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Jeff Smith's Blog

Defining Understeer And Oversteer

Posted August 18 2009 05:00 AM by CarCraft 
Filed under: Editorials

We’re going to approach the front suspension first.

 


Assuming we now have a solid suspension and steering system, let’s go over some simple handling issues and how to address them. Almost all production domestic cars built in the last 100 years are designed to understeer, or push, when the car has exceeded its lateral traction handling limit. This situation is where the front end of the car continues to go straight even with more steering input. Front-wheel-drive cars are especially bad understeering cars. The opposite of this is when the car enters a corner and the rear suspension begins to slide out. This is called oversteer, or loose. If you watch the NASCAR races on television, they have other terms for this—understeer is push or tight, which is the opposite of loose (oversteer). What most suspension tuners strive to achieve is a neutral-handling car that neither pushes or is loose. At some point later, we’ll break down the corner into corner entry, the middle of the corner (apex), and corner exit. Often you will hear a Cup racer talk about how his car is loose on corner entry and tight on corner exit. These are opposite situations that require specific tuning changes.

 

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