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educate me about under/ oversteer!

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Old Jul 8, 2005 | 04:16 AM
  #1  
seung's Avatar
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From: omotesando
Default educate me about under/ oversteer!

i'm getting very confused with these statement-

i thought he was smoking too much weed.
but the guy swears by them.

Most of front wheel drive have oversteer.. so by putting wider wheels on the rear gives a bit of understeer. It is not a bad set up IMO.
In very tight corners, most cars don't have the power to spin the rear tires under hard-acceleration. This cause the oversteer, and which car will have this issue the most? RWD or FWD...
By giving wider tires on front give less understeer, therfore putting wider tires on rear give more understeer.
wrong? or right?
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Old Jul 8, 2005 | 04:32 AM
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Generally speaking
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Old Jul 8, 2005 | 04:42 AM
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Ha - I thought I knew, but now I'm lost.
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Old Jul 8, 2005 | 04:53 AM
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It's hard to assess driving dynamics in the "canned" manner that those quotes attempt to. An example - I have an E36 M3. The 95 model has 235/45/17s all around and along with a slightly different geometry in the front, has considerably more oversteer than my 97 which has a staggered setup (larger rear tires) intended largely to curb the oversteer issues that were biting American drivers. To get rid of some of the tire induced understeer in the '97 (there are other factors involved as well), I went back to a non staggered setup, though using 245/40 all around.

An example using the S2000 is that the staggered set up does not so much induce understeer as reduce oversteer
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Old Jul 8, 2005 | 05:01 AM
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From: mount airy
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Understeer = you see the object you're about to hit
Oversteer =you hear the object you just hit


I just was reading about some GM fwd V8 car; b/c fwd plus front weight bias usually over-powers the front tires so this car has wider front tires than rear.
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Old Jul 8, 2005 | 05:03 AM
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From: mount airy
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Oh since we're talking about it, can someone explain how if you lift off the gas this can cause oversteer and if you re-apply some gas you can recover? I just don't understand this
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Old Jul 8, 2005 | 05:15 AM
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When you lift off the gas you decelerate which induces a forward weight shift. This increase front tire grip, decreases rear tire grip and can result in oversteer. The S2000 is very throttle sensitive which can make for a lively handling car. However, for the uninitiated it can result in a call to an insurance adjuster.

The next time you
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Old Jul 8, 2005 | 05:23 AM
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From: omotesando
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Originally Posted by Project,Jul 8 2005, 07:42 AM
Ha - I thought I knew, but now I'm lost.
that's EXACTLY how i feel right now.
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Old Jul 8, 2005 | 05:46 AM
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I understand the concept of how a RWD and FWD car will behave at the limit if you stay doing the same thing. I get how you apply power to the rear wheels to add grip in the back tires. What I don't get is how certain tire sizes will add/decrease grip for FWD cars.
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Old Jul 8, 2005 | 05:46 AM
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[QUOTE=ElTianti,Jul 8 2005, 08:15 AM] Conversely if you apply the throttle SLIGHTLY, you
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