Fast vs Slow

[mr72]

"drifting" used to describe a condition where the front and rear of the car are operating at the same slip angle, that is zero understeer or oversteer. Since the 90s, the term "drifting" became co-opted to describe an exhibition sport wherein RWD cars are intentionally driven around a track with massive oversteer and driven at opposite-lock nearly the entire time. The classic "drift" was, where controllable, a way to make a car go around a racetrack at a few ticks over its limit of adhesion. Modern "drifting" is a way to induce oversteer for effect.

I think the Ford Granada story likely uses the modern form of the term "drifting", which would be a condition of oversteer and opposite lock through a corner. That's trivially easy to do with any car with leaf springs and a live axle with an open differential. You just over cook the corner enough that it creates huge amounts of body roll to unload both inside tires, the inside rear tire spins so it loses nearly all traction. Then lift the throttle to create snap oversteer when the weight shifts to the front, and mash the pedal once it starts to oversteer to keep the inside tire spinning and as long as you never get any rear grip back, it'll oversteer and you drive opposite lock through the turn. If you're lucky not bumping the guardrail.

This is exactly how you do it in a low powered FWD car with lots of rear roll stiffness, because you lose the inside rear tire because it's in the air. The big difference is a FWD car you can modulate the oversteer with throttle. RWD car with an open diff, once the rear breaks loose, you're pretty much a passenger until you scrub off enough speed to rebalance the rear end.

 

[ntklr650]

5 cylinder v8?

5 functioning cylinders. Haha.
At least she looked good.

 

[Pedro 2.0]

Steering aside - fast bike fast, here ya go...

 

[piglet]

5 cylinder v8?

Yeah bad plugs/wiring or just warn smooth out.

 

[piglet]

With the torsion bar rear suspension, it's routine for those Mk1-Mk2 Golf/Jetta to lift the inside tire on hard turns. If you put a big sway bar on the rear and keep the front soft enough then it'll oversteer like nobody's business. I had an '88 Jetta GL that was a normal suburban small family car and then an '89 GLI 16V with race car type suspension that was an absolute go-cart on the street. Hugely underappreciated cars.

After waiting 9 months for the diesel and the guy destroying it after I finally got it after 3 months, I bought a sirocco. Fun little car.
It would understeer if thrown through a corner to hard but let off the gas and the rear end would swing out. Then when it was heading in the right direction get on the gas again. Shoot I thought I was a race car driver.

 

[Rdslvr04]

Glad this thread popped up again.
Below is a in living colour demonstration of why ridding a fast bike slow is always better.
Itchy Boot also says it that “Dejee is an excellent rider.” Unfortunately his Kawi 250 broke down in a previous episode and was relegated to a slow under powered and under achieving bike. Whereas Itchy was on a much superior/faster and better performing KTM making her say “that yes its (the KTM) better than my Alaska.” All this having the net result of turning the ride bad for Dejay and great for Itchy. Who, dare I say, does not posses as much skill as she might need.

 

[mr72]

After waiting 9 months for the diesel and the guy destroying it after I finally got it after 3 months, I bought a sirocco. Fun little car.
It would understeer if thrown through a corner to hard but let off the gas and the rear end would swing out. Then when it was heading in the right direction get on the gas again. Shoot I thought I was a race car driver.

Scirocco was the same chassis design, A1 & A2 Golf platform was used from the 70s thru mid 90s with very few changes besides cosmetics. I owned several FWD sporty cars of the era, and with the suspension dialed, these things were a treat. If I had a ranchette with a 12-car garage and was retired, I'd probably put an A1 GTI with a 2.0L 16V engine with ITBs and all that in the collection, just as a reminder of what semi-practical compact hot rods were like in the late 80s. Remembering the days when a ~1000kg car was not only desirable, but actually possible to get with a license plate on it from a new car dealer.

Back in the day, the Bondurant Driving School used A2 GTIs to teach on the racetrack. The ability to use the throttle to adjust weight distribution while cornering as you describe was probably a valuable trait when learning to drive fast. It was a very different experience than my RWD lightweight low-powered (by today's standards) cars, 240Z and Miata.

 

[OldTLSDoug]

Relatively slow bikes fast is always fun, but fast-fast is also hard to beat.

 

[Rdslvr04]

Relatively slow bikes fast is always fun, but fast-fast is also hard to beat.

Yeah but, mr. Doug, the bikes you have are the “slow” kind right? Wink wink.

 

[woodsguy]

Relatively slow bikes fast is always fun, but fast-fast is also hard to beat.

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Man built for speed!

 

[MidlifeCrisis]

Scirocco was the same chassis design, A1 & A2 Golf platform was used from the 70s thru mid 90s with very few changes besides cosmetics. I owned several FWD sporty cars of the era, and with the suspension dialed, these things were a treat. If I had a ranchette with a 12-car garage and was retired, I'd probably put an A1 GTI with a 2.0L 16V engine with ITBs and all that in the collection, just as a reminder of what semi-practical compact hot rods were like in the late 80s. Remembering the days when a ~1000kg car was not only desirable, but actually possible to get with a license plate on it from a new car dealer.

Back in the day, the Bondurant Driving School used A2 GTIs to teach on the racetrack. The ability to use the throttle to adjust weight distribution while cornering as you describe was probably a valuable trait when learning to drive fast. It was a very different experience than my RWD lightweight low-powered (by today's standards) cars, 240Z and Miata.

That brings back some fond memories. I drove A2's for the good part of 10yrs. First a 1.8L 8V Golf, then later a 1.8L 16V GTI. Worked on those cars so much they basically taught me 70% of what I know about wrenching on cars and ground vehicle dynamics. A1/A2 were very popular amongst AutoX circles. The way the better drivers can hold that bunny hop a perfect 6 inches in the air all the way around a long sweeper turn is just a thing of beauty. Most of us learned right quick to pump the rear tires up high to correct the understeer. Worked great chasing cones but we had to remember to drop the pressures before heading home, or life could get awfully interesting.

Still though, as fun as those early watercooled VWs were, they weren't without their flaws. What most other folks called unreliability, VW nuts called it "character". I replaced the same clutch cable probably 5-times in 10years. The chassis flexed like overcooked pasta. Jack up a rear corner of a 2-dr Golf, and you'd have trouble opening/closing the door on that side. Best 8V 1.8L barely cracked 100HP; 16V was better at 123HP but prone to overheating. That front strut and rear semi-independent trailing arm were about as crude as FWD suspensions go. But somehow, VW made it all work and darn thing was more entertaining to scoot around in than any econobox had the right to be.

 

[mr72]

Best 8V 1.8L barely cracked 100HP; 16V was better at 123HP but prone to overheating. That front strut and rear semi-independent trailing arm were about as crude as FWD suspensions go. But somehow, VW made it all work and darn thing was more entertaining to scoot around in than any econobox had the right to be.

You got that right, for sure. OMG I had so much problems with the cooling systems on my veedubs. The 8V was pretty OK as long as everything was in perfect condition, but if you ever got any kind of little leak or let the coolant get low then it'd blow all the coolant out and overheat lickety split. I had to run it with about 80% distilled water and the balance Redline Water Wetter and anti-freeze. The 16V GLI was not marginal. It was a hand grenade waiting to go off if you drove in TX summer with the AC on. The problem was some little coolant fitting on the engine block that was made of plastic, when it got hot it expanded more than the block and made an arc between the two mounting studs, so coolant leaked in a mist out of the sides of the part. Then when a tablespoon of coolant finally leaked out, it'd go right into thermal runaway, pop the pressure cap on the reservoir, dump about 50% of the coolant right out onto the street and boil over. This happened to me only about two or three times ... a month.

It was much like the design choices of many cars back then. If everything was working perfectly, they would work. But there was no tolerance for wear or unexpected circumstances. That said, my Miata wasn't a whole lot better. It finally took a 5-core aluminum racing radiator for it to be capable of not overheating on the regular when commuting in TX summers. By that time it had overheated one too many times and managed to stick an oil control ring so it started burning massive quantities of oil.

And FWIW the 103 hp from my 8V jetta was perfectly fine for the era. We bought that car in about '93 and it was perfect for our young family. It got 40+mpg most of the time and was fabulous on the highway and everywhere else. It was quick enough, back then our other car was a '78 280Z followed by my 240Z, 150-160hp from those guys, and the 280Z was quite a bit heavier than the Jetta. The Z cars would do 0-60 in like 7-8 seconds and the Jetta about 9-10. Not bad by those standards. My GLI 16V would do 0-60 in under 8 seconds, which was reasonably quick for the time. I mean, an '82 Ferrari 308 GTS had 0-60 time of 7.2 seconds, about the same as my Jeep, my Miata and my 240Z. Cars weren't quick in the 80s.