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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ย. 2024
- This video looks in detail at how to keep your car balanced through corners with correct use of the accelerator.
Many drivers enter corners with their foot off the accelerator and with the car decelerating, or even on the brakes. Both of these techniques can unsettle the rear of the car and make it feel uncomfortable through the corner.
A better technique is to apply the accelerator very early in the corner - sometimes even before you get to the corner to start transferring weight back over the rear wheels and keep the car balanced through the corner.
For more information on advanced & performance driving, please visit my website at www.reglocal.com
I tried this in my delivery truck and now my deliveries are much faster. Thanks mate!
I’ll do this when I pass my test if I know the road but there’s some country roads with sharp turns every few seconds ur a madman if you do this through them
Very useful I have never thought of cornering in this way.
Illustrates what balance really means. Videos go well with the book. Video is spot on.
Thanks for another well made and hugely informative video, Reg.
Incidentally, that was an awesome demonstration of how to keep a sensible following distance prior to overtaking.
Thanks Holly. If you'd like more information on following position, see my video here: th-cam.com/video/bwbALc4PgSE/w-d-xo.html
Unfortunately for advanced driving and riding one is taught how to tailgate before an overtake and that is not only against the law but also extremely dangerous. More so on a bike as you are closer behind another vehicle and on a bend so you are leant over and if one needs to brakes sharply or swerve one is in trouble as braking hard or swerving on a bend may cause one to lose tyre grip and come off. So its extra dangerous to be so close on a bend but is taught at all advanced riding and driving schools.
Why is that?
Further we are taught about safe stopping distances and should always have a good mental picture of the distance that we can stop in in the event of an emergency, all the time but that is on a straight and so on a bend where forces are different one cannot hit the brakes hard but brake with moderation and progressively or lose grip. So as we cannot use the 100% of our emergency braking facility our actual braking distances will now be substantially increased on a bend due to those forces and as a result we should then give more distance to the vehicle in front in order to be safe. Maybe do as in the wet and give twice the distance and not just blindly follow it around at our normal distance . Perhaps.
Superb video reg! Works really well in my truck as with cars cheers.
After seeing your videos about progress and speed, I was like - now what is this guy saying? talking about safety then encouraging viewers to go faster? maybe he's been an expert for so long that he thinks all people have abilities like him! - but after reading your book, I finally understood what was your point about safe progress and restraint and I said, Yeah rest assured this guy knows what he's doing!
Now about balance and cornering, I've read in many books and websites about weight transfer and balance. and on the subject of car behavior over the limit, almost everybody mentions understeer and oversteer. but what causes rollovers? I haven't seen any particular answer about that and how to detect when your cars gonna roll over and how to prevent it from happening especially on cars that have tires with fat side walls.(apart from hitting a curb or pothole while sliding)
If your vehicle starts to tip smoothly turn your wheel down and accelerate. That's what they teach in rally schools at least.
In terms of what causes it: one possibility is being in an oversteer situation and using the brakes harshly. The effect is especially prominent in vehicles with higher centers of mass.
Cornering too harshly can also definitely cause this, especially if you feel an initial understeer and don't smoothly correct it, maybe causing the tyres to eventually find a patch of road surface that's more grippy and thus causing roll-over.
@@Hugo-ep4po I really appreciate your help
Great little place to practice this in Bolton is the bends at the base of Bradshaw Road, best on the way up 👍👍👍 Something else is that its difficult to find the constant radius unless you know the bend well, its not always easy but by adjusting the rate of acceleration slightly, the car's radius can be changed to match the flow of the bend seamlessly without adjusting the steering which can make things even smoother and further mask the speed you're taking the bend. Balance one of the most important points in my opinion, the more balance - the less earache from passengers!!!!
Certainly on a bike it is not advisable to accelerate through a bend but be on what is called a positive throttle or just in drive. If you retain the same speed without that slight upping of the throttle the car going round the corner will actually slow and that increases the front weight which you do not want to achieve. So one is keeping the same speed around the corner and not slowing and not accelerating as perhaps shown on this video. I think its more of a positive throttle rather than an acceleration that is required to keep the vehicle balanced between front and back. Whilst you are accelerating, yes you are keeping the weight and traction down on the rear and lifting the front suspension and therefore traction on the front but you are also by going faster on a bend increasing the centrifugal forces and thus increasing the weight that will push the vehicle to one side of the road or the other
Explained really well. Thank you
Feeling envious of those overtakes, as SE England is more crammed than Scottish highlands seem to be.
Video idea- How to behave when you are completely unfamiliar with the road you're driving on, and how to progressively become better at it.
Tried this this week going to work, it works well :)
thanks for another informative video!
Great video, really enjoyed.
When you said 'don't forget you have a heavy engine over the front wheels, and nothing but a set of seats in the rear', I did think to myself 'don't BMW's usually have an almost perfect 50/50 weight balance' ??
Great video though, as I expect from a police advanced driving instructor.
Sometimes though, I *want* to unsettle the car, and have some fun on an empty road or roundabout, and get the car sideways.
50/50 is only when the car is sat at a constant speed on a straight course. As soon as you start making inputs, that weight will move around & it’s important to have a clear understanding of how your inputs will affect vehicle balance.
Great video. Thanks Reg!
very useful for sim racing too :) Thank you sir.
Are these rules applicable if you drive fwd car fully loaded with full trunk and one tone trailer on the hook with the nose weight about 70 kg. On the roof about 50 kg. Gut feeling tells me I should lift off the accelerator until apex or even longer. But I am not proressional.
Maciej Jankowski That would depend entirely on your torque split, castor angle, tyre pressures and spring rates. My advice would be to try steering left to go right & if you're ever in doubt, pull the handbrake.
Hello Reg. During last half year, I tested different approaches to cornering balance. Definitely, balancing the car with the throttle immediately after turning the wheel, gives the best vehicle stability and the sense of safe and controlled traveling.
I have problems with balancing the car using throttle on the following types of corners:
1) extremely tight and blind, 2) with decreasing radius 3) going down the slope.
Pressing accelerator pedal, even gently, on these type of corners makes me frightened, so I don't do this.
How do you deal with such types of corners?
PS. The sarcastic joke wasn't so bad. Your criticism gave me the motivation to improve my skils. Thanks a lot.
What is your budget for this video
Also, Reg, your assertion that all the weight in your BMW is over the front end is way off- BMW shout long and hard about the equal weight distribution of your car.
Should I position my car a little to the left if I am taking a right curve and vice versa? Does your technique applies to rear wheel vehicle ?
See this video for info on positioning for corners:th-cam.com/video/4w5IjyNIFbE/w-d-xo.html
And yes, this is the same advice irrespective of the driven axle(s)
Neutral throttle after the braking phase surely? Then followed by accumulating acceleration after the apex? Simple physics. Accelerating while in the corner is one easy way to make the car do pirouettes and it does the exact opposite- the diametric opposite- of ‘balancing the car’. All of the braking should be done before the corner- then in the turn acceleration should be neutral and after the apex the acceleration phase should begun again.
As for track day heros braking up to the apex it simply means they have missed their breaking point! Braking hard- or accelerating hard on a corner is one easy way to end up in the greenery.
Just watched this and thought the exact same as your comment. But then I'm guessing this technique is made for progressive road driving when you are no where near the limit like when on the track? At least that's the only conclusion I can make.
I understood a joke but it wasn't good.I've read ntta document about towing. Principles presented by you are applicable for towing. Loose speed in a straight line and then accelerate gently. Drive slowly.
An excellent video Reg, as have all your videos. Its a great feeling going through a bend with your car balanced on the accelerator, and i thinks its special in a rear drive - mines a BMW 120i - but, of course, thats a personal opinion. i just wanted to check your view on overtaking. I notice in two overtakes you are on the other side of the road when making a gear change. I have always changed gear before going on the overtake, or once back in. I'm not sure now whether thats what I was taught, (1960's training), and maybe it has now changed, or whether I have just been limiting my overtakes - yours looked neat and efficient! Any clarification on the thinking around overtaking and the timing of gear changes would be much appreciated.
I'm aware of this advice John - I don't think you should aim to complete an overtake from start to finish in a single gear, but it's worth trying to avoid changing gear whilst you're directly alongside the overtaken vehicle (as I failed to do on one occasion in this video!).
Sorry, Reg, could you just clarify why this is? Would it be to keep the car in a flexible gear in case of a change in scenario forcing a change in speed, or for the purpose of balance, or something else entirely?
Cookeh It's an old-school view that you should keep both hands on the wheel during an overtake. Not usually necessary, but I did encounter an unexpexted dip in the road during an overtake the other week, which would have been much less easy to deal with if I'd only had one hand on the wheel.
Its really amazing thinking about the changes to modern cars with the introduction of electronics, but the development of power steering, disc brakes, improved suspension and tyres since i began driving was the 'first revolution' and made such a difference to the balance of cars - I try very hard to think about why I drive in a particular 'style' and then adapt to modern vehicles and techniques, but i am afraid I can't be persuaded to forgo a manual gearbox. Thanks again for your videos Reg, they are informative, well presented and help me to 'modernise'
Thanks!
Honestly all of this is obvious, on my first couple hours of driving I had figured the car felt more planted with a little bit of gas through the corners.
Also BMW's are very close to 50/50 weight distribution, so no, you don't have all your weight on the front because of that big engine, they thought about it.
Good example here of why balanced accel through a corner is a good idea:
th-cam.com/video/YgXieZTHqq8/w-d-xo.html
and why too little accelerator can be just as bad as too much!
(and a bonus "why stability control is worth it's weight in new panels" example too)
no throttle no fun xD