Pete. (l33t FS) said:OHSCrifle said:With failed brakes.. WWGRM do?
I've read sideswipe some cars. Find a curb. Turn the key. Other ideas?
Would a full on nascar checkered flag donut work?
Not drive a car that sticks at WOT?
Of course. But I'm curious if something breaks with your brakes.. and you manage to have the sense to do something.. what?
OHSCrifle said:Pete. (l33t FS) said:OHSCrifle said:With failed brakes.. WWGRM do?
I've read sideswipe some cars. Find a curb. Turn the key. Other ideas?
Would a full on nascar checkered flag donut work?
Not drive a car that sticks at WOT?
Of course. But I'm curious if something breaks with your brakes.. and you manage to have the sense to do something.. what?
Have never experienced 100% brake failure. Have blown lines a few times, and I find ceramic brake pads to be frightening when it is 40F and raining and you drive for an hour+ without touching the brakes and then find you can strain two legs on the brake pedal and not slow down for what feels like a minute, but is more like 3-4 seconds.
In that case I ride the brakes every few miles to keep them warm...
NickD said:In reply to OHSCrifle :
If you could get it to do it, yes. But with drag racing skinnies on the front, you'd likely just go straight to Understeer Nationals
This car might even lift the front wheels off the ground in the attempt. By the time this guy lost brakes, there weren't really any good options left.
If I could be teleported into his shoes, on top of putting the car into neutral I might've tried:
- Engine-threatening downshifts and/or putting the car into reverse while moving forward for destructive braking options - may reduce overall damage to the car if it works as well
- Depending on how traffic looks, try going into the intersection instead of hitting a car stopped at it - could be better options out there or at least more room for the car to decelerate after power is cut
- If a crash is unavoidable, since I'm wearing a 2pt belt and can't do anything about that, cross arms over chest and perhaps even lean my face close to the dash before impact to give it less room to accelerate.
I should add that I did once get into a crash IRL where I considered crossing my arms over my chest, but instead decided to keep trying to steer to avoid...I didn't give up in time and that may have contributed to shoulder and back injuries.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:OHSCrifle said:With failed brakes.. WWGRM do?
I've read sideswipe some cars. Find a curb. Turn the key. Other ideas?
Would a full on nascar checkered flag donut work?
Not drive a car that sticks at WOT?
Assuming you shift into neutral and just coasting with out brakes, activate e-brake and ride it out as far as you can coming to a stop as gradually as you can avoiding any hard collisions.
Reminds me of the time...
In reply to AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) :
I'm atrina kilda house.
The idea of having more than Camry horsepower on less than Festiva brakes makes me wince.
Crash aside, that's some serious project-caritis.
1300hp and can't take it to the strip because of the time and dollars sunk into it.
One time in college I had a throttle stick wide open in one the street. My immediate thought was "Stuck throttle." I turned the key and shut the engine off. It helped that I had been driving/debugging an FSAE car all afternoon before that. So I was very attuned to potential failures and how to react to them.
OHSCrifle said:Pete. (l33t FS) said:OHSCrifle said:With failed brakes.. WWGRM do?
I've read sideswipe some cars. Find a curb. Turn the key. Other ideas?
Would a full on nascar checkered flag donut work?
Not drive a car that sticks at WOT?
Of course. But I'm curious if something breaks with your brakes.. and you manage to have the sense to do something.. what?
I've experienced a stuck throttle multiple times and in all but one it's been a non-event that I managed with a combination of riding the brakes and turning the ignition off. The other time was in a 1,300+ HP Z06 Corvette that due to a really sketchy engine calibration didn't close the drive by wire throttle when I lifted for corner entry. Fortunately it closed before it did anything other than cause me to miss the apex by a significant amount but it got my heart rate up in the second or so that it stayed open. I'd like to think that if it had stayed open I would have knocked it into neutral but based on actual events I suspect that I would have just driven straight off the course into the tire barrier with the front tires locked up.
As far as actual brake failure is concerned, if there's time and space and you have the presence of mind to do it then killing the engine in a low gear, using the emergency brake if so equipped and hitting stuff as obliquely is possible are your options. I've lost brakes twice but in both instances I had plenty of room to stop before I hit things. I've also experienced brake fade (the pedal is still hard but the car just won't stop due to the gas buildup between the pads/shoes and the rotor/drums) and brake fluid boiling (no pedal) more times than I can count but I've noticed the symptoms before it was catastrophic.
Every time there's a conversation about brake loss and what to do I think about Jimmy Johnson. He's lost the brakes twice on NASCAR ovals. The first time he cut the car down to the inside of the track and got it to partially spin before it came across the corner and pounded the wall. After that he thought about what he should have done and decided that the smarter thing would be to put the car against the outside wall and just let it grind along until it stopped. The second time his brakes failed he cut the car down to the inside of the track and got it to partially spin before it came across the corner and pounded the wall. Despite being an experienced, skilled driver who'd thought through the exact scenario his lizard brain took over. That doesn't leave me much hope that I'll do better in a similar situation. The best I'm likely able to do is to try and avoid letting bad decisions and bad luck add up.
It's easy to look back with 20:20 hindsight and think about what the owner should have done - I'm sure he's replayed the wreck a million times and thought about it as well, but the reality is he panicked. He did put the car in N to try to disengage the engine.
I almost wonder if he should have tried to throw it into R. It would have probably grenaded the transmission, but at least that might have stopped the car or at least slowed it down to make the impact less severe. Again - 20:20...
The closest I've ever been to this situation was while driving on snow in my old conversion van 20+ years ago (and obvsiously still burned into memory). The 1990 E150 supposedly had rear ABS, but I never felt it working. Knowing the van would not stop quickly, I was trying to give myself plenty of distance to the vehicles in front of me. All was well and good until some kids in a pick-up decided to be cute and brake-check me with nobody in front of them (I could literally see them laughing). The van wheels locked up on the snow and then I started pumping the brakes to get them to stop locking up, but for the most part I was just a passenger. At the last moment, the pick up driver realized he was about to have 5000 lbs of Ford van turn his mini truck into a lump of metal and got back on the gas and accelerated away.
It was at that moment I understood the reason for snow tires - you don't need them to help you go - you need them to help you stop. Something I later confirmed with my 6000 lbs Cummins diesel 4x4 and W965 Blizzaks - those tires seemed to defy the laws of physics with how that truck could stop on glare ice.
Years and years ago I had upgraded the brakes on my trans am and ran a new stainless braided line across the kmember. Being young and dumb, the line wasn't placed in a great spot. The engine was pinching the line almost from date of install. One day I was doing a burnout and it ruptured. Definitely a brown pants moment hurtling towards a group of cars with seemingly no way to stop myself. Thankfully, the rear circuit remained intact and I got myself slowed down. And then my dumb ass crawled 10 miles home with my hazards on instead of having it towed. Only possible because of it being a fairly rural town.
That E36 M3 is freaky.
QuasiMofo (John Brown) said:The idea of having more than Camry horsepower on less than Festiva brakes makes me wince.
This car had something more in the ballpark of WRX brakes (and Koenigsegg horsepower), but when you're continuously dumping more and more heat into them while just tooling around on the street, the size of the brakes is just the countdown duration of the timebomb you're sitting on.
1988RedT2 said:Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:
I don't know Cleetus, nor do I follow his content, by my opinion is that you *are* what you give to the world.
Wow. I'm going to disagree (go figure). Nobody on the internet is exactly what they appear to be. Heck, the people we are at work rarely resemble who we are at home. All of us are actors, writers of fiction, pretenders. If this guy "Cleetus" wants to entertain by showing acts of stupidity, who are we to judge him? The guy could be a Harvard PhD. If we come to the internet looking for honesty, we've clearly been duped, and come to the wrong place.
That's actually the key. A persons internal justifications for the worst of what they give this world, regardless of whether it's their public, private, or online persona doing it, is what they TRULY are. The rest is the 'act' that people use to try to hide and/or make up for it.
If you're a genuinely terrible person in public, but the worlds best person in private and online... You're a genuinely terrible person.
If you're a genuinely terrible person online, but the worlds best person in private and public... You're a genuinely terrible person.
If you're a genuinely terrible person in private, but the worlds best person online and in public... You're a genuinely terrible person.
TL et al.
When I bought my 987, I said no mods until it is paid off. When I did, my first two purchases were exhaust and big brakes.
I like big brakes and I cannot lie.
1988RedT2 said:...If this guy "Cleetus" wants to entertain by showing acts of stupidity, who are we to judge him? The guy could be a Harvard PhD...
He was set to either start school or already had, to become a lawyer. Then his channel took off and he set school aside.
kb58 said:1988RedT2 said:...If this guy "Cleetus" wants to entertain by showing acts of stupidity, who are we to judge him? The guy could be a Harvard PhD...
He was set to either start school or already had, to become a lawyer. Then his channel took off and he set school aside.
I think he actually has his law degree. He's actually a pretty smart guy, he just plays dumb sometimes, but he's smart enough to know what he doesn't know, and when he's in over his head and to turn things over to an expert like Kevin Smith or Steve Morris or Dr. Tune'EmAll. And like somebody else says, they typically don't make the same mistake twice (except for starting new engines with the turbo oil lines disconnected, they always seem to accidentally do that) and are upfront about their mistakes when they make them.
Getting way off topic here, but I also wouldn't say he's "the worst of our hobby" or however it was said. He's a good person to his friends and his fans, he's a good sportsman, he's pretty humble and upfront when he screws up, when in a racecar they take seriously pretty seriously (cages, harnesses, helmets, gloves, firesuits, everything up to spec) and doesn't condone street racing or really horse around on the street.
<---Garret fan. Smart, keeps his Cleetus and FF business separate, a nut, takes care of his people. I could go on.
Most that do not like him are jealous.
In regards to Cleetus, I'm all for him. He's actually my type of guy. I'm glad that he' is getting paid to have fun in our hobby. I wish that I was. No jealousy at all.
Looks like it would've stopped just fine if he had the brain power to shove it into neutral
kevlarcorolla said:Looks like it would've stopped just fine if he had the brain power to shove it into neutral
Doesn't look or sound like he was in drive anymore.. Looked like a B&M Megashifter and he tried to put it in park. You can hear the pawl in the trans chattering just before impact. I've heard that sound too many times in my life as a passenger.
Curious - the commenter above said the driver should have shut the car off and downshifted for engine braking.
with an automatic, would It have just coasted (just like you can push an automatic car around in any gear besides park with the engine off) or would it have slowed it down?
In reply to jfryjfry :
It would have slowed down, just the same as you have engine braking with the engine running. Once up over the stall speed, the clutches stay applied because the pump is turning because the torque converter is spinning because it is over the stall speed and the clutches are applied.
Once the engine stopped turning, then the pump would stop pumping, but at that point there would be little/no engine braking anyway because you would have to be well below the stall speed for the engine to be able to stop turning in the first place.
The big issue I have (and the reason I don't have sympathy for anyone but the people they hit), is not just the chain of berkeley ups, but the length of time between the first one and the last one. If a system is well designed, there needs to be multiple failures before something really bad happens. The other factor is there needs to be time to act on the failures. I can understand if things go wrong in just a few seconds (NASCAR brake failure example above), but this one required knowingly driving a car on the street, that required dragging the brakes to keep it at "safe" speeds. They had several minutes at least to self correct and shut down the car before the brakes ultimately failed. So yeah, the brakes did not "suddenly" fail. They were murdered.
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