Handling vs grip

[totta Crolla]

I'm after some advice from people who may have tried some different setting.
After a considerable time and a lot of experimentation I have got my car handling really nicely, well balanced and extremely 'chuckable'
That feeling of pushing really hard into any corner confidently knowing you can adjust either by throttle or steering to suit.

BUT it is only like this on tyres with reduced grip, i.e old hard worn gravel tyres used on tarmac.

Do I need more of a drift setup on my rallycar to reduce the grip maybe to gain handling and speed ?
Perhaps I just need more power....
Any thoughts please

[drako323]

I'm quite sure nothing you do will let you maintain the exact same level of handling you have now at higher grip levels...

The most apparent effect more grip has is the bigger changes in suspension (dynamic) characteristics, due to larger forces exerted from the contact patch through the suspension components to the chassis. A simplified approach would be to increase stiffness as grip increases, so as to keep movement similar. But you still have the steering feel that will definately change and also the behaviour of the car on road bumps etc. which also is a significant part of handling.

Don't forget that handling is a very personal thing. It's as subjective as anything can get when it comes to car-driver qualities. It could be that someone considers a grippy setup to provide also good handling and noone would argue... I think though that most would agree that grip and handling are difficult to get along.

And yes it is acceptable for any single (non professional perhaps...) driver to reduce grip, so as to have better handling and therefore do better times!

[Bean]

When you increase the grip, what is it exactly that is disturbing your handling? As mentioned this is a very subjective topic so the more info the better.

[jondee86]

totta Crolla Wrote:Do I need more of a drift setup on my rallycar to reduce the grip maybe
to gain handling and speed ?

"Drift" suspension is set up to reduce grip. The characteristics are stiff
springs, heavy roll bars, and firmly valved shocks with a lot of rebound
damping. The car sits low and flat, with minimal suspension movement.
Learners with low powered cars use high tire pressures to reduce the
size of the contact patch. A smooth road surface is preferred.

"Grip" suspension is set up to (obviously) increase grip. Softer springs,
smaller diameter roll bars, less rebound damping and more suspension
travel. The car will have a higher ride height and exhibit more body roll.
The tires will spend more time in contact with the road surface, and as
a result, the car will have good adhesion over rough surfaces.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to have your cake and eat it too

Cheers... jondee86

[NoHachi]

It's not totally clear what wrong things happen when you throw grippier tires onto the car.

More grip =
more bushing deflection
more chassis deflection
more spring deflection

You can get some interesting things when these begin to interact. Like 'crabbing' at corner apexes (cycling between under and over steer with little to no neutral 4 wheel sliding). But that might not be the case with your car.

[totta Crolla]

If I were to try to describe the difference in feeling between the grip levels it would be with less grip the car feels light and needs less steering input especially when oversteering.
Conversely with more grip it feels heavy and sliding is much more sudden and difficult to predict.
I think with less grip the car is beautifully balanced and I would be prepared to leave it like this if I could arrange the same with tarmac tyres.
What is happening here is slight understeer that can be balanced out on the throttle, grippier tyres seem kill the understeer and give sudden oversteer. Does that make any sense ?

[Bean]

If I try to interpret your description it seems that with a change in tires the front gains more grip than the rear... with slicks the edge of loosing the grip is very narrow, regualr street tires would have a wide edge. Anyway what you can try is to stiffen upvthe backend a bit to make it more predictable and giving you a better response. If you want more grip in the back do some testing without the rollbar at the rear as this will work against oversteer. I assume you have replaced any worn bushings already. Also your car has probably a striped out rear and no wing, the resulting loss of downforce and thus grip won't help either. Have you had the car on cornerscales once? To test if this is an issue you could chuck some sandbags or other heavy weights in the boot for a run - obviously this is just a test solutiin as you don't want to increase the weight of the car.
Looking at the front less caster and more camber could help towards a lighter steering feel, while drifting.
A difficult question but on a scale of 1-10 how much does you chassis roll while cornering and drifting (10 being completly flat and 1 almost flipping over) - video or pics of the car (taken face on throu a corner) on tarmac would do too.

[totta Crolla]

There is not too much body roll, maybe 6 on your scale but there is a fair bit of rear to front weight transfer when lifting off, I find this really helps to balance the car.
I did try to stiffen the back end by adjusting the dampers to a stiffer setting and whilst it helped to promote oversteer the weight transfer was less and there were issues with lifting the inside rear wheel on tight corners.
I wonder if stiffer rear springs would be a benefit ?
Currently using 190lb fronts and 160lb rears.

[Uzelac]

This looks so grippy, easy and fast.
Even though car drifts, looks like KT makes it drift.
To me it looks the AE86 would easily pass corners with minimum oversteer if the driver would drive that way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot2SJquKar0

With this car KT often "harasses" various FWD cars, like Honda Type R.
I presume cars like that Civic are main totta's competitors.

[totta Crolla]

That video is spot on and the car looks to be set up nicely.
Anyone know the specs ?
My car runs in an engine size class and modifications are limted only by budget !
I struggle for outright power of course but the car has so much to offer in the handling department it can still be competitive.
It's so tantalisingly close to being just right (for me)