Is this normal (on Mendip Excursion)

[paintman]

Dixie and myself went out on our Mendip excursion this morning as posted, unfortunately we experienced black ice and white roads ....... not funny in a tail happy s7 Hood!

Poor Dixie nearly cacked his self a couple of times and I must admit I was gripping my bum cheeks together pretty hard too!!

We were about to head down Cheddar Gorge but decided that would be a bit silly and headed for Hartley's instead for breekies.

On the way back I nearly lost the rear end on a straight flat road, causing the car to step out very agressively on hitting some ice on a rear wheel.

Dixie insisted that the car should not be so twitchy on a straight and on arriving back at his house we jacked it up and checked the diff. etc. for anything obvious.

What I want to know is whether this is normal for a kit car fitted with normal Sierra back axle and no limited slip diff. or is something definitely wrong.

  Tony

[Hairy Santa]

GOOD FUN ISN'T IT - he he

did you find anything wrong, might be worth sticking up on a ramp and do a bit of levering on all the rear suspension  joints

what tyres are you running and at what pressures, might even be worth having a look at your rear axle geometry

Is it def an open diff ?

only good point is you are now getting some good practice in for when you jump up to something with 350-400 BHP under your right foot

one last bit of info ( always carry spare under pants or wear brown trousers with cycle clips )

['The Gaffer']

Good advise Pete Not a bad idea to check things over.

Tony, thats what light kit cars do in the ice. I have had LSD and open diff kit cars, never driven them in the ice though (You nutter) even on damp roads and a bit of throttle will make the rear a bit tail happy either way.

[stupott901]

Tony sounds like your run out was fun !!!!

Well i managed to get every thing sorted on my car and took it out for a test drive just round the local area and that was slippy enough

[David H]

If you slam your right foot down at high revs in one of these cars on an icy/wet road.... I can guarantee you rear end will slip and it wont be in a straight line for much longer. Once one wheel slips a little (and this can happen even with an LSD unless you have a Detroit Locker) the dynamics of the drive change to add sideways as well as back and forth.

Hope this helps.

These cars are skitty. When I drove mine first years ago, I could find it much harder to keep in a straight line as the wheels (at the time, 15inch) were happy to tram

Do check the car over though.

[Krazyken]

At a track day last year I came across some oil that another car had dropped around the circuit.  Suddenly my car was all over the place and I was convinced that something had broken or come loose.  After checking the car over thoroughly there was nothing wrong.

Although oil is different to ice both have the effect of robbing your tyres of adhesion with the road causing some "hairy" moments.  There is probably nothing wrong but always best to check.

[foggy]

The same thing happened to me in the Hood,coming from the Suspension Bridge to the Downs, crossed over Bridge Valley Road to go over the Downs,there is a slight right hander,started to go around it,lost the back end,did a 360 and was just sat there wondering what all that was about.It had been raining very light--scary!