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Re: 16V Handling -- a story of autox woes......




On Thu, 6 Jan 2000 14:47:54 -0800 "Shannon Fenton" <sfenton@amazon.com>
writes:
>In my opinion after autoxing my 16V for a season or so I only found
three
>negative attributes of the 16V. First off is that (in my opinion) in
stock
>configuration it understeers HORRIBLY. 


This is most ANY stock watercooled VW. Its not unique to the 16V. 
The reason your cars pushes so badly in the corners is quite simple if
you think about it. Your going too fast. Try to brake sooner and almost
creep around the turns while accelerating out of the corners as you go.
Allow the car to run a good line thru the corner and your times will
improve. Pushing wide thru the turns is not the fast way around any
track. The brain tells you to keep the gas pedal floored in order to be
fast. The concept of "going slow to go fast" is not only hard to believe
but its also somewhat difficult to allow yourself to do while your
adrenalin is pumping thru your system while out on course. Try it next
time, see what happens.  


>It may be my driving style and
>newness to the sport but the car pushed everywhere. I could only lessen
it
>by running 45psi in the front tires (which lead to a annoying shudder as
the
>car tried to plow off course. It just seemed too heavy for its own good.


If you are using street tires, you should be using high tire pressures to
maintain the contact patch. You might even need higher pressures up
front. Depends on how far the tire is rolling over. 



>Second off was turn in response. The steering rack ratio could be alot
>quicker. But I think this may be largly due to running 60 series tires
on
>14's. Ill see when my Revo 17's with 40 series A520s arrive next week.



If you have P/S its actually a good rack (ratio) for autox. The manual
rack requires much more input on the autox course. (It sucks!) 



>Lastly and perhaps most annoying is not being able to downshift into
first
>while rolling ARRGHHHH! I hate that,


You should NEVER be using 1st gear on the autox course other than
starting out the run. The time it takes for you to downshift into first
and then shift up to 2nd again is slower than just leaving it in 2nd. I
know it seems the lower gearing would be the fast way but its simply not.



Shawn Meze
86' Jetta GLi   82' Scirocco GTi   81' "Project Scirocco FSP"
The Fastest, Quickest, Cleanest and
best looking Scirocco in all of San Diego!
http://www.Geocities.com/MotorCity/Speedway/1308/index.htm

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