Trail braking general question

Trail braking is to not manage optimum traction, but it's to help get a car to rotate into a turn and control the weight balance of the car

That vid is Great! All Driver61's vids are great, and they apply to both RL and sims.

 

This is a great description of the physics ... what I was trying to explain is the on track performance re making the rear end lighter. What I should have said is "to help make a car rotate into a turn". Trail braking does do that. I never really understood or use it as a technique to just maximize traction. If that's my goal on the track, I'll sometime use left foot braking ... yes, all my cars have been stick shift Trail braking is to help a car rotate to initiate a turn. Mid turn braking, using whatever foot is to help maximize traction.

 

Thank you! I'll give that a shot. My understanding of sims is way less than with real cars

 

Well.. To be faster into a turn you need to use maximum grip of the tires. Too much load on the tires = grip loss = slower.

Well (sic) : depends of the car balance. A front heavy car will have the rear end very lighter while braking, because of mass transfert.
So if you initiate turn while braking, rear end is lighter (again, because mass transfert), but you'll still need to release brakes to do so otherwise tires will be overloaded and you'll loos grip.


Trail braking technic is only about releasing softly the brake while initiating the turn, to maximize the grip of your tires, and also not upseting the car balance.
What you're talking about is mostly about playing with the car balance... witch is not directly related to trail braking as you can do the same thing with the accelerator

 

Ok, I may be saying the same thing in a diffferebt way ... doing what my grandma used to call "picking the fly poo out of the pepper" ... but isn't the max load on the tires during braking, and trail braking reduces, but still maintains , a load on the front tires while initiating the turn ?

 

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I always use trail braking as a method to help a car rotate into a turn. The goal may be maintaining max traction, but the action I'm after is the rotation. At the point of turn initiation, the load is almost completely to the front of the car, and trail braking allows the turn to be initiated while the brake is "trailed off". The load is reduced, but the car still maintains a heavy forward bias to the front, which is what allows the car to rotate. It doesn't really have much to do with the car balance. On the track, I can get any car to rotate into a turn using trail braking no matter what the F to R car balance is.

 

Got it!

 

Thank you! Thank you! That gets me at least 80% of the way there. I'm sure a little tweaking will get me even closer. I should have asked this question a long time ago. The response is now very similar to what I get in race cars. I agree with the need to press it harder, and for me, that's also a plus. The first time I drove my Atom, I swear I thought I was going to have to work out harder just to be able to use the brakes

Thanks again!

 

Of course you can rotate any car regarding the car balance.. thankfully otherwise, the Porsche 911 would never be able to turn
Mass transfert is universal regarding the car balance, but the more front heavy the car it the lighter the rear will be under braking. Witch can cause some sketchy situation if you're to hard on the steering => it can feel like handbraking!

That's also why the 911 (it's less true with last gen, but very true older 911) is a car that need to be trailbraked into turn, because you need to load the front otherwise it will understeer like hell.

 

What car/track combos in AMS2 are best for learning good trail braking technique? Formula Trainer at Silverstone National?

With both the Copa Uno and the Formula Vee, letting off the brake softly to me seems more about avoiding losing grip at the rear due to weight transfer, while with the Formula Trainer it seems more about transferring front grip from braking to turning. Especially if driving the Formula Trainer on wets in the dry.

 

To anwser your original question, I dont think this is a feature that can be achieved through your pedals.
I use a set of Heusinkveld Ultimate+ and they do a really good job at emulating the bite point feel of the brake pads grabbing the discs and it does help with consistency. However, I think the actual feel of irl trailbraking comes from your butt and the shifting of the cars weight that you feel through the seat.

The only thing that could mimic this, imo would be a motion simulator but Im not sure if current motion rigs have the resolution to do this, since unfortunately I dont have one.

 

Use your eyes to observe the yaw and pitch of the car. People have been trail braking in sims for decades without butt kickers and motion rigs. FFB is just part of the tool kit, it's not going to convey 100% of information needed for driving fast.

 

Ofcourse, visual clues are important and can help a lot.
But the question was if there are pedals that can emulate the feeling, and I think that “feeling” doesnt come from pedals but through your ass.

in a real car this is felt through g forces, the closest thing we have to simulate that would imo, be a proper motion rig.

 

Seems to work pretty well with me in the Porsche cup cars, especially if you reduce front toe as well I find it really pulls you into the corner.

 

Funny because I was thinking of trying those pedals out. Looks like I' know what I'll be ordering today. The FANATEC ones were a def step up from my orig Logitech ones. I'm pretty new at the sim thing and it took me about a month to move to the FANATEC ones. You nailed it too with the bite point comment. What I'd really like is something that gives me the closest feel to my race car. Once I get the controls as close as I can, then I may consider a motion rig, but I agree wrt their current state. Then again, once I get the controls nailed and the car reacting the way I'd expect, I may be happy. Thank you for the input.

 

That's great input for me. Without a motion rig, the only inputs we have are the feel of the controls and visual cues of the cars behavior on the track. I def need to pay more attention to the yaw and pitch of the car on the screen. Great comment for me. I think what I'm missing are the butt and inner ear inputs from a real car. From what I've been able to see, motion rigs are close but not quite there.

 

I can def attest to the comment re loading the front on an older 911. I'd driven newer ones, but my first drive of an older 911 was at the Thunderhill track in California. I barely managed to stay in the track .. 2 wheels off ... at least not 4