<VV> Oversteer?

[ricebugg at comcast.net]

All:  In the movie I referred to earlier that Chevy R&D did for the lawyers, one of the situations was this.  They put a Valiant, Falcon and a Corvair on a skid pad...but not at the same time.  The skip pad had a series of concentric circles on it.  Driver of each car turned wheel and established study state speed around the inner circle, going clockwise.  Then he locked the steering wheel by bracing left arm on arm rest.  Then gradually increased speed.  The two other cars kept going further and further out on the skid pad until they went off screen.  The Corvair went out about 1.5 lanes, and snapped 90 degrees to the right and stopped basically perpendicular to line of travel.  

I call what the Falcon and Valiant did understeer, and what the Corvair did oversteer.  

Don't know what anybody else calls it.  Maybe we are using the same word to mean two different thing.   Racers induce oversteer by not lifting the throttle on turn in, and then balance it with steering and throttle.  Most of the rest of us are not that good, and while we can sometimes get it right on occassion, racers do it corner after corner, lap after lap.  They are different than us.   

Any a car can be provoked to do all kinds of stuff.  At the limit, should you choose to go there, the Corvair will go off the road backwards at about the same spots the other two go off frontwards.  How deep the dodo is depends on the road you choose to do dumb stuff on.  

Oh, and I have since remembered spinning a Corvair in a autocross.  Seth was there.  

Historically Yours,
						James

PS: And scared looks for a place to change your pants.

Message: 7
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2013 11:07:00 -0500
From: Ken Pepke
Subject: Re: Autoweek ~ "ill-handling Corvair" - Really ?
To: Vair Views 

OK, first example :-)  

Answer to the question ? everyone!  Because a Corvair does not oversteer.  What it DOES do is understeer LESS than most other stock cars.  Can they be spun out?  Yes, but it requires some pretty sloppy driving.  But, so can a Falcon be spun out and in the tests back in the day, it produced the lowest rate of lateral acceleration of all cars tested. 

To quote ole 'DocHudson' [the movie, Cars] "You have to turn right to go left."  Of course, the racers induce oversteer with the throttle.  No stock Corvair ever had the torque to do that.  Honestly now, in the hardest left hand turn you have ever made with a Corvair, which way were you turning the steering wheel [before you lost it]?  An 'oversteering' vehicle is started into a left turn by turning the steering wheel to the left to get the turn started, then the wheel will have to be turned to the RIGHT to maintain the left hand turn.  The faster one goes the harder to the right the wheel must be turned.

Ken P
Wyandotte, MI
65 Monza 110hp 4 speed 2 door
Worry looks around; Sorry looks back, Faith looks up.