Mus27

Hi, today was the first day i drove with the VSD turned off. All i can say is, WOW, what a differance. My only question is that do i still have traction control enabled when i have VSD turned off? If VSD is turned off, will the SLIP light still come on if i start to skid? When I have VSD turned off, is it really easy to spin this car? I also noticed that when i launch the car and in between my 1st to 2nd shift, the rear end has the possibility of giving out.

any advice?

thanks in advance.

I am placing my order for the VOLK te-37 tomorrow for a Lemans Sunset. the rims are in the silver color in the 19" with the wider lip. I have also ordered my Teins. Once I have the mods installed, i will post pics for all you curious Lemans sunset owners.

ares

iTrader: (2)

the difference is only apparent when your pushing the car beyond the limits of the tread. your best driving would be done with or without VDC on, as you shouldnt break traction for your best times. keep that in mind.

for straight lines, its near impossible to not spin slightly, and the vdc cuts way more power than it needs to, thus hurting you more than it would to spin the tires a few times. not to say your faster without VDC, your just less impaired by spinning slightly, vs having power cut off.

try to learn the limits of the car, and its better to learn them by VDC correcting you, than to spin the car. yes the car will spin, yes it will do it easily. you dont want to even test your limits on this.

labshark7

Well said Ares,

To much ego concerning the VDC in my opinion. This is a highly advanced electronic system. There is a reason it was banned for use in F1.



Eric

Inova

help me understand more of racing. does that mean that if u have vdc off and you do the 1-2 shift that it is bad to chirp the tires in 2nd? it seems like it would take more time/effort to get the gear in without chirping, does that make you lose more time? or does the little chirp do a lot more damage to time than i think??

ares

iTrader: (2)

in the perfect world, you would shift, and have the RPMs at just the right point, not PERFECTLY matched to your speed, but just slightly higher so that the clutch slips and gives a power shift, but doesnt ever break traction, just like you can launch without ever breaking traction. any time your tires are spinning youve changed to kinetic friction, this is much much weaker than static friction. so spinning the tires is wasting energy.

many time slight slippage can be quasi beneficial as it is the lesser of the 2 evils vs VDC shutting you down. but unless your on a racetrack earning times and you can drive right between perfect and slight slippage, keep VDC on.

its like insurance, chances are youll never total a car, youll lose money on it your whole life and never get it back. but if you cancel it just once, and mess up, your screwed. better to waste that money than to lose your car.

D'oh

Turning VDC off also turns off TCS.

I believe stronly that VDC should never (well OK, RARELY ) be turned off on the street.

However, I also believe that when racing on a track (especially 1/4 mile or AutoX) you should never run with VDC on. When going on a road course, where speeds are significantly higher and walls are usually much closer, then the VDC is a definite option depending on driver skill, confidence, and sanity (or lack thereof).

There are a couple reasons why I think it is a good idea to race with VDC on (at least at low speed courses like an AutoX)

1. Competitiveness: I have yet to get a better AutoX time with VDC on than I do with VDC off (even in the rain) and I am a beginning level driver. The VDC on the Z is much different than the VDC on F1 cars. On F1 cars it was designed to keep the cars at the limit, whereas on the Z it is designed to bring the car back down away from the limit. It typically does this by pulling power for significant periods of time, which can be very disturbing in a race situation.

2. Learn the car: It is easier to learn the behavior of the car at and beyond the limit with VDC off, since there are no electronic aids that change the behavior of the vehicle. The ability to control the car through corners can be beneficial on the track as well as on the street if an emergency situation should arise.

3. Fun: Part of the fun of racing is to be able to wring the last bit of performance out of the vehicle, and to correct for any over-aggresiveness while doing so. It's quite a feeling to power out of a corner with the rear hanging out a bit, and to transition smoothly onto a straight or swing around to a corner in the opposite direction.

Of course, because this can be very dangerous (as well as a good way to burn through tires), I believe that an AutoX and not a road course is a very good place to try driving without VDC because the environment is fairly well controlled and the speeds are fairly low. A road course has speeds that are high enough to spell disaster if one makes a mistake, and therefore more care needs to be taken than on the AutoX.

If you are going fast enough on the street (other than pulling away from a stop at a "moderate" pace) to engage the VDC, then it is probably a very good thing it was on. That's a sure sign that you are in a dangerous situation, since on the street there are many more unexpected situations that can occur and it is therefore important to save some grip for an emergency.

-D'oh!

Akira

In the best motoring video, turning on the VDC made it impossible to drift because as soon as you apply the brake, it will control the car so you would not loose control. Even with the VDC off, you still had Traction Control which they couldn't turn it off. So the only way they could drift the car was by going fast and turning into the turn without using the brake. They said that a good driver would be faster without the VDC, but the average driver would be faster with VDC.