Traction Control and Weight

[maguromic]

Since traction control is legal now, I wonder if you use it if you still need to carry lots of weight for the higher speeds. After all there are several systems available that can do the job with in a thousand of a second that have been proven on some of the most demanding tracks in the world.

It’s my opinion that you would not have to carry as much weight.  I like to hear what others think.

[dwarner]

Talk to Ron Main about TC. If the TC gives up the ECU may think that the rear tires are going 250 and the front tires are at 0. Take some lead out to compensate and you have EGTs in the 1700 deg. range., or something like that.

Not a fan,
DW

[jdincau]

Here is the problem, It's not traction control. It's wheelspin control. The available traction is dependant on the vehicle configuration and racing surface. You can't use electronics to manufacture something that isn't there.
Jim in Palmdale

[Sumner]

Here is the problem, It's not traction control. It's wheelspin control. The available traction is dependant on the vehicle configuration and racing surface. You can't use electronics to manufacture something that isn't there.
Jim in Palmdale

Exactly ,

Sum   

[Unkl Ian]

My understanding:Adding weight is to increase traction at speed,to offset lift.
Less weight,at speed,would produce less traction.

Electronic "traction control" reacts to differences in wheel speed.

I'd look at mounting a bar graph on the dash,or colored lights,
that would display the difference in wheel speed,front vs rear.
Then figure out what allowable percentage to program into the
Traction Control.You might decide to can tolerate 10%(for example).

[Dynoroom]

Since traction control is legal now, I wonder if you use it if you still need to carry lots of weight for the higher speeds. After all there are several systems available that can do the job with in a thousand of a second that have been proven on some of the most demanding tracks in the world.

It’s my opinion that you would not have to carry as much weight.  I like to hear what others think.

All vehicles produce lift. Many classes can run only factory aerodynamic aids so if you vehicle weighs 2000 lbs. but has 400 lbs. lift at 200 mph can your traction control hook you up @ 1600 lbs.? Or if you can run a wing can you give up the hp? Some wings take as much as 80 hp to overcome the drag without said wing.
I'll say it agian, enjoy your traction control... oh ya, don't use retarded timing to control engine power.

[landracing]

Talk to Ron Main about TC. If the TC gives up the ECU may think that the rear tires are going 250 and the front tires are at 0. Take some lead out to compensate and you have EGTs in the 1700 deg. range., or something like that.

Not a fan,
DW

I think traction control is a great thing personally. Ron Main's malfunction is an example of how it should NOT be programmed. The front speed sensor broke, thus giving the ecu a 0 wheel speed in front and like Dan stated 250 something in rear. It would have worked beautifully if it was programmed different.
First, they took all the timing out to compensate for the difference in wheel speed. This is the problem. It took all the timing out and caused some extremly high exhaust temps, literally baking off header wrap. This in the end (my assumption) caused weakened valves and on next run they broke valves.
If this was programmed different they would not have had this problem and motor would have lived the rest of the week.
A better solution would have been to start killing injectors, no fire, no heat and you would have ended up with an aborted run instead of a motor failure.
The technology is there to do it, and make it workable.

Jon

[Dynoroom]

A better solution would have been to start killing injectors, no fire, no heat and you would have ended up with an aborted run instead of a motor failure.
The technology is there to do it, and make it workable.

Jon

Ahhh...... what a good idea.

[El Wayno]

What about the fully programable ignition boxes? Like teh MSD and others that were originally made for boat drag racing. They control the maximum rate of acceleration. That was the box that was banned from a lot of racing as it could be used as traction control. Put a maximum rate of accelration in for each gear and presto, no spin up. If it does spin up it acts like a rev limiter and pulls spark progressively.

[1212FBGS]

Traction control is a general term describing a devise that is used to control wheel spin or coefficient of friction of the drive tires to track surface…. kinda like “Kleenex” is to describe a paper snot rag…there are many ways to achieve it and one of the simplest is pulling timing out….. this method will give the least amount of power reduction and as in Mains case can cause damage….. There are many ways to achieve it, as John mentioned, you can kill injectors on a fuel injected motor… again not my favorite and a no no on a shared style of intake plenums… fly by wire systems can close one if not all throttle bodies to reduce power… my favorite is controlling the blow off valve on a turbo application, knocks off a lot of power fast without affecting turbo spool up. There are also many ways to detect or sense wheel spin… front to rear wheel is the most common but I prefer clutch inner basket to rear wheel cuz you can also kill power if you are over powering the clutch…. I got all that fancy data crap on my liner to anal ize… wish it woulda told me a rod bolt was about to break…..
Kent

[dwarner]

"Put a maximum rate of accelration in for each gear and presto, no spin up"

Viola!! no acceleration - a little known fact is that in order to set a record you must et to the 2.25 clock.

DW

[maguromic]

I was thinking along what Jon was mentioning.  Like Kent says, traction control is a generic word like “Kleenex”.  I was looking a the system by Bosch that takes the wheel speed, crank speed and ground speed and does the calculations to do the traction control.  With all three it helps eliminate errors.  In its simplest form would be to pull timing

I am not trying to get into if traction control is good or bad, but just trying to see if properly deployed if some weight can be left off, for example from 3000lbs to 2500lbs.

[tortoise]

Here is the problem, It's not traction control. It's wheelspin control. The available traction is dependant on the vehicle configuration and racing surface. You can't use electronics to manufacture something that isn't there.
Jim in Palmdale

BUT . . . A traction loss due to a bad surface can be minimized by catching it quickly, and electronics can do it faster.  It'd be no substitute for good suspension design, and appropriate driving wheel weight, but worth something. 

"Put a maximum rate of accelration in for each gear and presto, no spin up"

Viola!! no acceleration - a little known fact is that in order to set a record you must et to the 2.25 clock.

You would here set the maximum rate of acceleration at something well above what the vehicle is capable of. It might be useful to have a different value for each gear.

[Sumner]

Come on guys, do you really want to put all of your acceleration data into a computer and then just put the pedal to the floor and let the computer figure the rest out???

I can see some limited traction control capabilities to help in not blistering a tire by wild tire spin, but I still want to drive the car.  The record is part of the equation if you are lucky enough to get one, but they can't take driving the car down the salt away from you and I think that puts the biggest grin on your face  .

Remember it is traction control not traction addition,

Sum

[joea]

Kent....any chance you had some rods/bolts from falicon, I know
they do some nice stuff...just wondering...

your liner is great...it has some new and old technology working together...

tc is like anything else.....its great when it works.....

Sum, do you really want your ECU to compilate data to trim timing/fuel/boost/air fuel
rpm etc electronically and take out all the pride in mastering the right tune up
with manual controls...?....

Joe