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Tarbo lag.
it's also advised to over slow for a corner rather than not slow enough, the former loses tenths the latter loses seconds, partial throttle earlier than Apex to balance the car through the steady state cornering should be common no matter the drivetrain layout.
I had not thought about turbo lag. That isn’t particularly present in my 2012 S; not sure about my new JCW. But, if it is turbo lag, you still don’t want to be too early with the throttle so as to create understeer in the car.
The “Slow in, fast out” theory... Another issue with “too fast in” is that the car is likely to run off the track at track out. Been there; done that... At my tracks, that may mean a crash as there is little runoff in a lot of turns. I’ve been lucky. However, I will give you that “slow in” is the right way to learn how to drive a track. You can usually increase speed in small increments into a corner to learn the max speed you can (or want to) take it at.
Top race car drivers work with “Fast in, Fast out”, but that is well beyond me. Clearly Louis Hamilton has that down pat. No, or little lost time anywhere. I tried to see when, in the corner, he was back on the gas. Maybe slightly before or right at the apex. Excellent video!
Last edited by Eddie07S; 01-17-2020 at 09:57 AM.
Reason: Removed duplicate video link
No, or little lost time anywhere. I tried to see when, in the corner, he was back on the gas. Maybe slightly before or right at the apex. Excellent video!
can you point me to a corner where he's not on throttle before apex? You can pause the YouTube video on a computer and go frame by frame with the period and comma keys.
On the fourth corner it looks like he's at like 80% throttle before the apex.
can you point me to a corner where he's not on throttle before apex? You can pause the YouTube video on a computer and go frame by frame with the period and comma keys.
On the fourth corner it looks like he's at like 80% throttle before the apex.
I’m watch on an iPad; no “period/comma”. But it does pick up the keyboard i have for it and the pause/resume button works for that and I can play it at 0.25 speed. Yup, i see what you are saying, except for T2 (0:11 sec in) where he slows through the turn. Ok, a nit.
My guess - the F1 car is set up for a bit of oversteer? And he is using the throttle to have it push out a bit to make the apex without changing steering angle? Or, in some cases the telemetry is showing acceleration and yet he is still turning in... Curious. But what do I know. Clearly I am not at his level of skill...
But, I will ask this... do you think the telemetry is in sync with what the car is doing? The sound is off by about a second. For each of the turns the telemetry shows him off the gas and 100% braking but the sound says that he is still on the gas. Same for acceleration, the sound would say he is on the gas after the apex. It would not surprise me that F1 team would do this on a YouTube post to not give away too much about their driving.
An IMSA DPI car at Watkins Glen. This turned a lap that was near the record lap for the Indy cars from the previous year; the closest thing to a modern F1 car that has been on this track in years. I know this track really well and he trail brakes almost to the apex and is on the gas at the apex of every turn. In my MINI I drive the track the in same style as he does, just a bit slower, almost a minute slower...
I would think that a DPI car would not be that different from a F1 car in driving technique. So, I wonder about the telemetry in that F1 car video...
Sorry Charlie for the side tracked conversation...
Video comes from FIA broadcast where the teams are required to provide accurate telemetry for review on case of issues. They have moved away from showing telemetry though I would argue that video comparison is more telling as you can break down in finer detail line choice, steering inputs, and speed with some quality side by side software. Best of luck on your search for speed.
Video comes from FIA broadcast where the teams are required to provide accurate telemetry for review on case of issues. They have moved away from showing telemetry though I would argue that video comparison is more telling as you can break down in finer detail line choice, steering inputs, and speed with some quality side by side software. Best of luck on your search for speed.
Charlie - I just signed up for this car control event (March 28, in the morning). They have limited spots (only 24), so I thought I would sign up now so I don’t miss out. My plan is to bring the JCW, stock RFTs and brake pads and flog it a bit to see what it is like before heading out on the track with it. If you pass on signing up for this, and it is a nice day, feel free to take a ride and stop in for a visit. Admission to LRP is free and you can wander around and see what’s up.
Charlie, can I ask your alignment recommendation for autoX? My KW coils and K-mac camber plates finally arrived. On my track car I run 3.8 degrees of negative camber in front and 2.5 in the rear. I was thinking 2.5-2.8 front and as much as I can get in the rear on my Mini. Thank you!
My 2 cents.... Will the K-max plates allow you to increase caster? If they do, I would also increase the caster. Caster turns into camber as you turn the steering wheel and that will especially help with tight turns. You will need all the help you can get in order to beat the RS.
While awaiting the arrival of the corner weighting scales from the (Lyon Waugh) Porsche dealership in NH, which are being borrowed to do Gollum by the (Lyon Waugh) Mini dealership that provides all the love, I sometimes watch TV.
Why does the NH team have the scales? Apparently if I bought a GT3 from them, their dealership prep checklist includes corner weighting! Damn...
Anyway, I just watched "How It's Made" and they focused on the BMW i8 - which uses the B38 three cylinder engine in combination with a hell for strong electric motor.
During the episode they mentioned that the B38 in that car is making 231 HP. Makes me grin. If I had that variation of that lovely triple in Gollum III I'd have cleaned up in GS, .
Just BMW making the MINI brand weaker than the BMW brand. Just like our 2L in our JCW making only 228 hp but in BMWs is making, what, something like 260 hp. But it gives us MINI owners something to dream about...
So Mini of Peabody will have Gollum in hand next Wednesday (the 26th) for corner weighting, using the scales they'll borrow from the NH Porsche dealer which is part of the same corporate family.
Joel, Jeremy and I are looking forward to it.
I'll have better data with which to conjure after that process, but in the interim I rolled under the front end and noted that to my careful eye, with no-one in the car, the front lower control arms are damn near level.
Now mind you the ride height is down 15mm from the OEM setup (about .6 inches), and I've already estimated the jacking forces associated with varying degrees of LCA angle. The steering axis inclination is 12.6 degrees at present, with help from the K-MAC camber plates.
So I sketched the following to help me wrap my mind around the effect of more/less camber, and more/less ride height, on the roll-center at the front end. It's inexact, but by envisioning slight changes in the two critical angles (SAI, and LCA) I did get a better sense of what effects will occur.
More fun with trig, while waiting for corner weight day...
So it occurred to me this morning while smoking the first butt of the day that I had two measurements, and could calculate the third.
Remember this measurement of 2.75 degrees of body roll - from the Dragon?
So I unlimbered my hindquarters, strolled down the hill to Gollum, and stuck a tape measure across his front wheels - outer edge to outer edge. 67 inches.
So if Gollum leans over about 2.5 degrees, how much chassis rotation is that really, in inches, at the outer edges?
This is what I came up with.
Seems to me that for this to occur, and we've just seen it occur, the available travel for the front shocks has to be at least 1.5" in both jounce and rebound - actually a bit more for sanity.
Make any sense?
Cheers,
Charlie
Note: at the time that photo was taken, Gollum was wearing OEM Sport Suspension springs, and Bilstein B8 shocks - so not directly relevant to the JCW Pro suspension now in place.
I'm not sure you're getting an even 1.5" compression and extension out of the two side in the front. Maybe if there was no front anti-sway bar. It's likely a little more compression on the outside, and a little bit less extension on the inside. The fact that you have lifted the inside rear tire says that you have shifted some weight of the car towards the front, and as such, have compressed the front suspension under that extra weight.
I'm not sure you're getting an even 1.5" compression and extension out of the two side in the front. Maybe if there was no front anti-sway bar. It's likely a little more compression on the outside, and a little bit less extension on the inside. The fact that you have lifted the inside rear tire says that you have shifted some weight of the car towards the front, and as such, have compressed the front suspension under that extra weight.
Regardless...
Yep, and yep. This is somewhat of a drunkards walk through Mini suspension behaviors...
But I've embraced the notion that an approximate understanding is better than none.
Or as Grandfather put it: "anything worth doing is worth doing badly".
Note also my follow-up, with two days left before the work shall occur. Shameless arm-twisting!
Given the car's behavior at present, and NOT forgetting that I'm only working with mebbe 80% of summer traction, I'm more ready to raise the car than to lower it further - (now only -15mm front, -11mm rear). If KW do not perform heroism, I'll have only LCA angle and approximate measurement to work with. Unless the JCW setup presents as having insufficient available compression travel I'll probably leave it alone - no compelling reason to do otherwise.
But I do very much hope they grin, and forgive my cheek, and answer in time.
Charlie,
Not to dissuade you from getting the requested info from KW, but I thought your requested info was posted here:
Here goes. I'll try to make my nomenclature easy to understand by starting with some definitions.
*Static ride height: The position the suspension sits when the car is parked. For this car, I'm using the centerline of the axle to the apex of the wheel arch trim directly vertical from the centerline of the axle.
*Droop: The amount the wheel sags or extends [e.g. when the tire falls into a pothole] compared to the static ride height. This will show more tire gap between the tire and the fender arch
*Compression: The amount the wheel pushes into the body's wheel housing [e.g. when you run over a bump]. This will show less tire gap between the tire and the fender arch
*Bumpstop: A carefully design micro-cellular foam piece that helps exponentially cushion the damper during large compression actions [e.g. a very large speed bump or too many fat American's climbing aboard]. The bumpstop usually compresses to between 1/3 to 1/4 it's normal height when the weight of the car is on it, depending on stiffness and design. Keep in mind that when the bumpstop is compressing the added spring rate exponentially approaches infinity. The bigger the bump, the harder the shock transferred into the cabin. The goal for bumpstop design is two-fold; to not allow the damper to bottom-out its internal bits, and to absorb enough force such that the largest intended impact does not exceed the point of the bumpstops compression curve where it approaches infinity. Sounds simple, right?
*Motion ratio: The difference in stroke between how far the damper moves and how far the tire moves. Thankfully for the MINI, the damper motion ratios are basically 1:1, so they're not of concern. The rear spring on the MINI does have a motion ratio other than 1:1, but that's not something we'll touch on here.
Droop @ 17.375" front and 16.5" rear
Ride Height @ 14.75" front and 14.375" rear
Free Compression @ 13.75" front and 13.125" rear
Bumpstop Compression @ 11.875" front and 11.625" rear
Put into a different context:
Total Possible Stroke is 5.5" front and 4.875" rear.
From Ride Height to full Droop is 2.625" front and 2.125" rear
From Ride Height to first bumpstop contact, or "free compression travel" is 1.0" front and 1.25" rear.
Full bumpstop compression adds another 1.875" front and 1.5" rear of compression travel, but it won't be comfortable.
Droop @ 16.625" front and 15.625" rear
Ride Height to be determined, however 13.5"-13.875" front and 13.25"-13.5" rear appears to be design breadth
Free Compression @ 12.5" front and 12.0" rear
Bumpstop Compression @ 11.0" front and 10.75" rear
Put into a different context:
Total Possible Stroke is 5.625" front and 4.875" rear.
Full bumpstop compression adds another 1.5" front and 1.25" rear of compression travel, but it won't be comfortable.
What can we learn from these numbers? Put it into a very simple statement, the JCW coilovers offer the ability to lower the ride height 1.25" front and 1.125" rear with zero compromise to compression ride comfort versus the OEM Sport Suspension. The bumpstops are shorter and thus more progressive, yet I'd wager the difference in very large bumps will feel basically the same. The total stroke of the JCW setup is actually slightly more in front and identical in rear, and the design intent is to locate the ride height between 7/8" and 1.25" lower than stock without any noteworthy compromise in ride comfort.
It'll be a few days before I'll be able to give quality feedback on the final ride height and dynamic behavior, but rest assured I'll update this thread when I do!
Thanks for pointing that out, and my thanks to Ryan for those measurements.
Still, I'd like to have the horse's mouth. You see I squirm, as follows...
I ran the stock sport suspension - to quote: "From Ride Height to first bump-stop contact, or "free compression travel" is 1.0" front".
And yet I've kinda convinced myself that Gollum had 2.75 degrees of roll, requiring 1.5" of compression/extension at the front axle, before any bumps are encountered.
So I scratch my head to accept that a factory setup had me on the bump stops from the git go. It's hard for me to swallow.
01-17-2020 | 09:53 AM
Clearly Louis Hamilton has that down pat. No, or little lost time anywhere. 
I tried to see when, in the corner, he was back on the gas. Maybe slightly before or right at the apex. Excellent video!
Just like our 2L in our JCW making only 228 hp but in BMWs is making, what, something like 260 hp. But it gives us MINI owners something to dream about... 
