C2 understeer

Hi all. This may just make me sound like an amateur Porsche owner and you would be correct. My past (6) cars have all been 400+ AWD vehicles. I took my Porsche for a spirited drive on some county roads this weekend and I found it hard to believe it under steered in a corner. Took a sharp corner at around 35 MPH, 1/4 throttle to try to keep the rear planted and it started to understeer until I threw the front in more aggressively and applied more throttle. I just found it very odd that a car with essentially no weight over the front would understeer on me. Is there a very basic cornering style for these cars that I should learn/practice that maybe I am unaware of coming from AWD cars? (S4's, golf R ect)

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There you have it. Takes a bit of weight transfer to get the front end to bite. Not really different from other cars, although I myself felt that having to put "emphasis" on the weight transfer on the front end does take getting used to.

"Slow in fast out" You gotta use the weight transfer to your advantage to get the front "light" end to bite a bit more more Trail brake, or tap the brakes before corner to get the front end loaded up,....or else you could play with the throttle to adjust the attitude Definitely the C2 is an oversteer kind of car Once you hit the apex hammer the throttle and use the superior traction to launch out of the corner Hard to explain on a forum Try YouTube videos, driving course, 911 driving technique books... Also assuming you don't have issues with something else - tires, geometry... I will say if you drove Audi, VW, or even Bimmers, 911s are a whole different ball game You have to unlearn what you're doing and learn how to drive a rear engined car

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It sounds to me like something isn't right. I can't imagine the understeer you describe at 35 miles an hour. Even a Cayman, which is really tight won't understeer like that at that speed. I get very little understeer until things get pretty fast (like track fast), and it's usually at exit. I would get alignment and suspension checked...

Porsche 996 GT3 MkII @ Porsche Days Spa Francorchamps 2012 - YouTube I found some good detail in the video above. It's a 996 GT3, but still a naturally aspirated 996.

Check out my video from the ridge motorsports park. 996 Mk II C2. Not much understeer on this track. You can get a bit of understeer around the carousel (the long left hander) if you don't approach it right - like peteb says, slow in fast out. More fun that way and you minimize the understeer. Alignment can also affect the turn in - some additional -ve camber will help. Hot Laps at the Ridge Sept 5 2015 - YouTube

Great looking track, great video TB.

I find that light throttle out of corner is where understeer is the worst. You are transferring weight to the back but not putting down enough power for the rear tires to start to fight for traction and to start to slide a little bit. I really love the way the 911 will rotate under heavy throttle with very little steering input needed. Under light throttle it's a different ball game though. Which cars are you coming from? AWD and 400+ hp... Audis? Those understeer much worse than the 911 (at least in stock form), and you can't correct their understeer with throttle due to AWD. Maybe you're used to modded cars and expect a stock 911 to handle the same. Any stock car (aside maybe from the GT3 variants) is set-up for understeer on the street. To practice... try giving it more gas coming out of the corner. And get a thicker sway bar in the rear. A GT3 bar will do wonders.

Wider front tires will help immensely, going from a 225 to 245 on 9" wheel all else being equal made a big difference on my car. Especially with very sharp low speed corners

I agree with Jcatt . Sounds like something is off . Alignment would be the first suspect .

I don't agree that something is off with your car. A few points that I've noticed with my 996 C2: You need to load up the front of the car - use standard techniques to shift some weight up front (trail brake, etc...) Even at a slow rate of speed - you can't just crank the wheel toward the apex - try to be a bit more progressive with your steering input. The rear weight bias is slow to shift direction compared to what you're used to driving. Check the condition of your tires - were they warm, properly inflated, etc? I've found understeer varies greatly by my front tire wear and health. The standard US suspension and alignment is optimized for a bit of understeer by design - if you think a US stock 996 C2 stock understeers - try a stock 993. I'd do a combination of things to correct the understeer - start with technique (and understand the fundamental physics of the 911), move to tires, then check alignment. Upgrade your suspension once you've done steps 1, 2 and 3.

It's hard to bench-race someone else's car - getting your own car set up right is hard enough. What the other folks are saying, though, is consistent with how my car handles. If I plow into a corner too fast, it's going to understeer; if I try to correct too late and either brake or lift, it will oversteer. If you go into a corner too fast and you're still under throttle, you're even more likely to understeer since you're driving the front wheels across the corner and the front end isn't loaded. The FWD component of (most) AWD cars pulls the front end around the corner; in a RWD car, you are shoving the car around the corner - so the net result is very different. If you have a chance, go to a PCA autocross or other driving event and get a ride in one of the older aircooled 911's, preferably with an instructor. You may want to take a Dramamine beforehand. The handling characteristics of our cars are GREATLY exaggerated in the older 911's; corrections that are subtle in our cars (like having the rear end slide out) are huge in the older cars. I'm not saying you should drive your 996 like you would a 70's 911, but it will definitely help you see just how differently a RWD, rear-engine pusher handles than a front-engine AWD. (Re: the Dramamine - only half kidding. When I first joined PCA, one of my instructors was a little worried that I had a full-face helmet - apparently, many of his ride-alongs in full-face helmets got disastrously sick.) One of the things I found most surprising when I moved from my Boxster to my 911: I wasn't as good a driver as I thought I was. The mid-engine platform of the 986 was so much more forgiving of my bad habits that I didn't realize I had them. I thought I was smooth...I wasn't. I thought I was braking early enough; I wasn't. I thought I was rolling onto the throttle; I wasn't. In one driving event early in my 986 ownership, my instructor couldn't believe that my 986 didn't have PSM/PASM - he couldn't believe that some of my sloppy inputs weren't resulting in tragic corners.

Thanks guys for the videos.... I am going to upgrade my Suspension in the next few months and at that point will take it to a company called SCR Performance who has professional race car drivers working from them and I trust them with my alignment... I will practice some more this weekend with the car. I am really comfortable throwing an AWD car into a corner as I can induce lift off oversteer or snap oversteer and then hammer the gas in an AWD car to get it back to aligned (if I want to have fun in it).... The porsche just has me on edge still when trying to go for a "spirited" drive if you will. I do not have the confidence yet that I know how it is going to react under certain circumstances

One of the biggest things to consider is the huge hunk of metal hanging out past your rear axle in the 996. The reasoning behind making it so hard to break loose is that most drivers aren't equipped to deal with snap oversteer in a 911. Oversteer in my Corvette is awesome - the tires smoke, the rear end rotates slowly around, and with traction control off I could drift every corner if it wouldn't result in bald tires and reckless driving citations. With my front brakes set a little (I installed line locks so I can hold front brake pressure, I can do stuff that would have impressed the hell out of Jimmy Rockford. The pendulum effect is greatly tamed for the 996, but if you DO get it to break loose, be prepared for it. The most fantastic fails at driving events are 911 guys who are SURE they can save the spin...well, that and the turbo guys who can't grasp that the turbos are going to spool and demolish their rear traction. Not sure what your weather is like, but if you're thawed, go find yourself an empty, wet parking lot, turn of PSM/PASM, and practice tossing the back end out of line...when I finally put it together on the skid pad and drifted the C4 (when it still had the FWD stuff!) almost a full circle, it was epic.

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It will take time and lots of practice. But that's the fun part! If you can, go take a PCA driver skills class and then sign up for a DE event. When you get comfortable with throttle steer in a 911 on a racetrack then you can get around a corner pretty damn fast.