Causal Launching-Newish Driver

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Re: Causal Launching-Newish Driver

Post by Rope-Pusher »

[quote="Teamwork"]

As tankin said the car will let you know if you're abusing it... it's not going to just drop out of the bottom of the car on fire one day, randomly. /quote]
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Re: Causal Launching-Newish Driver

Post by theholycow »

Teamwork wrote:I would be willing for sure to help anyone but I don't have quality video equipment or mounts in able to get a good look in. :(
Footwork videos are fine with an old phone and there are a million ways to rig it. You don't need Hollywood quality.

If your headrest rises high enough, you can stick many phones/cameras in the gap between the passenger side headrest and backrest and aim it at the driver's feet.

Dollar Tree has selfie sticks that have a nice phone cradle that's threaded at the bottom with standard camera tripod thread (and screwed on to a telescoping stick with a flexible end); you can jam the stick between the seat and console. Sometimes they have mini-tripods; you can screw the selfie stick's cradle to the tripod instead of the telescoping stick (and BTW the tripod's legs are telescoping), then stick its legs in various available nooks/crannies like the passenger seat where the backrest meets the buttrest, or where the back seat backrest meets the parcel shelf. You can also use bungee or ratchet straps to hang the stick or tripod somewhere like the passenger seat backrest, or put a cardboard box on the passenger seat and jam the tripod legs or selfie stick through the cardboard.
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Re: Causal Launching-Newish Driver

Post by theholycow »

tankinbeans wrote:
MidnightInGotham wrote:Is it safe to safe to say I will know if/when I am burning the clutch and will it be very apparent even though I don't know what the smell is like?
You will definitely know.
Agreed. If there's any doubt then it wasn't clutch/brakes.
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Ewilon1988
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Re: Causal Launching-Newish Driver

Post by Ewilon1988 »

I had my first bumper to bumper experience the other day and it was well intense. My WRX has a non existent friction zone it seems so creeping up using just that is tough as all hell. I need to feed it some throttle to get it to move forward. Just wondering if this is a bad practice to get in to, but I see no other way. I'm not exaggerating about how you can blink and miss the friction zone. Thanks for any assistance
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Re: Causal Launching-Newish Driver

Post by Rope-Pusher »

Ewilon1988 wrote:I had my first bumper to bumper experience the other day and it was well intense. My WRX has a non existent friction zone it seems so creeping up using just that is tough as all hell. I need to feed it some throttle to get it to move forward. Just wondering if this is a bad practice to get in to, but I see no other way. I'm not exaggerating about how you can blink and miss the friction zone. Thanks for any assistance
Avoid extended time periods of clutch slipping. Better to wait for a car-length gap and move in short spurts than to try creeping along with the slushbox drivers.


So, why is your friction zone so small? Where in the pedal travel is it located - right down on the floor?....up at the top of the pedal travel?

Is this "Normal" for WRXs, or might you have air in the clutch hydraulic system?
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Re: Causal Launching-Newish Driver

Post by Ewilon1988 »

I was giving car length gaps when I was able to so that's good. It bites around halfway up. The car only has 6000 miles so I doubt it's anything like that
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Re: Causal Launching-Newish Driver

Post by Rope-Pusher »

Ewilon1988 wrote:I was giving car length gaps when I was able to so that's good. It bites around halfway up. The car only has 6000 miles so I doubt it's anything like that
If your friction point is not just off the floor, then you probably don't have a problem with air in the hydraulic line.

As to why it is difficult to modulate the friction, that could be because the clutch has not much cushion (the cushion spring is flat by design or by exposure to heat).

I would recommend to pause in letting the pedal rise after the clutch just starts to grab.....let the vehicle speed start to rise before you resume letting the pedal come away from the floor.
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Re: Causal Launching-Newish Driver

Post by theholycow »

+1 on pausing. I used to think that as long as my clutch foot moved sufficiently slowly and steadily then all would be ok, but in some vehicles that foot must come to a dead stop for a couple seconds mid-stroke.

In stop-and-go traffic you should have a lot more than a car length following distance so you can idle along and never touch a pedal while you slowly take up that slack and then they pull away again before you have to stop. Even in an automatic (let alone manual) it saves effort, fuel, and wear. Additionally it may fix the traffic backup for folks behind you. Most drivers who jump in front of you will soon jump out of your lane again anyway; but even if you lose a few positions (no big loss) you gain back some of your sanity (big gain).
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Re: Causal Launching-Newish Driver

Post by Ewilon1988 »

I'm going to try the pause and see how that helps me. Thanks for the advice. Anything helps
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Re: Causal Launching-Newish Driver

Post by Teamwork »

Ewilon1988 wrote:I had my first bumper to bumper experience the other day and it was well intense. My WRX has a non existent friction zone it seems so creeping up using just that is tough as all hell. I need to feed it some throttle to get it to move forward. Just wondering if this is a bad practice to get in to, but I see no other way. I'm not exaggerating about how you can blink and miss the friction zone. Thanks for any assistance
Hey man- welcome back.

Anyway with my limited but memorable experience with this car you definitely need to pause and drag a little. Like no balancing pendulum, balancing see saw action... literally PAUSE your left foot motion at the biting point (literally exaggerate a second) and progressively ease into the gas. Again, back to the basics here... go into a parking lot or out late at night when there's limited traffic to be holding up. When you get into 1st gear, no gas but try and get the car rolling with just using the friction point. Really drive home where it's at because even though you're committing to not doing no gas launches, you'll still want to know and muscle memorize where the friction point starts to begin and how big (or small) it may be. When I first started I was really kind of thrown off by the idea of a see-saw motion between the gas and the clutch. Maybe it was interpreted incorrectly by me but I made pretty big strides when I realized if I paused for a second it smoothed things out considerably. Just remember you're also dealing with AWD which I believe would translate to more drivetrain resistance and a fairly small displacement engine- I would have to think that you may even need to pause in the friction point to sync everything up longer then most people here without AWD.

You asked if it's bad practice to feed throttle in 1st gear to get it to move forward? If it is, then I'm doing bad practices 98% of the time. It's just really not rational to no gas launch on Long Island nearly at any time. I can literally count the working/logical scenarios on one hand and I can even vouch that even with feeding light gas and smoothing out first will provoke honks and fingers as well. Just keep the rpm's fairly low, steady, and then progressive as you're lifting off the clutch. I pretty much never rev past 1.5k and even if I'm doing that it's probably unlevel ground as the scenario.
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Re: Causal Launching-Newish Driver

Post by Ewilon1988 »

Yeah, I add throttle 98% of the time as well when casual launching(normally around 1500rpm or so). I'm gonna go practice just pausing at the friction point to see if it will help with no gas launching. Just sucks because like I said this car has a small window for the friction zone and you can move right past it. You are right about me having to pause at the friction zone in the car for shifting too. When I shift from 1-2 I sit at the fritcgom point for a second to let everything sync up before I begin to further release the clutch.
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