Wet Weather Driving Report

Good news and bad news in this department as well. Besides the good news reported on a separate thread regarding wipers I also did my favorite 65 turn 12 mile long way home to practice my slides on drizzle damped roads. The speeds are generally 40-50 mph. The good news is the car handles exactly the same. The slides are more gentle and more fun because when slower and wet it is easy to do the max. I could not provoke any sort of squirelly behavior. Even a quick jab at the brakes does not upset anything.

That most definitely NOT the case in straight line stops. I have never been fond of the brakes on this car. Mostly I found them to light, non progressive, and lock up to easily when you get down to 30 mph. Recently I had a lot of preventive maintenance done. All four CV joints are new, and the front bearings have been lubed. This last thing is VERY important. Mine were undamaged but dry. The grease got waxy over the years and was pushed asside and did not migrate back into the race.

But I also replaced both front rotors and replaced original spec (almost new) pads with ceramic. That made a very noticeable difference. A lot more progressive and much easier to avoid front locking at lower speeds. So this was the perfect time to test the brakes on something other then dry roads, where they are much improved.

On damp straight roads? At 50 mph they got very squirelly very fast. The sequence is this. The left front locked up first and that puts the car out of balance. The rear actually jumped out a tad and then did a little jig. Felt like one or the other rear temporarily locked as well. Easy enough to recover, but enough to be spooky.

So I did a lot of practice. First from 50 mph. Then repeatedly from 60 and even a couple from 70mph. Enough to begin smelling hot brakes. A panic stop is probably the safest bet. I did that from lower speeds a couple of times and the car simply slides. But I will do some more practice max without lockup. I have dry braking down pretty good already.

PS: The Continental ExtremeContact Summer DWs are a perfect wet weather tire.

 

I have been pushing my car in full G corners with full throttle and if the ass end gets a bit squielly all I do is lift throttle and let go of the steering wheel. Same safety design as my Z-28. To my experience both cars are damn near spin proof. One hundred and twenty thousand miles in the Z-28 on public roads, fifty laps at Summit Point (at which my exact model spanked a Porche 928S by several seconds. My time, 1.44 was not that far behind.)

And a .4g curve? Skyline drive over the Blue Ridge Mountains has speed limits that will generate .4g. I have a 100 mph left hand curve in which the Mondial does not even know if it is in full throttle of lift throttle. Did it just the other day with a pickup truck that was probably pulling close to .80. I watched him from the rear tempt me into the curve to see if he knew what he was doing. He expected a Ferrari driver who would not know what he was doing. He was wrong. And he DID know what he was doing..

So I ran right up next to him in the right lane. I was on and off the throttle to match him. I do not know how fast I was going in fourth gear, but I did that to keep him steady. Then I nailed it and hit 7-8K running out. Zero point four gs? My 1974 Vega station wagon would do .75g. It was timed and tested it at a local Porche event outside DC. The Porche guys were congratulatory to me. And of course that very same prepped 1974 Vega station wagon took first, second, or third in EVERY event at the Manassas paved oval. That was the fastest autocross I ever ran. Hit 60mp in third gear. Some cars and some tracks just match up.

PS: As stated below I did test the brakes in hard corners, not 70mph, but the car simply slowed down by 10mph without any jiggle at all. I can extrapolate that up to higher speeds and perhaps someday I will find a safe place to test it at 70mph.

 

The weight shift is perfect for a 10mph speed reduction. I have done it many times both wet and dry.

 

Pickup trucks! My favorite trip is up Blood Mountain. My 8psi 5.0 Lincoln Mark VII has run down Corvette C-5s. The rednecks who do that every day are better. My MAXX with autocross tires was better but only by a little bit. I was smelling my own rubber. Full throttle, off throttle I was neutral. And took the pickup by only about 3 mph.

And I have Road Atlanta autocross experience. My instructor told me to slow down to let the Loti get ahead

I do not know how that translates into actual g forces. But I can tell you a well driven pickup truck will not necessarily embarass itself.

 

Great good fun!

That pickup in that 90 mph left hander was no slouch. These things can be had with every sort of supercharged power plant, every sort of suspension mods. They look like they would simply fall over on their sides. Once upon a time I test drove a Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7. It felt like I was driving from the top of a step ladder.

And seriously, I would not want to recover from a tail out situation. But steady state cornering? Tires are the limiting factor for most people on such vehicles. And I can tell yuo I had taken that fast left hand sweeper MANY times and running side to side with that pickup took some concentration. Mostly to keep us both from doing something seriously more stupid then we were already doing.

If I get a chance I might look up if any pickup trucks can pull 0.8 Gs. But hell, my 1974 Vega station wagon was timed at exactly 0.75.

 

Address to Bell.

Throttle steering. My Mondial does very little throttle steering. At full tilt at full throttle it simply slightly tightens its arc. Throttle off it pretty much does the same thing. I have always tuned my suspensions to slightly tighten upon lift throtle. I have seen nothing in this car that would be a surprise. I remember we had some talk about Ferrari understeer and I mentioned I had not seen it with the Pirrelli P Zero Neros. I do see it with the Continental ExtremeContact Summer DWs.

On these damp roads today it was gone. The car simply pointed where I pointed it. Rotation was smooth, predictable, and rather fun like a sea side amusement park. Including sudden brake stabs. The surprise was maximum straight line braking. This is probably because a hard stab in a corner of about 1/4 second transfers heavily to the front providing more rotation for a very sort time.

The straight line braking was many seconds long. The heavy dive had already taken full effect and then it was up to when the fronts locked up. They did not lock up in unison, and hence the unsettled effect. I have practice much on dry roads and this has never been an issue. However, in a wet condition the fronts and rears may be more equal with the front ceramics.

And so it may be a trade off. Better dry road control, or better wet road control. Of course any sane manufacturer will opt for better wet road dynamics. And that is why I do so much testing. However, spirited driving only needs about 1/4 second brake stab to scrub off about 10 mph or more. However, I need to know what happens on longer times.

Straight line? Well. Now I know that if I need to do a panic stop I simply do a panic stop and lock up all four wheels. For sprited driving and 1/4 second brake stabs there is no penalty.

 

Hi PV

Everyting is pretty much good really. All four tires are good fresh and nicely worn down. The front rotors and pads were only installed a few weeks ago and I have been breaking them in. Adding ceramic to the fronts very much improved dry weather final slow down stability. I do not see noticeable left right bias on dry roads.

So the fronts have a bit less bite now which makes the wet stopping rear shudders a bit more understandable. However, I have noticed the limited slip differential in my car might need another tube of additive. It just seems very heavily locked up on very tight turns. Chirps the tires sometimes under throttle. Perhaps the jiggle I got in the wet is the anti-slip not slipping at all? I will have my local wrench add another tube some time.

I have a lot of experience with these types of differentials for many years. The last 7psi 5.0 Mark VII would chirp the new ones just backing up in the lot. But they broke in just fine. I have always suspected my Ferrari limited slip as rather agressive but nothing untword ever came of it. Till the rear got a bit squirelly with a full tilt stop on wet roads!
But thats why I practice these things.

Today I was running fast through some dry road turns and decided to test out Bells braking scenario. In the middle of the hard right hander I applied almost a full second of hard braking. Something one might be tempted to do if a deer jumped in front of you. Where I live this might actually be a large Black Bear. [The actual proper answer is HIT THE GD DMND DEER. Seriously.] But I digress.

The car rotatated as expected and was easily straightened out by lifting the brake pressure. Its a scenario one might encounter on a track with a wreck in front of you, or if a Black Bear lumbers in front of you on a dark night. [Again. The actual proper answer is to just duck and hit the animal. Almost any serious driver input puts you off the road. The bear rambles off and the next car dials 911]. In this entire nation the single most pernicious menace are DEER. Followed closely by the gd dmd beavers.

I am not making this up. As a kid in rural Ohio we trapped muskrat and hunted deer. There were no beavers to trap, the muskrats were few and far between. And I never encountered a deer while hunting one. Now they are like rats in NYC. I drove I-80 from Ohio to NYC and the deer carnage was epic in scale. One per mile, by my count. My buddy ran into one in DC! Runined his whole car!

Time for another beer!

 

Hi Jerry!

The problem is the rears were doing TOO much work. They should not have locked up at all so quickly. This is entirely my doing since I deliberately reduced the front friction by installing ceramics on the front. The front and rears are in total ballance on dry roads. I have another possible culprit why the rears got jiggly. To much limitied slip. I have suspected as much the entire time I have owned the car.

However, if I had to choose between perfect dry brakes or perfect wet brakes I would choose dry because thats when I mostly do my driving. As for proportioning valves you have hit the nail squarely on the head. Specifically, for the entire 35 years of owning my 1965 corvair I always hated the brakes because the fronts lock up to soon.

So when I had the master cylindar upgraded to a dual line unit I had my local wrench add a proportioning unit. Its actually more complicate with a dual system then a single system but that is beside this point. Which is this. That Corvair now has the best brakes of any car I have ever driven. Suck your eyeballs out, no dive, now swerve, very very hard peddle and way easy to feel impending lock up. Is not clear to me I would prefer my anti lock maxx in dry weather. Certainly for shear entertainment the value rock steady stability of NON-antilocks is preferable to the dentist drill anti-locks. Which, of course, increase your stopping distance on ice by at least 25%.

Thats another discussion!

 

Round abouts in wet oily cities are certainly a menace. You have experienced a strong lesson for anticipation in such circumstances! Even the possibility of standing water is one great big red light. Its the one of the things that terrifies me! Its why I practice wet driving in light drizzles on roads I already know. God, have I driven in driving rain storms out running tornado conditions in Illinois!

And everyone should drive in snow and on ice just to get their attention to these things. Chicago and NE Ohio are about perfect. Meanings, specifically, satanic.