Other than driving technique, is there a way to help with lift off oversteer (snap oversteer)? In a fast decreasing radius turn I want to be able to come off the throtle slowly so i can get more bite in the front and be able to hit my apex. At my last autocross the back felt super unstable no mater how slow i came off the throtle. advice?
That's a tough one... Decreasing-radius corners are a bitch, any way you look a them. The "snap oversteer" is actually called "trailing throttle oversteer," (TTO) and is primarily caused by weight transfer. As you go into the corner balls-deep in the throttle, and start to lift, the weight loading of the tires shifts forward, accentuating the front grip, and diminishing the rear grip. You are further complicating this by having the car in a roll condition as well, where the weight is already transfered to the outside pair of tires to begin with. In a consant-radius corner, you can easily find a speed where the car "takes a set" on entry, rolled over on the outside, and then balance the car with the throttle, breathing in and out slightly on the throttle. What is actually happening there is that you are transferring weight back and forth between the front and rear, biasing the car towards understeer (more gas, the car pushes towards the outside of the corner: more rear grip than front grip) or understeer (less gas, the car drifts towards the inside of the corner: more front grip than rear grip). With a decreasing radius corner, the speed at which the car finds neutrality will be changing, to lower and lower speeds. This will force you to constantly be reducing throttle pressure, which will bias the car towards oversteer to begin with. You either have to be an "alien," like Sam, and be able to find the right rate of deceleration that still keeps the car neutral all the way through, or do like the rest of us, and just focus on corner-exit, giving up a tenth or so
through the corner, in exchange for the maximum possible exit speed... Be patient going in, and focus on getting on the gas at exit as soon as possible.
You COULD tune the car to be tight, tight, tight, to fight the TTO, but then you would give up a lot on the rest of the course. On any sort of handling track, be it oval, road, rally, or autoX, dialing in the suspension is a game of compromise. IMO, if you focus on tuning to the fastest corner type on the track, you will probably be moving in the right direction. I would rather sacrifice on a 25mph corner than sacrifice on a 100mph corner. If you lose a tenth of a second at 25mph, you will give up 4' of distance in that period of time, and drop maybe 1.25mph on exit speed. If you lose a tenth of a second at 100mph, you'll give up 15' of distance and drop maybe 5mph on exit speed. If all other things are equal, you can guess who will hit the finish line first... For every corner, exit speed is the key to fast times. Maximizing the speed you carry into the following straight will result in a longer distance traveled for a given time period. This is the heart of the "in slow, out fast" concept. When you have multiple corners, like a chicane, you may actually be FASTER through the whole section if you "throw away" the first half, compromising the initial cornerto put yourself perfectly on-line for the part leading to the straight. If you focus on the first half, and find yourself at mid-track for entry into the back half, that means a tighter radius than necessary, which means either a lower speed through, or having to wait longer to get back on the gas. Either way, you've lost a bunch of momentum and time, and that's leading onto a straight. Imagine going through a chicane nose-to-tail with two identical cars. The first car through will execute the first corner perfectly, and compromise the second, the other car will "throw away" the first corner, but execute the second perfectly. What you will see is the two cars accordian as they transition through. At the braking zone for the first corner, the lead car will pull away slightly from the trailing car, which will not carry as much speed through the first corner. At entry to the second corner, though, the first car will turn in from mid-track, and the second, now a short distance behind, will turn in from the outside of the track. The first car has a smaller-radius corner, and will go more slowly at exit. The second car, with a wider-radius corner, will be able to carry more speed in, AND will be able to get on the gas sooner, and as a result, will get through the second half faster. If you take split times on both cars, starting at turn-in on the first corner, and track out on the second, they will be essentially identical, since each has "given up" one of the corners. The telling datum, however, is the exit speed from the second corner. If the second car exits the chicane 2mph faster, on the straight following the chicane, in only five seconds, the second car will travel 15' further than the first car.