Trail braking in a starlet

[jezza323]

Anyone tried trail braking in a starlet when driving on the limit? especially a starlet with a rear swaybar?

Im a bit worried it will just spin on me (as its a bit taily when u get off the throttle, so id imagine its worse when on the brakes)......but i will give it a go next week when i am at the track again anyway, just wanted to know if others have tried it :)

[ivan]

im buessing a brake bias would help here quite a bit! but whats trail braking exactly?

[jezza323]

trail braking is when u continue braking as you enter a corner, right up to the apex, when u change from braking to acceleration. obviously you dont brake as hard while turning as u would in a straight line.

the idea is 100% braking in a straight line, and then if you are turning 5% you can still do 95% braking, and as you turn tighter, you reduce the braking amount until it is all turning, no braking, and then you gradually apply accelerator on the corner exit.

[HardcoreEP]

I do it, but with the normal panhard rod I find it upsets the car.

[jezza323]

well i gave it a go (in slower corners) was no worries :) except that i kept overbraking cos i was starting braking only a little later, but carrying the braking right into the turn

will get used to it soon :)

[ivan]

how did you find the rear end to react?

[jezza323]

well i was only doing it in slower corners, so the tail came around a bit more than normal, but was perfectly controllable. and as i said, definately able to brake a decent amount later.

[jezza323]

just another thing to note for ppl wanting to give this a go....do everything smoothly....turn the steering smoothly, apply and release the brakes smoothly

anything that causes a sudden weight shift will result in loss of control ;)

[Enzo]

do you ever heal and toe or left foot brake when your on the track?

[jezza323]

i heel and toe everywhere all the time, track or not :)

left foot brake i dont do, dont have the control in my left foot just yet

[HardcoreEP]

Trail braking is best done with the upgraded pan hard rod. Front wheel drive cars tend to dance under high speed trail braking. If you watch BTCC you see it a lot. The anti-roll bar doesn't really help with braking weight transfer.

[Enzo]

yea i did find after fitting an rear arb made the back end noticably lighter under heavy braking

[gaz d]

heel to toe is great everywhere, especially coming up to a roundabout.

[monki]

I gave this technique a try recently at the wet track, it was fun. Standard starlet doesn't need much effort to oversteer very controllably in the wet :D


http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/6562/starlethv7.jpg

[jezza323]

nice work mate :)

tis much easier to control with an LSD as i have discovered.

[gaz d]

I gave this technique a try recently at the wet track, it was fun. Standard starlet doesn't need much effort to oversteer very controllably in the wet :D


http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/6562/starlethv7.jpg


Thats cool!

[stevebucknor1]

Trail braking is when u continue braking as you enter a corner, right up to the apex, when u change from braking to acceleration. obviously you dont brake as hard while turning as u would in a straight line. This is really very important to know.