Cumbrian blizzard - traction control - Hartside pass in winter - Koni adjustables

[kempj1 0]

Rambling little story for anyone who's interested.

Had a long drive back to London on Tuesday evening. Left parents in Cumbria at 5pm, and was back at their place half an hour later, having abandoned a shortcut to the M6 through very slippery country roads. Managed to get stuck in the bottom of a 'dip' with fairly steep hills either side. Ice covered with snow is not something that Eagle F1s pick up much grip on!

Trying to get out of the dip, after doing a beautiful spin at 5 mph sliding backwards back into it (no damage luckily!), trying to reverse out for extra traction, then resorted to reversing as high up one side as possible and then getting as far up the other side (without spinning/sliding backwards again), back and forth higher and higher couple of times until we were out again.

Then I discovered that the traction control is actually very useful. I was heading back to my parents along the same road that I had just driven and came to another hill - going up from a junction so there was absolutely no option of hitting it at any speed greater than 5mph. There was a small amount of gritted tarmac that looked slightly grippy so I got one of the front wheels on that. Being very gentle with the power, in 1st gear the wheel with no traction was spinning quite freely but being braked in a juddering kind of way, I think, judging by the 'Pagid' smell. This transferred enough power to the other wheel which very slowly dragged us up the hill. We took the main road to the motorway, and 5 hours later we were home - not a bad run really.

Although I'd prefer to have a limited slip differential, without the traction control there would have been absolutely no option other than abandoning the car and walk back. There's no mobile signal - in space, and Cumbria, they can't hear you scream!

I'd only discovered the traction control earlier that day when I'd got up early to go for a raz up to Alston on my favorite fast road. Along the bottom of the pennines the roads were completely trecherous and the traction control does help a little as long as you don't just put your foot down. When I got to the Hartside pass I stopped to stiffen up my front Konis. The road here goes from an altitude of about 600ft up to 1900ft in roughly 5 miles. Absolutely awesome road with one proper hairpin and several corners that ~when wet~ really need 2nd gear to pull out of as quickly as possible without getting bogged down. Although nigh on all of this road is up hill, in a standard-engined VR if you push it you could expect to easily hit 3-figure speeds in several places - even in the wet with snow on the road in patches. Eagle F1s are fantastic tyres in the wet - I found them really safe & predictable. My old GTi had Yoko A539s on and they were dodgy in the wet.

The car's in getting a low temp thermostat fitted at the moment. The engine got hot doing that hill climb when the ambient temperature was about 0 and the road was dicey - imagine what it'll be like when it's about 20 degrees and there's enough grip to alow a bucket load of fuel to be burned! I managed to average 12mpg on Tuesday's blast. As it was I had to put the heater on full blast heat to keep the oil temp from going much above 110 degrees. The sound of that whistling V6 with the sunroof open though

Unwind those front shocks and you get a ~very~ comfortable cruise home on the motorway. I'm running standard springs & don't intend to change them (speed bumps on my way to work). I will get a rear anti roll bar or maybe eibach pair fitted in spring, to make it more secure on the limit when it's dry. The handling's great in the wet at the moment though - no complaints at all. Even with the Konis on soft setting any sharp braking or quick changes of direction are much much more stable than with standard shocks. Stiffen them up a bit (I usually go fully one way or the other) and the character of the car changes completely.

Everything in the subject of this post gets a big from me !

[TVR6 0]

Sounds like immense fun. Me, I'm loving the wicked power slides in the ice. Puts a huge on my face every time.