile track as he won his class at TT Nationals at NCM and was less than 3 seconds off Justin Peachey who went 1:57.1 at VIR Full.

 

I had a 2010 Camaro SS that I put a TVS supercharger on and there's no way the traction control worked anymore.

I used to say while I was sleeping it stayed up at night thinking of ways to kill me.

You could mat it at 60mph with a straight wheel and it would try and put you in the ditch

 

This is not correct. Race 2 does still mange power, just to a lesser extent than the other modes. The manual is worded poorly here, as it says "engine power is available for maximum cornering speed" which is different than "maximum engine power is available".

As to the OP's question, think as noted, it won't save all situations, but in my ZL1 at least, in Sport, it pulls so much power( (if you get on it hard while turning -- which you normally would not do) think it would be hard to have issues.

 

As you said they use TC. TC does not teach them how to drive the car. Additionally TC only is much different than using ESC and TC, for discussion purposes. TC is only limiting wheel spin on exit.

But, pro drivers use the TC for the advantage not learning. Driver aids aren’t teaching someone how to drive a car optimally.

I will agree that they can help someone learn with a safety net, for those that need it though, don’t get me wrong. It is just wrong to say that the aids are directly teaching the person to drive the car, as was suggested above. ( @AHP I think you may have minced my words above).

Here is a good video where the driver is “learning” from the driver aids. In this case, the driver learned how to press the accelerator to the floor when there is no chance for WOT. Then, when the algorithm wouldn’t give them throttle, they opened the steering a bit until it did give them throttle, and then turned again.

 

Also, lol at the murican sue culture being brought into the conversation above. So cringey. Did anybody even say anything about telling novice students to turn off their driver aids?

 

Mustang GT and modified C7GS, what skill level or run group is the OP in?


Expert.

 

This is exactly my point, dude bro man; everything else you've just conflated to fit your agenda.

 

I agree you should not be in full throttle while still approaching an apex. He was too hot in that corner.

I watched the video though and he did not unwind the wheel. There was literally a half second where the wheel unwinds and winds right back to where it was which is just normal reaction to surface changes.


He didn't "unwind" though. He was going to hot and dropped a wheel and doesn't start to spin until he drops the wheel which apparently they are saying caused a damaged tire when he dropped it.

Here he is going in full throttle with 28 degrees steering. No traction control intervention is coming up on screen
​​​​​




Here is a half second later where he "unwinds" but we all have had a half second steering move in a turn when you feel a bump or a slip. This is normal....no traction control intervention is occuring yet either....




as you see within a half second he is right back at 31 degrees steering. Still no traction control intervention.





now apparently he drops the wheel and damages the tire.

Here is the issue. He is already facing the wrong direction and has started to slide. Traction control has still not intervened yet.

Yet he is only counter steering 42 degrees. He probably doesn't realize the tire is damaged and he likely would have needed 4x that amount of counter steer. Easy to Monday evening quarter back it but that wasn't enough counter steer...





this is the first point in which he aggressively countersteers. It was way too late....still no traction control intervention....






And this is actually the first second traction control kicks in.... after he has already made an initial impact....






I'd guess that was ptm race 2. If it has been ptm sport it would have intervened earlier and may have given him that bit of extra time to have initiated more countersteer.

 

Because I see a difference between the phrases “teach” and “help to learn”? Sorry, but that is the conflation. So, sue me along with your man bro guy pal bbhdkger.

 

That TC light after the crash could be indicating transmission protection mode rather than TC intervention. I only know of this after being informed, of why it flashed in my car in certain areas of ORP, by a Corvette team engineer who has been attempting to help diagnose my transmission issues (ESC and TC were off so there should’ve been no TC light flashing).

 

Then why are you asking the question?

He never lifted off the gas though and I assume that is a habit of doing exactly what the OP’s question was. He unwinds the wheel to allow the power to come back as it was being cut somewhat it was stated so he’s driving around the system and since he’s still WOT when he unwinds the wheel that pushes him even wider which cause him to run out of room on exit is my analysis though correct me if I’m wrong.

 

That's just not what I'm seeing. It was a half second unwind. That's just a normal steering correction. When you unwind you unwind.

He came in too hot.

He had no stability control to mitigating his speed. If he had been using more nannies it actually would have.

The video says he wanted more speed. He shouldn't have. He was already too hot for the corner. I think that analysis is incorrect but I certainly could be wrong as it just doesn't match the PDR screens. He had speed in that corner. Too much. He went in too hot. No aids were there to help him with that so he went wide and dropped a tire.

When the c8 is going in too hot you don't stay on the throttle. You LIFT throttle and the car will start to rotate. You can even trail brake it a tad and get the weight on the front end to rotate and or turn in.

He didn't do that.

So he went wide and dropped a tire

We've all dropped a tire

His apparently became damaged.

After he started to rotate he put in way too little counter steer way too late.

No criticism of him at all. Again we've all done it or will do it but it usually doesnt end like this.

 

He never lifted off the gas though and I assume that is a habit of doing exactly what the OP’s question was. He unwinds the wheel to allow the power to come back as it was being cut somewhat it was stated so he’s driving around the system and since he’s still WOT when he unwinds the wheel that pushes him even wider which cause him to run out of room on exit is my analysis though correct me if I’m wrong.

I guess you didn’t read my original post. My transmission was “repaired “ four times and I don’t think the PTM is working.

I usually use Race 2, but the Cup 2 tires ( which I was using for the first time suck) were spinning on corner exit , so I started playing with the different modes to no effect.

That is why I am asking the question.

 

Yes we all make mistakes and I agree except that the comment was made that he unwound the wheel because power was being cut from PTM intervention which I question whether a shorter than stock tire is triggering the computer to see more wheelspin. Again to fully utilize these systems to their max you have to have understanding of how exactly they are programmed and that I do not.

Don’t see anything in the original post about issues after transmission repair.

Cup 2 tires need heat to have optimum grip, only stating this as you said it’s your first time using them. They have worse grip than a P4S when they aren’t up to temp and I’m speaking from experience having driven C7Z07 and C7ZR1 on them. Could this be a factor?