Driving technique- 90 degree turn

Let's say you're way out in the countryside, no traffic whatsoever, on a 45mph 2-lane road. You're going to turn right onto another similar road (2-lane) no stop sign so you're free to drive how you wish. You're okay to push it hard and have some fun. 1. What's your technique? 2. What's the maximum speed you can take this turn? 3. What's the sequence going into the turn? What speed? What gear? Are you still on the brake when you start to turn? 4. What's the sequence coming out of the turn? What gear(s), rpm(s), shift point(s)? Thanks. As for me, it's been fun just learning trial-and-error, but there comes a point you should learn how to do it right. I don't have budget for driving school, and I'm not finding the videos showing this.

Join you local PCA. And autocross. It won't brake your bank. And will keep you, your car, and the public safe.

+1 for autocross. It's a blast. Once you've had some fun with autocross, try a DE track day.

I am a PCA member. That was one good move. Looks like I need to look into autocross. I'd not heard of that.

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Now get'erdone.

for me, I heal toe shift into second and accelerate when I hit the apex and let the rear end kick out for the over steer. nothing but smiles.

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Taking the green line, I'd be done with braking and have heel-toed from third into second at the turn-in point. I'd be feeding throttle in lightly until a tick after the apex, and then I'd be feeding power in hard as the wheel unwound. Hypothetically, of course, since this is a 2-lane road and I'd be spending more time on the wrong side than the right side. I would also have turned off PSM, since it would have interfered with my turn-in due to my suspension setup. However, I'd have to be a little more careful tracking out, as with PSM off there's always a chance I'd suddenly be in a ditch staring at the corner I just drove out of.

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I don't recommend practicing your cornering technique on open roads, let alone a four-way intersection, but some general advice to get you started 1. Slow in = fast out. 2. Do your braking and downshifting primarily in a straight line before the corner, start applying power help rotate the car through the corner and offset understeer. 3. Late apex corners, though on the street corner visibility is more important than the fast line. 4. Smooth = fast. Good braking technique and line selection is actually quite a bit more important that perfectly blipping heel and toe downshifts, though it won't make you feel quite as joe racer. Again... please don't practice this on a public four-way intersection. If some truck just sloshed a bit of diesel or antifreeze on the road surface, the corner that you railed 99 times previously will put you in a spin faster than you can say PSM.

Note that many Porsche drivers will instead use the following technique: * Coast slowly up to the turn. * Come to a complete stop at the turn-in point, although no stop sign is present. * Relish how wonderful Air Supply sounds on MOST-powered radio. * Forgetting to downshift, attempt to accelerate from 0 to 35 in 3rd gear. * When the car jerks repeatedly due to poor gear selection, driver sloshes fat-free soy latte into lap, pulls off to the right side of the road, and uses one of the many brand new microfiber towels in the frunk stored there just for such emergencies. * After obsessing for several minutes about "lugging" the car, driver calls a towing company and arranges for a flatbed tow to Flat6.

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Yes, I want to feel that over steer (for fun), but for some reason my front tires are the only thing sliding (as I'm accelerating out). They might be overinflated, but I've already reduced them down to 36 front, 38 rear. BF Goodrich g-force. Not the rails feel of the Pirelli's, but they look cool, and they have a big bead to protect against curb rash.

If you are pushing your tires through the corner, time's being wasted. Understeer means the car isn't going the direction you want it to. Slow down enough to get the car pointed in the right direction.

Please, for the love of God, find yourself a stadium parking lot and practice there instead of a 2-lane highway.

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That is classic understeer. And most 911's are set up with significant understeer. It's safer for most drivers. Go into the corner slower, then put more power down into the corner. If you go into a corner too hot, your just going to slide the front and more power won't help. Once the front is sliding, your done (unless the rear is sliding too). Change alignment. Going from standard 911 alignment specs to a GT3 alignment specs made a huge difference. Next time you get new tires, change your front/rear tire balance. Wider in front, narrower in back, or both. Too much rear tire = push. Go into the corner slower. Worth repeating as it's the #1 mistake drivers make when they are trying to go 'fast'.

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If you own a tire shop shouldn't be no problem, I do autocross and drift but not with the Porsche, when I do autocross for my tires I use Toyo proxes performs good on the street and the track without affecting my category but when we talk about drifting tires go crazy fast!!!!! How to Drift your car part 2 - YouTube After 2 runs of drifting!!!!

DT

Excellent all of the above, and thanks. My current tire sizes are 18", 225 front, 265 rear, so I see what you mean. I'll try the late turn-in. I think I'm doing early turn-in. Re: tire cost, that is a concern. So, how do you guys have fun in these corners and not wear out tires?

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There is no free lunch.

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+996 ....best advice so far.

Find a safer place to do such a thing like lotta runout. If u run out of road ..... **** happens!!!. Mike

Can't agree more with the consensus on all described. Learn how to drive the car safely on the track. It is safer that public roads. You will learn about weight transfer....hard on the brakes = weight on the front and better steering....patience thru the corner and power out of it throwing the weight of the car to the rear tires. Brake in straight line and shift in a straight line.

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That's cool. I think it'll be amply rewarding for me to learn how to take those corners efficiently and reliably, if only to shake off would-be tailgaters. I love this car's ability to avoid those congestion packs on the freeway.

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If you track your car, that comes with an expense, tires are the cheapest thing you have to be concerned, I've seem transmissions break into pieces, cars against the contention wall, overheating and the list goes on and I'm talking in a safe and control environment, were you have lots of road to compensate for errors, full pit crew and emergency medical services ready. As I'm new here but I have friends who own Porsches they tell me they are great machines that you can track and used them as your daily driver tires and frequent oil changes are part of the budget.

I teach High Performance Driving at a racing school here in Seattle... 1) GO to a car control clinic 2) Get the first Ross Bentley "Speed Secrets" book, read it from cover to cover, then STUDY it 3) GO to an Autocross or find a BIG empty parking lot and try stuff or wait until it snows/rains and go back to that parking lot and try again (things will happen MUCH slower with the lesser grip) 4) DON'T spend money on suspension changes, tires and brakes UNTIL you are ready for them 5) For GODS sake DO NOT TURN OFF PSM UNTIL YOU ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!!!!

As a motorcyclist, people of any type who are driving in a way that may cause them to cross the center line into oncoming traffic (either through speeding or inattention) leads to very many rider fatalities. The minor mishap that the driver experiences, with some vehicle damage, often leaves the rider with serious injuries or worse. This disproportionate outcome scenario applies to bicyclists or pedestrians, as well. Applying racing doctrine on the street can be far worse for others than for the driver out "entertaining". I'm no "speed kills" nanny. But there's a time and a place for everything, and pressing this hard on the street is ill advised.

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You won't shake off tailgaters. In fact the odds are better the tailgater will post a video of your car fishtailing all over the road as you over correct then end up in the ditch or hedgerow.

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+997 on this. Trying to find the limit of traction of your car on public streets is a great way to put yourself into a ditch, tree, or oncoming traffic. Practice your car control at an autocross or performance driver school; once you've learned the techniques, it's easy to put that to practice on the street. The best way to take a 90 is less about raw speed than driving line and weight transfer.

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What if there are two drivers, one heading out for the morning hot-******* in their 911, and another heading home from hot-******* and they both end up at the same 90 degree corner at the same time going opposite directions, both thinking they will clip the corner apex at the same time according to their new found Rennlist research... Odds? My technique recommendation? Drive the speed limit and stay in your lane, paying attention to what you're doing. Let the tailgater pass you. And hopefully I'm not the one coming the opposite direction... and if I am I hope I'm in the Cayenne.

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In later 911 models (like the 996), much of the car's natural tendency to oversteer has been engineered out. It takes more aggressive inputs to get the rear end to start rotating - so it's easy to overdo it when trying to get the rear to slide and can leave you in a situation that's really hard to recover from. I think it's worth reiterating that practicing to get the rear end loose should happen somewhere big, empty, and safe.

+1 on taking it to the track. If your 996 starts over-steering on you, there is 95% chance that you are not saving it. 996's under-steer is big safety buffer built into the car; if you pushed the car into over-steer, you better be a very good driver. Handling dynamic of the 996 in the over-steer situation is very different from the F-R car. So be very careful when you are testing the limits. You Tube

Ouch. And he didn't even lose the tailgater...

Good example. I'd seen that video before and could never figure out why he lost it. Now I know.

So just to finish up this thread, we had some light rain this morning which provided an opportunity for me to find my low speed limits, for safety purposes of course. Turns out I was surprisingly close to my limits all along, so it's good that I found them rather than vice versa. Test #1 - coming off a stop sign, turning right. Rear wheels sort of jerked as they were coming loose, as though they didn't want to get loose, or maybe just not high enough RPM. Either way, the car was giving me feedback that it didn't like what I was doing. Test #2 - right turn from a 35mph street, so higher RPM, 2nd gear coming out of the turn, nice smooth spinning until they took hold. Spinning less than 1 second, so very cautious operation on my part. At this point I realized I'd rather stay planted all the time, and it's more fun that way (g-forces). If I ever get the desire to further explore the envelope, I'll do that at autocross. I'm still mixed on whether everyone should know where the limits are on street driving. On the one hand, the car has more design built into it to keep you safe than I thought. On the other hand, the car tempts you to push it further with each drive, so you really should know where the limits are before you find out by surprise.

Phil, did you have PSM engaged still? One of the ways the 996 "saves" you is by retarding throttle and timing once the back end loses grip. If you had PSM on, you still didn't get a full helping of being along for the ride - but that's just fine, since you were still on a public road. Public service announcement / high horse / whateve r: I think everyone should feel the car out of control and have practice recovering it - but the street is a terrible place to acquire those skills. San Diego PCA does a "performance driving school" twice a year with a skid pad and other events designed to provide experience that you can't (safely) get on public streets. I took this after I got my 996, even though I'm a fairly decent driver - I wanted the skidpad time because I knew that the dynamics of the 996 were very different from any other car I've ever driven. My Corvette, for example, can hang around corners sideways all day long, but since the engine's up front and the weight is nearly 50/50, it's nice and slow and predictable. If I'm driving somewhere with nobody else around, I'll hang the rear end out on the 'Vette for fun. The 911 is much more of a handful when the rear end gives up, which is why so many of them wind up ***-first in ditches. For me, the 911 is more fun to drive at the limit, but a lot LESS fun to overdrive. It's exciting, but in a sweaty-palm, gee-I-kind-of-almost-died way. Taking ANY kind of performance driving course is a great idea. Porsche-specific courses, with instructors that know how the rear-engine cars handle, are even better. </sermon>

That sermon could not been stated better...really not a sermon but truth. Public roads driving that way is only going to get you hurt or even worse someone else. Most of the common sense comments on this post are based on experience.

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Sounds like both of these cases were simply too much throttle, which has little to do with how well you took the corner- give these cars enough gas, and they will break loose. Performance driving is a complex interaction with weight transfer playing a significant role; I see far too many people approach a corner what they think is too fast, lift (or brake) mid-corner, which will artificially (and significantly) reduce rear traction and risk a spin- especially when the road is wet. When if they'd have held steady throttle or trail-braked properly, they could have held even higher speeds through that corner. These skills that must be practiced in a safe environment, but will make you a much safer driver, even at higher speeds, once you've mastered them. Go sign up for that autocross!

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This is well-said. Sometimes the only difference between holding a slide vs. spinning is throttle control - there's much more to performance driving than just pointing the car in the right direction and mashing one or two pedals.