I thinks there are certain time that I would want to switch off some or all traction and dynamic handling control. It all depends on the vehicle and the capability of the driver. The ones in Gen 1 Mini's except ABS are worst than useless. The one in much newer vehicles typically are much better. I have heard from multiple experienced Porsche drivers that when you skills and experiences get to certain level the nanny would get in your way and often you can unconsciously grow to dependent on them and they will adversely affect your driving. They can also cause significant brake wear. Right now I am driving my GT4 with them all on. Some point I would gradually dial them back. I suspect on some very high power cars it may be very difficult to switch them all off.

 

I am surprised that Porsche doesn’t have a setting that is appropriate for the track. However, they may, but it is the driver who is triggering them to kick in which would mean that they could be driving better... The only car I am aware of is VW that has traction control that can not be switched off, hence they don’t get used in autocross. Not sure about any other cars, but I would think that most cars the traction control can be turned off. Might be interesting to find out... Hmmm.. I have read that Corvette has a race setting (maybe not in all versions?) that is better than any (most?) driver. Why would you want to switch that off? On my MINI, I look at any intervention as a need to do a self evaluation - Did I do something wrong or did I exceed a “limit”. On the 2nd setting that I have, usually an intervention is because I did something wrong and I need to make a correction. I can see, though, that some people could become reliant upon it to correct mistakes and not learn anything new. In my book, that is not the right way to use it. But, around here the other option is to stuff one’s car into a guardrail...

If I see the Porsche GT3 RSR driver this week, I’ll ask him how he runs his car. I would be interested to know

 

our brz has a track mode, it does not disable everything, to do that you have to do a nitendo pedal dance. I prefer to turn everything off on the track in all my cars, it's hard to really get rotation with anything enabled, it'll think you are spinning and intervene

 

I talked to many track friends about their nannies. There is a big spectrum of personalities (the nannies' ). Some can be told the child can be left all alone and she would takes a hand off approach. Some are very protective and will intervene if Jony slightly steps out of line, like tries to get a little bit of freedom such as trying to get a bit of rotation especially RWD. Some just will never shut up, which tends to be the case with tough big and burly boys that are very muscular.

My Porsche has two levels of nanny. you can turn both off and they are off completely. One AWD Audi TT owner I talked to, he cannot completely turn off the nanny, which should not be too much of a surprise. A lot of these AWDs have computer that controls the front rear power bias. I will never want a car with eLSD BS.

As to my GT4, I infer it tends to intervene whenever you want to get too much rotation with throttle oversteer. There is also something called Porsche's Torque Vectoring.

I am with Mr. Blah that I prefer no nanny with most cars, at least when the time is ripe.

 

Interesting mix of nanny personalities, for sure.

With the big sway bars front and rear, and the rear set on soft, I don’t get much rotation. The car does a flat turn-in and just goes. Heavy trail braking helps a lot. With this, I get no intervention, even with everything on street mode. Where I do get intervention is when I start to do a 4 wheel slide or drift. The eDLC (eLSD) is on all of the time and, until I got the Quaife, I had big problems with accelerated brake wear. I suppose that could be turned off by pulling the ABS fuse. Then you would have a real ‘60s - ‘70s race car...

I’m not ready to turn mine all the way off. I want to drive the car home and I have been in situations, not of my own making, where I was glad I had them on. I suppose if I was in a Gen I MINI, I would think differently as I get the feeling the nannies in those are not as sophisticated as what I have now.

 

r53 and r56 nannies feel the same to me, owned a few of both. the r56 torque steers a lot more though all of mine tramlined bad I think it was the elsd making it worse when it was spinning

 

Evidently R56 nanny thinks she can do left foot braking much better so she won't let you. She even goes out of her way to sabotage your every attempt.

 

 

I didn't think much of why R56 nanny is so possessive of the brakes when throttle is applied, but these exchanges clued me in why. When you have eLSD (in their internal memo, e as eliminates via SW magic ) which is basically an open diff with the SW engineers taking charge, it is apparent why your quest for higher level of advanced track driving of yesteryear cars should be nipped at the bud. When you left foot brake with concurrent throttle, you are interfering with SW engineers doing their magic of eLSD that is just a fancy word for eliminated LSD by means of selective wheel braking.

Let me tell you, with decades of working with SW engineers I cannot begin to tell you how often some has next to no clue of real world physics, let alone the characteristics of the H/W they are tasked to code.

 

My experience says that the SW is design for the road, for “normal” driving, and it works pretty well at it. At least that is what my experience in the snow showed me. Also, it is designed for the MINI brakes and brake pads. There is an ABS SW change that they do when you move from the base Cooper or the Cooper S brakes to the JCW sports brakes on the R56 (not to be confused with the aftermarket Brembo BBK) It is not design for aftermarket stuff they don’t want you putting on your car in the first place. This would include aftermarket brake pads. My assessment from the failures that I have had is that the eLSD system (maybe the whole ABS) does not work on brake system pressure; it works on a positive displacement pump’s movement of “x” amount of fluid with a specific caliper piston area programmed into the SW to get “z” amount of brake pad force. By doing it this way, if the aftermarket BBK has a smaller piston area than the MINI caliper, it is going to over pressurize the system and cause over braking. This is what happened to me and it is the only explanation as to some of the problems I had. It would be a much better system if it worked off of pressure, but for some reason it works off of fluid displacement. All in all, I probably would have been better off going to the JCW sports brakes instead of the Wilwood, if I knew back then the problems I would be getting into.

 

I may sound a bit harsh with the eLSD. I agree wholeheartedly that it must function very well for normal road driving, especially in low traction situation like snow and ice. I infer it works better than mechanical LSD for the obvious reason that the bias control is based on the wheel speed sensors rather than mindless mechanical bias. However track driving is totally different animal, and would require a beast that can withstand the rigor of abuse.

I have not give much thoughts to the front rear brake bias in our Mini's until now. I think there is no real proportion valves like when you build a all out track car using the master cylinder kits from the like of Wilwood or Stoptech, in which there are real proportional valves. In our Mini's I suspect the bias is fixed by means of the relative piston areas of the front and rear. It this is true, by pulling the ABS fuse you don't result in an old school non-ABS brake system. Even if it is the bias is fixed so you have to choose your aftermarket brake components very carefully. With the ABS not defeated, you can afford to be more careless.

I have no knowledge of how the ABS and eLSD work except on the very fundamental level, such as there is a dedicated pump in the ABS module and the control is more the less pulse by pulse control system. Still I suspect the modulation does not simply work on a x amount with fixed pressured. It is possible when you change the caliper piston area too much that it runs out of dynamic range. Sorry for all these hand waving.

 

cant you just code out the elsd with ncsexpert? I Know you can on the 135i/335i it's in the dsc module configuration

 

I should have added that the “x” is a likely a function of wheel slip and steering angle. Sorry, didn’t mean to imply it might just be a “fixed” pressure. Also, I am guessing a lot here, I don’t really know for sure. But we can all agree that on the track, it doesn’t work well, to say it nicely.

I have read that about the BMWs but have not seen anything about it for MINI. It will be interesting if someone does know.

 

Hey S-Driver - I met a guy the other day while at WGI who says he knows you. What was his name??? Clay? Or was it James? Just kidding. I know the name. At any rate he says hi and that you need to improve your card game. Seems like a great guy.

WGI was great (except for the afternoon thunder storms) for 2 days of open track driving and I must say that GVC puts on a great event. I posted a few pictures here of some of the cars that were there. BimmerWorld was there with 2 of their Blancpain series race cars. Those are some amazing machines.

Smokey did well at representing the MINI brand and garnered a few complements for “booking it” around the track. Brakes - I finally have a set of brakes that can handle that track, lap after lap. These are the custom Wilwoods I had TCE build for me with the 12.2” dia, 1” thick rotors. I had these paired with Hawk DTC60 brake pads, which worked well together. However, the Hawk pads are hard on the rotors and I saw quite a bit of rotor wear. My first set of pads had a few track days on them and were about 2/3rds gone when I replaced them. Wear was about the same inside to outside and between the 2 sides of the car. And there was no wedging. Now that brakes seem to be sorted out, It may be time to try a set of GLoc pads. These are supposed to be easier on the rotors and I like how easy they are to modulate.

Tires are a funny thing. I tried my best to wear out the R888s I have. These have not been one of my favorites, I think because they need to be on a slightly wider wheel. I run them at 38 psi hot and they are wearing in the center. But if I run them lower, they don’t feel as good. I was also as quick on the track with my old Dunlop ZIIs as I was with them. So it it time for R888s to go. Now, the question is, what do I get to replace them? Do I go with the R888Rs, in one size smaller, and have a more dedicated set of rain tires with me, or do I get something like the RE71Rs and just run with one set of tires? Or the Dunlop ZIIIs or the Hankook RS-4? Ugh - too many really good choices... So much fun, so little time.

We have had a long discussion about traction controls. I ran both days with mine fully on and had no interference, except when I messed up in the wet. I wasn’t taking it easy, but I also try to to be smooth. Maybe, that helps? BRZs and its clone don’t seem to fare well out on the track. I now have a running count of 3 that have been totaled out on the track. I don’t know the details of this latest one, but I heard that it might have spun in the uphill turn and put its back end hard into the tire barrier and then came back across the track into the guard rail on the other side. A real train wreck. Don’t know if the driver had the traction control on or not. I also had discussions with an M2 driver as to whether he thought the traction control would have helped with this one. He was not sure and in his experience with the M2 he thought it was possible that the traction control might not have been able to help. I know the one in the MINI can help a lot. Maybe there is a difference in how affective it is for a FWD versus a RWD? Or maybe it is a difference in how a FWD “looses it” vs how a RWD “looses it”? Don’t know...

Enjoy and motor on...

 

One thing that I have noticed is that attendance at track events is way down as compared to when I started. Many clubs are joining together to do joint events and the commercial event organizers are offering discounts or have disappeared all together. The BMW people are also remarking that people are not heading out to do racing as much as they once did. My observation is relative to just a couple of years ago. I have also notice that what might think of as track-worthy cars (Honda Type Rs and whatnot)are not showing up, either Not sure what has change somewhat abruptly.

 

it's not a cheap hobby, one of the clubs I run with just canceled a September event, they could not get 30 sign ups That said some clubs are hard to get started with, extra inspections, only approved shops and crap like that.

dont get me started on scca, i have no idea what they even do there are so many acronyms I've never heard of and they dont spell out anywhere on the signup page. I dont even bother looking at them anymore unless it's TNA and those are sketchy here the advanced group has people that should be in much lower groups

I went to WGI today to check it out, they would not let me in the gate, but I did watch the porsche club from the grandstands

 

Glad you got there. Ya, they are pretty strict about people entering, but still getting to the grandstand gives a pretty good view. I do know (pretty sure at least) of a way to have gotten in, but it would have taken some pre-planning.

I am sure there has to be a happy medium for clubs to make sure people are safe but without being too annal. But like you say, they load on the restrictions and I don’t do some clubs around here because of those PIA things. However, if you are known to clubs around here, then they are less restrictive. I think they do it to frighten away the riff raff, but they have lost me too. And probably others. Not sure what they can do. Unfortunately, clubs are run by volunteers and those are tough to get. So, you have the same people doing everything over and over again, and doing it the same as it has always been done. Nothing will change unless new people volunteer to do the job. Without new blood in there, I think we will see a slow “death” of this sport.

 

it was kind of weird, VIR has a pro shop and they want you to come spectate and spend money

 

There is none of that at WGI... It is only the participants, the corner workers and WGI staff. There are provisions for visitors to come into the garage area with the other participants, but it takes pre-planning.

 

Hah! Yes, I’ve made some strategical errors in our card games, costing us wins. My card partner and I are currently down 3 games to 2.

He’s a good dude......except for the fact that he thinks cheddar cheese goes on apple pie. (Weirdo!) lol 😂

 

He was willing to spend some time talking to me about shock setup for my MINI. Some basic stuff, but really helpful to me. Those are two beautiful and fast cars he has. They also played well with the DE club rules out on the track. This GVC event attracts some really talented and “aware” drivers, which was probably helpful to him and his drivers too.

Will you be going to the Glen for his next race?

Good luck on the card game... And not a fan of cheddar cheese and apple pie either...

 

Won’t be to the Glen till next season’s IMSA race...

 

I thought you guys were talking about private clubs. Here at ORP, we have about 80+ members but often times on our club track days the attendance is quite low. For me it is the bargain of the century. It is probably being so affordable that people taking it for granted and not appreciate the good things. Someone said that even if only one person signed up, they will still run the day. I have attend club days where there were only like 5 of us having the entire track to ourselves.

Only if they know what it cost to joint Area 27, or most other private clubs.

The G&M has a good article about Area 27.

"The buy-in for Area 27 will be $30,000 for a charter family membership, plus $3,000 in annual dues, climbing to $40,000 once memberships, which are transferable, rise past 200."

As for ORP, we have just 9 club days left for the season, and we plan to attend them all. I bought track days in a big bundle of 10 and get amazing bargain, and after that it is the same lowest rate buying one at a time.

Oh, our club days serve free lunches and you can sign up for dinner for just $25 where members often bring wine. I have catered for lunch twice now.

 

No, the “clubs” we are talking about are the car clubs like PCA and BMWCCA. They rent tracks like Watkins Glen, Lime Rock Park, NJ Motorsports Park which makes the tracks available to their membership. Or we have LLCs like SCDA, Hooked on Driving, Track Masters, who do the same thing but at a higher price. They tend to be less about learning and instruction and more about running laps than the car clubs. GVC Chapter of BMWCCA does a bit of both. Their open track days tend to be really good as they carefully screen the participants.

For private clubs/tracks we have at the high end Monticello Motor Club that you can get into for a mire $60,000 to join and $5,900/year re-up for the basic membership (there are higher cost memberships if you want), to the Lime Rock Club, to Palmer Motorsports Park Club at $9,000 to join and $3000/year to re-up. Too rich for my blood, for as few days a year I can manage..

As expenses go, Smokey is back at the dealer to have the AC looked at (didn’t work last week) and to check out what might be going on with the water temperature that was fluctuating (thermostats dying again?) and the fan is running a lot (aux water pump dying again?). Ugh - that is my money pit...

 

I feel the season coming to a close... I feel I have done well with my time, balancing between home and track. But the weather can be beautiful in September for doing another track day and I still have a box of brake pads to wear out and rubber that is still too new. I am not ready to call it quits yet...

Ya, I signed up for another day.
So, who wants to join me at LRP on Sept 12th with SCDA?
It is one of their half day events, no beginners. It starts early afternoon and ends at 5 pm. Perfect for a lazy person like me...