How to keep control of the 348 in a spin?

Driving fast is a science, not an art. Go to Skip Barber and learn how to do it. Great fun and it'll make you a much better driver.

There are many reasons that you may spin. For starters,
Too much throttle too soon is a common mistake.
Simply too much speed.
Driving the wrong line will do it. Taking an early apex will make you turn more on exit, just when you're trying to put down power. When taking a late apex, you're turning a lot near the apex with power on hard.

One thing you might want to try is to find a deserted parking lot and get a feel for the limits of your car in a safe environment. You can do a fake skidpad anywhere you find the room, and get the feel for the car at the limits (and how to control it). Make room in your budget for new tires.

Read a good book on driving. Learn how to set up a corner - braking point, turn in point, power on point, apex (early or late?), full power point, trackout point. Most drivers don't know how to go fast. I have a dear friend who loves to go fast, but he scares the hell out of me because he doesn't know what he's doing. Totaled his Vette with me in the passenger seat...

 

This is actually great advice, but sometimes it's not practical. Still, if you could do this on a wet surface (there are some driver's schools that do this for you, like the BMW club) you can witness this at much safer speeds. Look for BMW's Car Control Clinic and also Teen Driving School. They are not expensive.

 

In a Porsche 911, once the power goes in, you cannot lift.
In a Ferrari F355, once the power goes in, you can lift but only by the tiniest fraction--and you do this not to slow down, but to balance the car while it drifts through what remains of the turn.

 

The spacers address the power-on oversteer of the 348 but do not address the snap oversteer of removing throttle after entering a turn.

The F355 has the same suspension geomery as the 348SS (with some tire changes due to changes in weight distribution.)

 

invest in the driver before the car is sage advice especially after manning up to 2 driver error spins on a public road...

 

Also note: When attempting to recover from a spin (or bring the tail back in) first you add some steering correction, second you W.A.I.T until the car reacts to the steering input (a little more than 1 second) and rebalance the weight on the tires, and then third, you remove the correction. As a HPDI, we tell the students, correct, wait, recover.

Constantly yanking on the steeringwheel is never going to save your but.

 

I know it's a repost but this is a good example....

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrH4KDKmFCE[/ame]

and from inside...

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6oIgmksnVo&feature=watch_response[/ame]

Dave

 

Cold tires. What a fool!

 

Doh.

Anybody we know??

Kai

 

Yep. Can't remember the screen-name off hand though.

All the best,
Andrew.

 

HPDI? Does that mean high performance driving instructor?
Mitch I don't buy this advice. I think you can correct, wait and maybe recover when you feel the car break loose but not when you are spinning. You wait for 1 second? At the speeds I travel my spins are all over in 1 second and I'm in the dirt. In racing a most important element is to be predicatable. Where you are spinning to with your car out of control is not predicatable and is very unsafe especially in a pack of cars wheel to wheel and I would think unsafe in HPDE with inexperienced drivers. The safest thing you can do for yourself, your car, and the other drivers is to fly off the track in a straight line. That means "if you spin both feet in" to encourage your car to leave the track in a predicatbale manner. Breaking some spoiler fiberglass gardening off track is way cheaper than rear clips.

 

Wow, that's a perfect illustration. The driver caught the slide/spin, but then did not unwind his steering correction, or didn't do it fast enough, to prevent another spin going in the other direction.

Skip Barber teaches it, CPR. Correction, pause, recovery. The driver actually caught the first slide, but then a tricky part is a pause when you need to unwind your hands from the correction.

Just happy he kept it off the tire wall.

 

Hi Troy, I would suggest that you a. look at what tyres you have and perhaps improve on the grip b. if you have not already, look at spacers to widen the track at the rear, depending upon what year your 348 is i understand that the factory actually widened the rear track in the latter 348's to counter what has happened to you. There are some good threads on what to do, follow their advice.
failing this get some more practice by buying a porsche then when you get back in to your 348 it will all be piss easy.

 

I'd even claim that in a 355 if you don't catch the spin in its first millisecond then you can't catch it.

Are your tires old? ... or were they cold ... or the road?

 

Troy, best thing you (and anyone else) can do is go on an airfield training day. Much better and safer than a trackday as you can safely explore the limits of the car.

In the video I just posted above, you can see Andrew driving at one of the Airfield open days.

Before I did a training day, I was always nervous of the handling of my 348. Not because I had experienced something bad, but because I didn't know what the cars limits and most importantly my limits were.

One of the techniques involves driving as fast as you can down a straight and then doing a sharp left turn. The idea is to avoid the gutter (which is the imaginary wall) and avoid spinning. First time I tried it I reached a top speed of 55mph because I crapped myself. At the end of the day I was reaching up to 80mph and spinning. Great experience and totally safe.

One of the things I did find out about my 348 is that it was very hard to lose the back end compared to a Lotus Elise which is very very snappy.

 

No problem.

See you at Shelsey Walsh on Sunday.

 

Great to see you there! You will be in for a treat, seeing the Brit championship cars go up there at nearly twice our speed is something else indeed. It is after all the historic home of motor sport being the oldest track still in use. You just breath in history in every step. Stirling moss and so many others started here...

And we have the Jaguar day (as well as our 17 Ferrari!)

Here is a bit of what they say.

With the help of Shelsley Walsh main sponsors Stratstone, the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, BMIHT Gaydon, the Jaguar Drivers Club, the Jaguar Enthusiasts Club, the 'E' Type and XK 120 Clubs and local Jaguar expert & author Phillip Porter we will celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the 'E' Type, the 60th Anniversary of the 'C' Type, Other Jaguar clubs involved are expected to be XJS Club. and the XK8/XKR Enthusiasts Club. We expect to run competitive classes of the 'E' and 'C' Types, and demonstration runs of historic Jaguars. We hope to have a number of Jaguar racing celebrities at the event.

details here

http://www.shelsley-walsh.co.uk/events/content.asp?ms=21&ei=114

and lets not mention the bump had here last year!

 

Couple things here, (perhaps a pro driver could comment):

1. To begin, he is inside, when he should have been outside;
2. He came in too hot for the corner;
3. If you listen carefully, when he realized he was hot, he lifted which caused the spin.

I've learned this lesson several times first in my 328 and then 355, but thankfully, on the track which really is the best place to learn.

That said,also remember in the real world their are unexpected challenges, like gravel.

 

cool classic case of lifting off in a corner in a rear weight bias car. this is especially troublesome going hot into a down hill off camber turn on this vid.

not much he could have done except keep his foot in it to maxise rear traction and induce massive opposite lock quckly which isnt so easy with the slow steering ratio of and older F-car. that dosent nessearly mean that he will make the corner but at least he can avoid that tank slapper and run wide.

my 2 cents

 

That's not an option

 

A great example of why you do NOT want to lift in a corner, especially with a mid/rear engine car. The spin was initiated by lifting off of the gas resulting in transfer of weight to the front tires. As soon as the back unloads, the spin starts.

I have done a fair amount of tracking with various cars and ran Shifter karts nationally, at one time ranked in the top 10 nationally in my class. I get around the track ok in my 355 and love opening it up on the back roads. A ferrari is tons of fun but not the best car to push 100% to the limit, unless your wallet has gobs of green in it. If you take the the front off of a Ferrari, it will probably cost more to repair than replacing a totaled out spec Miata. I have driven both and the Ferrari is multitudes more fun at 90 to 95% than the miata at 100%. The street is much more unforgiving than the track and thus I think always wise to give a little more margin of saftey on the street.

Simply put you are over driving your car on the street and sounds like some track time on basic skills would go a long way. I agree with the earlier post that Skip Barber or some other racing school is the best way to get the basics down. It is worth the flight to take a several day course. Go Karts are good for speed (125cc shifter karts 0-100-0 in under 6 seconds and 3gs of cornering) but they do not have suspension and nor engine weight out back. They are tons of fun, but may not help a lot with the tendency of your Ferrari to swap ends.

Another point is that almost all street cars have understeer built in. Ferrari's do not, at least my 355 does not. It definately needs to be driven differently than the average street car. The tendency of new drivers is to turn into the corner too early. This results in having to "pinch" the corner, meaning that you have to turn more as you exit the corner to not run off the edge of the road. The natural tendency when you get into this situation is to want to slow down (heading off the edge of the road, turning more to advoid this, etc). Lifting off of the gas as shown in video above pretty much guarantees the back end coming around. The average street car has enough push that the above moves usually do not result in a spin.

It all comes down to physics, weight transfer and adhesion limit. The ferrari (at least pre-traction control cars like the 348 and 355) needs to be driven smoothly and applying the gas smoothly to avoid the rear coming around. With the Ferrari (espeically when first learning), initially brake before turning in, pick your apex, apex a little later in the corner (turn in later, when you have the urge to start turning into the corner - it is too early - wait a little longer) and you want to accelerate from the apex out of the corner and simutaneously straightening our steering wheel out as you exit the corner. Play around with how soon you turn into the corner (not at the limit), you will learn the difference. Finally heat in the tire and tire pressure and relative tire pressure front to rear can make a big difference in how the front or back sticks relative to each other.

Spinning out on the track can be part of exploring the limit. Spinning out on the street is not cool and dangerous for you and the public. Speed is the best, enjoy but be safe my friend.

If it helps here is some tracking video. Watch the turn in points and listen to the motor coming out of the corner. You can see I get loose a couple of times when getting too aggressive with the throttle during the session.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br2vmgBlBOQ[/ame]

 

Great post, thanks!

As coincidences go ... last night someone crashed a Ferrari in Austria.
For those who can read and understand German: http://ooe.orf.at/stories/519036/
The gist:
borrowed Ferrari
started to spin
tail got stuck unter the guardrail
minor injuries
Police says: he didn't speed, he most propably lost traction on wet surface
Firefighter had to cut open the car to get the driver out ... (which basically means that one is totalled)

also:
http://www.oe24.at/oesterreich/chronik/oberoesterreich/Welser-zerstoert-Ferrari-auf-der-A9/30044151
http://www.regionews.at/?set_ActivMenu=65&special=details&News_ID=20617

I guess this driver made all possible mistakes mentioned by SKUSA + terrible road conditions.

 

What a great video ! I drive my 348 pretty slow because .... I just can't drive !