RX-8Newb

Has anyone else found it easier to power shift from 1st to 2nd w/o traction control? It seems when i haul *** and shift with it on it bogs slightly between shifts, and without that on it barks and hauls ***.

StewC625

That's that stern little Japanese guy under the hood with his finger on the "I THINK NOT!" button otherwise known as "DSC-san", doing his thing! The "chirp" is wheelspin. Wheelspin is why traction and stability control exist - to stop wheels from spinning, sliding and doing anything but rolling and gripping.

I'll bet the traction light in your dash cluster blinks too. In case you don't know what's happening, when the DSC system senses rearwheel spin, it chops the power and if the spin is bad enough, applies the brakes as well - in this case, it's the power chop that you feel and call the "bogging".

Note, this problem is isolated to WOT runs to redline only.

NoTears316

+1... that's kinda what it's there for

RX-8Newb

i understand the concept of wheel spin . . . thanks.

Bloodline Rex

I read a post by someone who was drag racing his RX-8 at a local track and ran bad numbers with the traction control on. after holding down the DSC button for 7 seconds, it supposively shut off the DSC and traction control. After this he ran an average .6 seconds faster with he later runs. To get it back just shut off the the car and turn it back on. If its really nice weather out, I always just shut the traction control off.

416to212

Again Stew is spewing more uninformed garbage (I've caught him on more than one occasion).

The DSC system will monitor not only wheelspin, but lateral movement, throttle position, and steering angle too. In layman terms the traction control detect rear wheel spin but it does so by taking in account your throttle position, engine load and traction. Only a little throttle and wheels spin - TC thinks it's slick outside and intervenes. At a certain engine load and throttle position - TC thinks you need a bit of wheel spin to control the attitude of the car.

They both monitor your status in different ways and correct completely different conditions.

Secondly, the DSC does not cut power first. It applies brakes first on one or more wheels and if things get really hairy then it'll cut power. You've got your facts mixed up.

Get your info straight 'veteran' before you go around misinforming all the newbies you hate so much.

If you ever drove your car at the limit you would've felt all this stuff happening under your misinformed butt....

RX-8Newb

lol owned

tony_673

Wow. It must stink to be Stew right now.

Trekk

This post is stupid.
Common sense isnt so common it seems.

My car has no dsc/tc crap on it.

StewC625

Well, you're not entirely correct. You're also not entirely wrong. Just generalizing. Consider the situation.

What's the difference here is the difference between straight line operation in a traction control mode and lateral/stability operation.

You are correct in that in a lateral situation - i.e. you're going too hot into a corner, pavement is wet or whatever, and the front end begins to understeer or push - that the system's first reaction is to apply brakes individually to ALL FOUR wheels to arrest the skid.

But, in addition to that, Mr. Miyiagi under the hood also has the ability to chop power if the rear wheels are spinning - measured by the rear wheels turning faster than the fronts.

Now, I did make an assumption in this case, that the original gentleman poster here, was accelerating at wide open throttle in a straight line. In that case, since there is no lateral acceleration being sensed by the vehicle and because the front wheels are not skidding, being measured by their speeds being equal to each other, and by the fact that the rear wheels suddenly accelerate to a speed that's faster than the fronts, the system's first reaction is to chop power to arrest the wheelspin.

It's a very smart system.

One thing to be glad about, though is that it can be completely shut off by holding down the DSC button for four seconds - this causes the DSC system to be put in "suspend" mode - the only reset is to cycle the ignition key to off and restart the car. On many cars, Mercedes-Benz being one of them, and VW another, that stern little dude under the hood never takes a vacation. Little Hans in the Benz can hit the "I think NOT!" button regardless of if you've shut the stability system off or not. I had the pleasure of having a C55 AMG sport sedan to drive most of last summer due to a work project we did for MB, and it appeared that shutting off the stability system in that car only adjusted the limits of the system to a much higher point. One afternoon shortly before we had to return the cars (our company had 3 of them assigned to us), we decided to do some smokey burnouts with them - nope - Hans would step in regardless of what we did.

Now, notice that I was able to answer you in a polite and informative way, instead of being rude like you were.

Have a nice day!

StewC625

Oh definitely, it stinks to be me. Terrible.

My morning has consisted of checking my company's stock price to note that my ownership share increase quite nicely overnight, followed by sending my two youngest sons off to school for the last day of the year, and going for a run with my oldest son and then going out to breakfast with him, as he just finished finals week for his freshman year. After breakfast, my wife of 21 years jumped me while I was taking a shower, so nothing like starting the day with that good "just got laid" feeling as well.

After that, I came up to my computer, realized for once, I have a pretty quiet day - I informed my staff that I'm taking the day off tomorrow, then jumped on the RX-8 club board just to see what was up. I had the entertainment of reading how you young tools think that you've "owned" me with this thread, which gave a good chuckle - sort of like a young douchebag in a Civic that rev's on you and when you don't play, goes zooming by in a "ricer flyby" and then posts how he "killed' an RX-8 - and here we are.

I'm having lunch with my best friend, so I imagine we'll head off to a nice restaurant for a steak and martini lunch, and I'll knock off early so I can get a head start on our weekend trip - we're flying to my company's summer home in South Beach tomorrow for the weekend. Get to enjoy the beautiful topless girls all weekend on South Beach.

Yup, it sucks to be me.

Stew

tony_673

*Sprays down the other posters with a garden hose cuz they're acting like fighting cats*


In my car, all I have to do is tap the button real quick to turn off the DSC. Is this not completly turning it off? It seems like it is. Also, all I have to do to turn it back on is to tap it again. Am I missing something here. Please fill me in.

tony_673

wow......I'm speechless. Not only are you an *** to people, but a successful one at that. Cool.

StewC625

Nope - AS I UNDERSTAND IT - this does not entirely shut it off, which I think has been proven by other members on the race track - it can still intervene if things go to ****.

Now, for just plain wheelspin, the "tap off" trick does work to disable the traction control - but as I understand things, the stability system doesn't go off at that point.

Mind being the empirical tester for this? - go find a slippery blacktop parking lot in the rain and give us some multi-modal testing for this.

tony_673

As far as I can remember, I certainly felt the brakes and power cut with it on when practicing for autox. With it off, though, I don't think I've ever felt any kind of "intervention" on behalf of the car, and I've definetly spun out a few times. hmmm.

I'll pay more attention next time I try it.

StewC625

Interesting - yeah, the guys that track their cars all say that you need to put it into "suspend/reset" mode for it to completely go away.

I auto crossed my -8 once the first year I had it - very fun. Stopped out of concerns for big brother looking to void warranties by watching registrants. I used to be a HUGE autocrosser back in my college years, driving an '81 Rx-7 and a '79 VW Scirocco.

Stew

StewC625

Now I see why this guy is so nasty. His RX-8 is "Rental Car White" ... sorry dude. Now I understand.

tony_673

Is there supposed to be a beep or something to let me know that it is completly disabled?

StewC625

No, the DSC warning light goes on in the tach cluster and hitting the DSC switch more does nothing to turn it off - only thing that clears it is cycling the key.

tony_673

BTW, not such a pretty picture since you have previously said:

Not being mean, just poking fun.

StewC625

Umm ... drag racing an RX-8?

"ran bad numbers" ... I think the traction control has nothing to do with those bad numbers. My guess instead is a terminal lack of torque. Ain't no DCS tricks you can do to fix that!

That guy should be told to go find some twisties or a proper race track that includes turns in both the left and right directions!

VRZOOMZOOM

If you tap the DSC button real quick, it only turns off the DSC...........

However, if you hold down the DSC button longer say 5 seconds, you will another icon light up in the middle of tach with a rear end of a car with what looks like a slippery when wet symbol............that is your traction control turn offed.

so by holding down the DSC button for about 5 seconds, both DSC and TC are turned off as indicated by the instrument cluster on the left (near the fuel guage) DSC off and center in the tach (TC off)

Also, when you hold that DSC button for more than 5 seconds, you can't turn back on DSC and TC by pressing the DSC button. You have to re start the car to have everything back to default mode.

However, you are allowed to turn on and off DSC if you just hit it for one second, i'm assumign thats for if you are stuck in a rut or snow and need some wheel spin.

tony_673

Alright, I'll try this when I go home tonight.

StewC625

No worries - I think you've figured out that I can take a joke.

Yeah, I can't figure out what the hell she sees in me, but I'm not complaining - especially since in the last 3 years she's turned into a gym rat and has very close to the same body she had in college when we met, and let's just say that's quite hot - this despite 3 kids and being 43 years old.

Here's a picture of us in the Dominican Republic in 2004: https://www.rx8club.com/attachment.p...3&d=1131380311

tony_673

ooooooh! I never new that. Now I'm totally anxious to go try it! I've owned the car for a year and a half now and have autox'd it with good times too. I wonder how (if) this will improve it?