Also, you can't turn off DSC without also turning off ASC. It's possible that a driver could turn better lap times with both systems off, and might incorrectly credit the improvement to having turned DSC off when in reality, it might have been the ASC's intervention slowing him down.

 

LOL, mine only has ASC and LSD. Someone let me borrow their LSD and DSC equipped R56. I'll do the back-to-back testing for you.

 

Nice thread. Question (I've asked it before in the past): What's the difference between ASC and DSC? Does DSC add braking to the back wheels whereas ASC only applies brakes to the front wheels, or does ASC not apply brakes at all? I could never get anyone to give me this answer. Anyone?

 

Go to this page. There's a glossary of definitions for the various control systems, and you can click on any of the terms for even more information.

Basically, if you've ever had the engine "bog down" and lose power when you spin the front wheels even a little bit, that's the ASC in action. The DSC checks to see if the car is actually going in the direction you're aiming it. If it's not, the DSC applies the brakes to individual wheels to bring the car back into alignment.

 

And to add to that... are there any extra sensors needed that make DSC function? Or is it just ECU Programming feeding inputs from the wheel speed sensors and adding brake pulses?

 

Ok cool. So are there actual Lat & Long (G-meter) sensors... or is it based from wheel speed?

I've always understood the concept. But how is it implemented?

 

ha of course the DSC is going to slow you down that is the whole point in the system. Its not going to let you get past the limit. Once any wheel starts to slide or the yaw moment is beyond what the system has deemed safe it will apply the brakes. To actually go fast you need to let a bit of sliding go unhampered and let the car yaw at a "dangerous" rate. The STIG always turns all "aids" off on Top Gear, because a good driver will always be faster that way.

 

Whether that's true or not, I was simply pointing out that you can't fairly judge the effect of DSC on lap times by doing back-to-back runs, because in our cars, it's impossible to have DSC enabled without also having ASC enabled.

Let's say that the driver is seven-tenths of a second slower with DSC on. How are you prepared to quantify how much of that was from the DSC and how much was from the ASC, since they're coupled?

The only way the proposal would be a fair indication of the effects of DSC would be if you could do runs with *no* aids activated, and then runs with *only* DSC activated.