You never ever lift in mid corner when cornering at the limit. Why is this not true for FWD?

 

As a general rule of thumb it's always better to judge the corner properly so that you won't have to lift, whether you're talking FWD or RWD. BTW, by lifting I don't mean you won't ever adjust the throttle. You may need to slightly decrease throttle or increase throttle. Lift generally means significant or total throttle decrease. Many people panic when they realize they've taken a corner too fast and let off the gas completely. This is bad. In any case, FWD cars are prone to understeer while RWD cars, especially the S2K, are prone to oversteer. What that means in the real world is if you lift the S2K's rear end is prone to coming around. In a FWD car this isn't nearly as likely due to it's understeering characteristics.

 

Actually, a FWD with a stiffened rear end will come about if you lift during cornering. GTI Cup cars and highly tweaked Integras/Civics are always tweatering on 3 wheels. The same physics apply... lift the throttle, and the weight transfers to the front, reducing the grip in the rear. The difference is the remedy to this situation: re-apply the throttle to the FWD car and it will return to understeer.

 

On average crappy American backwoods roads....

RWD = In slow, out fast.
FWD = In fast, lift (turns the car), out as fast as you can
AWD = In fast, lift, turn, brake (turns the car), full throttle (while you are drifting), hope that the Center Diff works and puts power to the front to yank you out.

On a racetrack....

All: In slow, fast out.

A RWD going in too hot will tend to spin, FWD tends to understeer, and AWD slides sideways...

Happy motoring!

 

Thanks. Makes sense to me.

 

well, if you care for a physics explanation, here it is (in layman's terms):

rwd are more prone to oversteer when you lift throttle while cornering because 1) lifting the throttle (especially when at high rpms) will drastically slow down the car. when this happens, weight gets shifted to the front. and since tire traction depends not only on the frictional property of the the tire material, but also on the amount of force (i.e weight) is pressed down onto the frictional contact patch, the lesser weight on the rear tires due to weight transfering to the front will lessen the force on the frictional contact patch of the rear tires and thus results in less rear tire traction. 2) lifting the throttle results in "engine braking" of the drive wheels. this happens to the rear tires in a rwd vehicle, and since braking uses tire traction, engine braking that affects the rear tires will use up a significant (if not all) the available tire traction which is already reduced due to weight transfering to the front. the end result is the rear tires exhausting all its traction for braking and not have any left for cornering (which also uses tire traction) and thus the sliding of the rear end.

in fwd vehicles lifting the throttle is not as "dangerous" because engine braking affects the front tires, and although the braking will use up a portion of front tire traction, the transferring of weight to the front will in effect INCRREASE the total front tire traction leaving enough in most situations to both brake the front tire and maintain cornering traction. in fact the proper way to correct understeer is to lift the throttle. the whole rationale behind this is that lifting the throttle transfers weight to the front of the vehicle thereby increase front tire traction.


i know these are not the most clear explanations, but it's late so sue me...

 

Drastic changes to any car at the limit is a BAD idea.



FWD may be a little more forgiving, but I did manage to kick out the tail on a FF car when I paniced once (not from the actual speed, but I thought I saw a cop, whoops! Now I know to just complete the turn and take the ticket)

 

Funny, I have a FWD habit that is hard to break. I got used to lifting in my GSR to get the rear to come around mid-turn (at the limit in auto-x). Hard to stop doing it now.

 

Penforhire - in RWD stab the throttle for the same effect

My '88 integra was completely steer-able by the throttle once in a corner. Lift off and the rear would come around, push down and the front would scrub outward.

VTEC_Junkie is correct there are several combined effects

1. Sudden weight transfer off of rear wheels produces less down force.

2. Engine breaking adds resistance to wheel rotation causing the wheel to break loose and slide.

3. When the wheel is sliding, traction is reduced further due to heating effects of the rubber.

When these three combine, traction is much less than just before the rear end broke loose. This requires a large reduction in cornering force and that the tire speed match the road speed to get the tires to stick again.

In a FWD car the rear end is less likely to break loose because there are no engine braking effects. Once the rear starts to skid, the free running wheels more easily match the road speed and any subsequent understeer reduces cornering forces along with scrubbing off some speed.