Hi everyone:

I was driving my new -8 in the rain last night. First of all, I'm completely amazed by the grip this car has - rain or shine. There's 270-degree on-ramp onto an expressway near my house that's marked "20 mph" and I can easily take it at 55 mph with no tire noise at all. Feels like we're pulling nearly a "G" of lateral load doing it.

And in the rain last night, I decided to experiment a bit with the car to experience what the limits are/what the expected behavior is when the car "runs into" the DSC/Traction Control.

First Traction Control - and questions:

Taking off from two stoplights, I intentionally tried to spin the wheels - again, I'm amazed at the level of grip the car has (or is it the lack of torque .. oh well, anyway) - it took serious effort to break the rear tires loose - then the traction control cut in, but very abruptly. The traction control feels like the worst wheel hop you've ever experienced. Is that your experience? The TCS in my Acura was much more subtle.

Then, I continued on, and as soon as the car got above 25 mph or so, the back wheels started to spin unrestrictedly - does the TCS have an upper speed limit? Since the car was going in a straight line, the DSC didn't cut in.

Ok, so that's my TCS experience. So then I went to a large parking lot to try to get the car to skid - either pushing (understeer) or loose (oversteer), to see what it would do.

First I tried just a very hard turn at about 30 mph - the car began to push and a split second later the "skid" light flashed, and I felt both the power and brakes pulse a bit as the DSC hauled the car back into line. I then started doing a "skidpad" circle - about a 60-foot radius turn over increasing speed until the DSC kicked in - I continued and found that I could drive with the gas to the floor, but the DSC would limit the speed to that which I could actually corner the car at the angle I was dialing in with the steering - amazingly good. Again, I was astounded by how damn much grip this car has on wet asphalt - it took serious "g'" loads before it started to skid.

DSC questions: It's obviously there to save your *** from yourself. Other than autocrossing where you'd want it off so you can induce drift and throttle-steer the car, is there any reason to turn it off?

Also, I notice that under hard acceleration that I can get the DSC/TCS light to blink and feel it cut the power when I shift at redline from 1st to 2nd - getting a "scratch" from the rear tires. But, that isn't consistent with my experience with the TCS and the speedlimit of that - since that shift comes around 40 mph.

Sorry for the essay, it's Sunday morning and I'm over-caffienated and avoiding doing real work.

Let me know your thoughts.

 

My 8 would take a 180 degree on ramp with approx 50 feet radius, speed posted at 25mph and I would do 65, as I exit the turn I can hear my front tires start to slip and chirp. As for stop light launches, I can chirp the rear tires from 4500 drop cluch with DSC on or off and spin the wheels in second also but than Im at 7500 and going up in second. ; - )