Peter on High Performance Driving
Peter on High Performance Driving
Way out in the hills of West Virginia lies a sleepy town, known only to locals, and a few strange visitors from far away places. These visitors arrive at odd hours driving (or pulling) cars that don't quite seem to fit the stereotypes of rural living...
Summit Point, West Virginia, is the home of a road race course much used by car clubs based in the Baltimore-Washington area. The Point is a twisty, up-and-downhill track that rewards smoothness and consistency, while allowing ample runoff space for those who have not yet achieved these qualities. Equipped with basic support facilities, and a great group of instructors managed by ex-Formula Vee champ Bill Scott, the Point is a fine place to make your Alfa motor sing.
Here's a trip around the track using a relatively conservative line. Start with this, and develop your own opinions as to what's fastest.
After emerging from the Pits, keep to the right side of the track, and make sure you aren't in the way of faster traffic coming down the main straight. Then move to the left. Keep a few feet from the edge to avoid a patched section prior to the braking zone of turn one. Turn one is a right hander that makes a full U-turn in a broad sweep. After clearing the patch, move all the way over to the left. Full speed traffic (95-140 mph) will need to use maximum braking effort here. Downshift to second (or even third in higher powered cars) as you brake. You'll want to be in the proper gear by the time you've finished braking, so that you can get back on the gas as soon as you have initiated your turn-in. Turn in at the v-shaped notch formed by the intersection of a service road with the track. The turn-in is sharp, and somewhat slow (40 mph), leading immediately to the apex, after which you should use fully the rest of the sweeper as you increase power and unwind the steering wheel. Turn two should be taken as the natural extension of the exit of turn one. Keys to turn one include threshold braking, smooth downshift, late turn-in to avoid running out of track, immediate throttle application after turn-in, and full use of the width of the track during the exit. Turn one has plenty of run off room in the event that you misjudge your entry speed.
A proper exit from turn one/two will have the car pointed at the braking zone of "Wagon Bend", turn three. Don't follow the far right side of the track, but take a straight path to the turn in point, just before the second access road on the right. The small section of straight between turns 2 and 3 is the last designated passing zone before turn 8, so be considerate, and allow any faster cars to pass. Many drivers will want to upshift here.
A left hand, uphill bend, turn three can be taken much faster than you might think. The uphill portion of the exit will both slow your acceleration, and increase your adhesion, resulting in a fast turn that will be taken in third gear. Keep to the right, downshift and brake lightly, then turn in just before the second access road. The apex is in a bit of rough track, so keep your movements smooth to avoid unsettling the suspension.
After touching the apex on the left side of the track, use all the track during the exit, placing the right side tires outside the white stripe painted on the right side of the track. Keys to turn three include gentle braking, smooth downshift, and full use of the width of the track during your exit.
Aim for the mountains on the horizon as you approach the crest of the hill. Ease towards the left as you upshift and prepare for the most entertaining curve at the Point.
Known as the "Chute", turn four is a downhill right hander, the fastest turn at the track, culminating at the entrance of the slowest turn. Don't brake as you approach this turn: modulate your speed so that you reach the turn in point at a speed you feel comfortable with for the turn itself.
It is imperative that good throttle control be exercised for turn four. There is very little runoff room, and many drivers have here discovered the true meaning of drop throttle oversteer. This is not a forgiving turn. Turn in at the concrete patch on the left side of the track, keep on the throttle, aim for the bottom of the hill, and take care to touch the apex with the right tires on your way down. As soon as the car is straightened out, you will need to apply maximum threshhold braking. Aim for the left side of the track as you brake and downshift to second. Keys to turn four include proper throttle control (DON'T LIFT after turning in), threshold braking, and maximizing speed through the turn at the expense of "proper" entry into five.
There is a small section of straight track after turn five, followed by another slow curve, so exit speed is of little importance here. Many drivers prefer to maximize speed down the Chute, and throw away the "proper" entrance to five. Trail braking is appropriate for five: it keeps your entry speed a little higher, and helps rotate the car in a tight turn. Complete your downshifting as you trailbrake.
The "Carousel", turn six, begins a sequence of turns that, if executed properly, will maximize your speed between turns 8 and 10. Turn six has two apexes, both of which are later than you might think. Taken properly, your car will taken a smooth arc, under constant lateral acceleration, almost as if you're driving half of a skid pad circle. Take the second apex in such a way as to position the car to the right of the center of the track, straighten briefly, and turn in for turn seven. Keep to the left after the apex of seven, and turn in late for turn eight. Key to this sequence is fluidity of motion. Done properly, the exit of six, turn in for seven, and turn in for eight, will feel just like slalom skiing.
As you exit turn eight, aim for the space between the "L" and the "G" on the "Camel GT"-labeled bridge. This is another passing zone. If someone has been on your bumper through the carousel, let them by here!
Turn nine is a slight bend in the track and is of no consequence. When you pass under the bridge you will see turn ten, a right hand turn onto the main straight. You'll probably need to downshift as you brake lightly. After turning in, get on the throttle. This is a fast turn: turn in early and you'll find you've run out of track. Don't worry! There's lots of runoff space. Keys to turn ten are late turn in and good throttle control.The entry road to the pits is near turn ten.
If you're planning to leave the track, take turn eight gently, get over to the right, off the racing line, and prepare to exit carefully.Taking turn ten fast is key to maximizing your speed on the following straight. Keep an eye out for slower or faster cars, as well as for cars entering from the pits.
A stock Alfa, driven smoothly and consistently, will complete a lap in under 1:50 minutes. The same car, driven near its limits, will approach 1:40 laps. A race-prepared Alfa driven with skill will complete a lap in under 1:40. That's it!
Learn to take this course smoothly and consistently, and you'll be fast. It's like a drive in the West Virginia mountains on a road with no oncoming traffic, no slow tractors, no cows....
A major goal in developing skills for fast driving is to make your inputs to the car's controls (wheel, throttle, clutch, and brakes) smooth, without jerky transitions that unsettle the suspension, and decrease your connection to the road. How you hold the steering wheel, and how you turn it, have a tremendous effect on good car control.
First, some basics. How about when the car is going straight ahead? Keep both hands on the wheel, except when shifting. The "10 & 2" position often quoted is usually hard to do in Italian cars. My hands are usually at "9 & 3", and many Spider drivers like "8 & 4". Any of these are fine.
Whatever position you chose, your shoulders should be relaxed, and your arms should be slightly bent at the elbow, for comfort, and for greater mechanical advantage when the time comes to actually turn the wheel.
So here comes a corner. The first thing you do is to turn your palm by 180A1, to grip the wheel on the inside of the rim with the palm facing outwards, right? Wrong! This is a favorite technique among millions of drivers, but it's dangerous. It slows down your response time, and increases the chances that your hands will get in each other's way. If you turn this way now, please try to break this habit!
Here comes the next corner. This time, you turn by keeping your hands in the selected position, and turn in as far as possible. After you've turned the wheel about 90A1, you will find that your arms are wrapped around each other, preventing any further turning. It's apparent that you've got to find some way of moving hands while turning, but without losing track of how far the wheel is turned. Fortunately, there is yet another corner coming up, and you can practice something called "shuffle steering"
When shuffle steering, you keep your hands in the same position relative to your body, and pass the steering wheel from hand to hand. Usually you will be stronger pulling down on the steering wheel, than pushing up. If turning right, move your right hand up on the wheel somewhat, and then pull down, while letting the wheel slip through your left hand. As the right had approaches the left hand at the bottom of the wheel, you should smoothly transition from right-hand-pulling to left-hand-pushing. Try not to make the wheel movements jerky. If you practice this a lot, you can get so that you don't lose track of where the wheels are pointing. You'll be able to return the wheel to straight ahead, passing the wheel from hand to hand, without overcorrecting.
Slight turns may need no shuffling at all. Many intermediate radius turns only require 1 shuffle. For instance in the "Chute" at Summit Point, I preposition my hands just the right amount so I only shuffle once. But the next turn sequence (#5, 6, 7, 8) requires several shuffles. At a track I've driven so often, it's all done with muscle-memory, of course. But this kind of familiarity does transfer to strange curves on new roads: the eyes and the hands learn to work together through the brain stem, without conscious thought.
Remember, shuffle steering is one technique among many, and the way I've described it is a starting point for learning what works best for you and your car. Keep in mind the ultimate goals: firm, smooth control of the car. As for what professional race drivers do: they do whatever it takes in that car, at that moment, and in that attitude. They know all the techniques, and use what's needed right now without regard for theoretical considerations. My piano teacher always told me to keep my wrists level with my knuckles. Now watch a tape of Horowitz: wrists dancing, he does whatever necessary to obtain the highest performance from his machine
I am often asked about tire pressures to run on the street, at autocrosses, and on the track. These are three quite distinct environments, that require three different approaches to tire pressure.
Under normal operation on the street, tire temperatures rise only slightly, so consequently tire pressures rise little above the cold pressure. Greater temperature and pressure changes are found with major changes in ambient temperature than are found with operational increases. The exception would be during extended spirited driving on a mountain road, or at very high speeds, which we seldom enjoy in the United States.
Autocrosses are not much different. The sixty seconds of blistering speed are simply not enought to have much effect on tire temperature and pressure.
The track is something else. Twenty minutes of driving near the limits causes the tires to really heat up. Pressure changes can be substantial.
Most autocrossers put 40-45 psi in their tires, to try to get optimum performance out of cold tires. When people who autocross come to the track, they often use too much air. After a few laps at the track, tire temperatures rise, and suddently they've got 50+ psi. The tires "crown", or bulge slightly in the middle, and it's like driving on marbles. The same thing might happen to someone driving a mountain road on tires that were 36 psi cold. After 15 minutes of fun, the tires will be gripping less effectively than they might.
Everyone's car/tire combination will be somewhat different, but by way of example, for a day at the track I actually lower my street pressures from 35 psi f/r to 33f/28r. This compensates for the expected high operating temperature. But why the higher pressure up front? Because street cars are set up to understeer, and tire pressure changes can make modest adjustments to the under/oversteer balance. Oversteer is when the back tires let go before the front. Understeer is when the front doesn't stick as well as the back (understeer is of course MUCH more benign). Assuming the pressure is within bounds, ie. not too high to cause the tire to crown at the center, or too low to cause a valley at the center, THEN, a slight bias in pressure, with the front 2-8 psi higher than the rear, will cause the front to stick relatively better than the back, which reduces understeer. The car then becomes more controllable using both the steering wheel and the throttle.
As promised, here's the continuation of my discourse on setting tire pressures for high performance driving. I'll cover a few more basics before getting into how to actually determine the best pressure. I will draw from my own experience, from the comments of Frank Kerfoot (Track Chair, Jersey Shore Region, Porsche Club of America), and from an article in the April 1993 "Team T/A News", published by BFGoodrich Tires. Thanks also to Chapter member Raleigh Neville for his concerned comments.
When inflation pressure is increased, you increase the tire's ability to carry a given load, and you increase its spring rate. This means that at a higher inflation pressure, the tire will be stiffer. The sidewall will bend less during cornering, giving the tire crisper "turn in" characteristics.
Because the tire can deform less during cornering, it will also have a smaller "contact patch". This means that at higher inflation pressures, you will have less rubber in contact with the road. Lower inflation pressures will give you a larger contact patch, resulting in greater adhesion, up to a point. This is the point at which either the center of the tire starts to form a valley which reduces the contact patch, or when "roll under" occurs. Roll under is when, during very hard cornering, the inside of the contact patch actually pulls away from the road surface.
Generally speaking, high performance tires (e.g. 50-series Goodrich Comp T/A R1 or Yokohama 008Rs) have stiffer sidewalls and can be run at 5-6 psi less than modern street tires (e.g. 60-series all-season radials). Old-style street tires, such as the original size tires on a 1960's or 70's spider or GTV, should be run at even higher pressures during hard driving.
OK, so what pressure should actually be used? The range is between 25 to 45 psi, but where should you start? How can you tell when to change? And how much should you change?
If your tires are the same size that came with the car, start with the manufacturer's suggested pressure under heavy loads, and add 5 psi. With many cars, this means about 40 psi up front.
If you have changed to lower, wider tires on the car (55 series or lower), try starting at about 35 psi in front.
And if you are running older-style tires, which tend to be skinny and tall relative to newer tires, start out with 45 psi in front.
In all cases, start out with the manufacturer's recommended differential pressure in the rear tires as compared to the front, and worry about finding any further differential later. The exact pressure you end up with will depend on your style of driving, the type of car you have, and the conditions you encounter.
In the beginning, the wisest approach is to emphasize predictability and stability in handling over finding the ultimate grip that the tires can generate. Starting at these relatively high pressures, and small pressure differential front to rear, learn "the line" and to "manage slip angle" This is track instructor jargon for learn where on the track you should put the car at any given moment ("the line") and learn how to control the oversteer/understeer balance ("slip angle") of the car using both the throttle and the steering wheel. This will probably take you at least half a dozen events! Concentrate on developing sound basic driving techniques that will ultimately help you go faster.
Next month I will cover how to find the ultimate grip that your tires can develop, by optimizing the tire pressures. I'll also discuss changing the oversteer/understeer balance of the car by adjusting the difference in pressure between the front and the rear tires.
During the previous two months I've been developing the theme of using tire pressures to your best advantage for track events. The third and final installment in the continuing saga will deal with changing the oversteer/understeer balance of the car by adjusting the difference in pressure between the front and the rear tires.
Let's assume that you've been to a number of track events, and have developed a good knowledge of "the line" (the best path around the track) and can safely control the car as it balances on the edge of losing adhesion and spinning. Yes, this is fun, but don't tell your insurance agent. She won't understand that you are becoming a safer driver.
Now is the time to set your tires up to get the ultimate grip, and to produce the amount of understeer that you feel comfortable in controlling. This is done by finding the optimal inflation pressure for the tires, and by adjusting the pressure differential between front and rear tires.
Without question, the best way to determine optimal tire pressures is with a pyrometer. A second choice is to use chalk on the treads to detect wear patterns.
Pyrometer is a fancy name for a hand-held, digital thermometer, with a sharp probe for measuring the actual surface temperature of a tire. They cost about $100, but can often be borrowed at track or autocross events.
Right after coming in from the track, or finishing an autocross run, immediately measure the temprature of each tire on the inside, center and outside of the tread. The temperatures will be 100-220A1F after track driving. Autocrossing raises the temperatures less, generally producing 90-150 A1F. If the center is much hotter than the outside, then the tire is "crowning", or bulging in the center. You should consider reducing the pressure. If the center is very much lower than the outside, then there is a slight valley in the tire. You should consider raising the tire pressure. Change the pressure by no more than 2-3 psi at a time, and get the fronts set first. Remember to change the rears too, to keep the pressure differential constant.
You can also get a rough estimate of proper inflation by marking the tread of the tire with chalk or white shoe polish prior to each run. Mark the curved portion of the tread, which is not in contact with the road when going straight ahead. Extend the mark onto the smooth sidewall. Note the edge indicators molded into the rubber: they point to the edge of the usable tread. If the tire is grossly underinflated, the mark will wear off past the edge indicators and onto the sidewall. Add 2-3 psi and try again. If the chalk mark doesn't wear to the edge of the tread, it may mean that the tire could tolerate reducing pressure. But it could mean that you're just not cornering very hard. Or it could also mean that your car is simply not heavy enough to deform the tire that far. Marking the tire is an inexact business and is best used as a supplement to a pyrometer.
Once the fronts are good, you can set the rears to get the kind of oversteer/understeer balance that you like. All mass-market cars (and even micro-market cars like Alfas) are built to understeer for safety reasons. At the track, excessive understeer can be undesirable to the more advanced driver, because it makes the car less responsive to fine adjustments in slip angle using both steering wheel and throttle. Some of this tendency to understeer can be removed by lowering the rear tire pressures, 2-3 psi at a time. Be cautious with any car that has a tendency to oversteer abruptly when the throttle is lifted, a trait known as "drop throttle oversteer". Such cars include the P**sche 911, older B*W 3 series, and even my beloved GTV6. The important thing is to come up with a setup that not only feels good to you but is also controllable. Keep checking the temperature of the rear tires with a pyrometer to insure that you are not causing the center of the tread to lift away from the pavement. And make sure that you are not causing excessive roll-over of the tire, as evidenced by rubber wearing past the tread and onto the sidewall.
A 21" wiper on the driver's side and a 19" on the passenger's side works well to cover the most swept area on the windshield of the Alfetta-GTV series cars.
After the long Thanksgiving holiday, with several days of cool weather, we had a persistant, warm, drizzling rain for over 12 hours. When I tried to start the car to go to work , I was dismayed to find it cranking but not firing. Typical of the V6 fuel injection system, the cylinders were quickly drenched in gas, fouling the plugs, and leaving the strong smell of gas in the air. This engine never starts on its own once the plugs are drenched, so I put in a fresh set (you could also clean the plugs and dry them in the oven before putting them back in). But this didn't cure the source of the problem: the cool weather, followed by warm, high humidity, had caused heavy condensation in the distributor cap (special thanks to Paul at DiFatta Brothers, who talked me through this step).
When I pulled it, water was literally dripping out of the cap. Wiping with a clean, dry cloth was sufficient to cure the problem. The engine fired right up and away I went.
The moral of the story: drive your Alfa every day for greatest reliability!
Spring is also a good time of year to think about one of my favorite topics: braking effectively. Now I know that Ettorre Bugatti is rumored to have excused bad brakes by saying he built his cars to run, not to stop, but Alfas have been using advanced braking systems for decades. Let's consider how to get the quickest stops from your high performance machine.
Long ago you may have been told to pump your brakes when making a "panic" stop, especially in the wet. Pumping brakes is incompatible with both high performance and street safety. This applies to all Alfa braking systems, conventional and ABS.
First, the scenario. Let's say that you find yourself in the unpleasant position of discovering a large, immovable object (like a truck) or a small, delicate object (like a kid on a bike) stopped approximately 200 feet in front of you. Let's furthermore suppose you are driving a sedate 60 mph at the time, and that you can't avoid the object by deft use of rack and pinion steering. The goal is to stop in a straight line before you rearrange sheet metal, flesh, or some combination of the two.
Those of you with late model Milanos and 164's equipped with ABS can follow some simple instructions to achieve the fastest stops: mash down that sucker with your right foot as hard as you can, and don't let up until the car has stopped. If the car has a clutch, put it in, too. Don't be alarmed at any pulsing feeling or thumping sound from the brakes. This is evidence that the ABS computer is modulating the calipers to achieve maximal braking force. The tires will be at the verge of "locking up", on the threshold before they stop rolling and skid. At lockup, you'll lose about 80% of braking effectiveness. ABS is a system that allows any driver to "threshold brake" and stop in the shortest distance. If you have ABS, find a secluded country road and try this several times so that you're familiar with what happens.
Most Alfas don't have ABS, however. With a little practice you can learn how to threshold brake using your own muscles and brain. Bioneural control works just as well as electromechanical ABS, and has the advantage of being effective in any car you might drive. Brake with your heel on the floor and your toes or ball of foot on the pedal. Squeeze on the brakes, approaching lockup. Use the smaller muscles of the calf and foot to modulate braking pressure at the threshold of lockup (these smaller muscles give you more fine control than the large muscles of the thigh). When you're doing this right, the tires will whimper and smoke, but not stop turning and skid. Don't forget to put in the clutch. A skilled driver can actually outbrake most ABS systems. Be careful where you practice this skill: other drivers will not appreciate your quick stops, so you need an isolated area, or better yet, instruction at Friday at the Track at Summit Point.
Say what? You thought you were just supposed to steer with that round thing in your hands? Sure, turning the front wheels is the main way you steer the car, but using the throttle to transfer the car's weight from one end of the car to the other also has a big effect on how the car goes around a corner.
First, think about what happens when you're driving in a straight line. Accellerate, and you can feel the car's weight shift onto the rear wheels. The rear of the car squats, and the front lifts slightly. This is to the advantage of the rear-wheel-drive setup, because the extra weight on the rear tires helps give them more traction, that can be used to put more power to the pavement.
Now let's move to a skidpad. Turning in a constant radius circle, gently add some throttle. The rear of the car squats, the front gets a little lighter, and now you find the car is "plowing", or understeering more than it was. If you keep the same front wheel angle, the radius of the circle you make will increase. To stay within the same radius as before, you'll have to turn the wheel in a bit more.
Once you're comfortably set up at this higher speed, lift the throttle suddenly. You'll have the sometimes pleasant experience of "drop-throttle oversteer". In an instant, weight shifts from the rear tires to the front tires. The fronts now have more grip, and the rears have less. More grip up front means the car will turn more given the same front wheel angle. Less grip in the rear means that end will have more of a tendency to come around. You can work this to your advantage, turning the car more quickly in a tight bend in the road with deft lift of the throttle. Careful use of drop-throttle oversteer is an extremely useful high-performance driving technique in all Alfas, including the front-drive 164 (there is another technique called "power-on oversteer" that I'll cover sometime in the future).
But drop-throttle oversteer also contributes to one of the classic accident scenarios. Let's move to your favorite freeway ramp or sweeping corner, turning on the rain machine to make it a little wet. Enter the turn at the speed you use every day when it's dry, which is a little faster than your comfort level allows in the wet. A most common reaction is to abruptly lift your foot off the gas in an attempt to slow down. What happens then is played out every time it rains on our fair region: driver lifts the foot, car's weight shifts, front has more grip, rear has less. Without corrective action by the driver, the car snaps into a spin, leaving the road rear first.
What corrective action could you take in this situation? First, don't come off the throttle abruptly. Ease off gently, so that the weight transfer occurs more slowly. As you ease off the throttle, reduce the front wheel angle as well, so that you keep the car in the road. In a very real sense, you will be "turning in the direction of the spin" to prevent the spin's occurance.
If, despite your best efforts to anticipate the spin and prevent it with careful throttle and steering control, you find yourself with your knickers down, you're out of luck. No, just kidding! Next time: spin recovery techniques.Spin recovery techniques
A couple of months back we were in a nasty spot, on the verge of a spin. Let's recall how we got there: too fast in a turn, we lifted off the throttle too fast. The car's weight shifted more to the front tires. With less weight on the rear, the tires had less grip. The rear of the car started turning faster than the front was turning, a situation also known as oversteer. What do you do now? The following steps are executed quickly, smoothly, and with minimal steering wheel movements.
Last Friday at Summit Point dawned cold and overcast, but dry. Not bad for mid November. Bruce Giller (spider), David Tallerico (GTV6) and I (164LS) bravely faced the high-powered hotshoes out for a last fling at speed for 1995. We all had the pleasure of passing a Lamborghini Countach that was driven leisurely by its mechanic, under orders from the owner to take it out for a little exercise.
The 164LS makes an interesting comparison to the GTV6. The GTV6 chassis design dates to the early 1970's, when Alfa was Alfa and Fiat was, well, you know. The 164 chassis is a decade newer, with design influenced by pre-Fiat Alfa, Saab, and Lancia, but produced under the eye of the revitalized Fiat empire, which by the time the 164 came out, dominated automobile sales throughout Europe. Both share the sweet all-aluminum V6, producing 156 hp in the two-valve, 2.5 liter berlinetta, and 210 hp in the four-valve, 3.0 liter berlina.
In the particular case of my cars, both are stock, with the exception of upgraded tires on the GTV6 (Yoko A509 205/60/15) which are substantially better than the Goodyear all-season radials (195/65/15) on the 164. My lap times in the 164 were comparable to my times in the GTV6, but the experience was different. The 164 was faster in a straight line and the brakes work better, but the GTV6 was faster in some, but not all, of the corners. Straight line accelleration is no contest. Not only does the 164 have substantially more horsepower, it also has much better aerodynamics. Exiting turn 10 onto the main straight at about 80 mph produced a top speed prior to braking for turn 1 of 120 mph in the 164. In the GTV6, I did well to reach 100 before having to slow down.
The 164 also seems to have superior brakes. I made full use of the ABS braking for turns 1 (end of main straight) and 5 (very fast downhill turn followed by a hairpin turn) and found no degradation of braking during the day, and relatively little pad wear. You generally need to ration the use of brakes on the GTV6 if you don't want them to fade away, trashing the pads and rotors in the process. And never locking the tires (courtesy of ABS) means no flat spots producing excessive wheel vibrations. Generally, I liked ABS brakes much better than I had expected to, but I am uncertain of how they change emergency handling. The old advice "in a spin, both feet in", which produces locked up wheels and a predictable trajectory off the road with conventional brakes, may cause a car with ABS to move unpredictably during a spin.
The 164 has no clear advantage over the GTV6 when it comes to cornering. Both cars have a controllable amount of drop-throttle oversteer that is useful for adjusting the attitude of the car in high speed turns. The 164 has less body roll and less initial understeer, but exhibits considerable power-on understeer in sweeping turns. In fact, I was hard pressed to keep up with Bruce Giller's well-driven spider through the carousel and esses. Better tires would help. I know from driving Johnny DiFatta's 164S that proper performance tires virtually eliminate power-on understeer.
The day at the track proves the metal (pun intended) of the 164. It can honestly wear the title of luxury performance sedan. Two unanswered questions: how well will it handle with performance tires? and what do ABS brakes do to the car's handling in a spin? I'll get good tires before long, and plan to practice spins during the first big snow.-------------
Standard Disclaimer applies here! Neither the capital chapter nor the web provider nor the webmaster can take responsibility for the information presented in these pages. Use common sense in any business dealings and mechanical work.
Talk to jack if you have comments
last modified 10 Sept, 1997