Oil On Road + Boost = Near Disaster!

[MLCrisis]

Hi all, I must admit that I am in two minds about sharing my experience with you, but in the interests of improved understanding of the cars we drive, here goes!

Just had a few days down in the glorious South West and enjoyed the chance to drive reasonably hard on some bendy roads - although there were only one or two you could really do it on. Lots of braking and changing gears, whilst taking care to line up for the corner and look around it, etc. All was going hunky dory and a fun time was being had by all. So, heading back from Eagle Bay to Dunsborough and I was catching up with a reasonably recent Suburu Legacy Wagon. He seemed to be issuing a bit of smoke, but not much. He was still a reasonable distance in front of me. Then as he went into a bend, he suddenly issued a lot of black smoke, but continued. I took this bend a bit more cautiously, but he was still OK as he went around the next and the smoke had reduced again. So I was less worried and powered through the next bend, in fourth (am pretty sure - may have been third), so I doubt I was doing much over 90 km/hr but may have been.

On the apex of the bend, the back end lets go really quickly and I am suddenly sideways with bags of opposite lock and foot right off. She came around pretty quick, more on the wrong side of the road than the left, a little bit of over-correction and opposite lock that way and then I was able to move her back onto the left side of the road. Fortunately, nothing was coming the other way - otherwise my 16 year old son, who was in the passenger seat, would not be here.

We were probably on the wrong side of the road for a second and a half, if that. The Suburu, meanwhile, was pulling to the side of the road about 50 metres ahead (where the car stayed for the rest of the day, looking very sick).

So I reckon that he dumped some oil on the road (my son suggested this immediately, which backed up my impression). But it also occurred to me that the boost may have come on just as I powered through, which would have contributed to the overall effect! Boost comes on at about 100 km/hr in third, so maybe I was going quicker than I thought. We did handle similar bends with no dramas prior to that, so I reckon that oil was the main contributor.

Net result is an important lesson for me to pay more attention to vehicles suddenly producing smoke and also to watch the revs when coming through bends. My understanding is that there are two points in the rev range when boost comes on - one is about 2000 and the other is about 3500 - is that right? (At different levels, obviously.)

BTW my R33 is stock, apart from pod filter, cat-back zorst and super whiz-bang R34 GTT stock intercooler.

Any thoughts and observations would be welcome.

Cheers.

[ix9]

Yep, that does suck mate, It's very easy to lose it with the tiniest bit of oil on the road.

The sharp boost curve when you have a 10psi bleeder/ebc doesn't really help either Are you running stock boost ?

[shmiddy]

gotta suck, would of been a fright man, another thing i think is real dangerous is some peoples sprinklers.. mainly parks, or if anyone travels through orrong rd to work would know what i mean, they leave there sprinklers on in the middle grass section there all the time, absolutly flood the rd, and at peak hour as people are in a hurry and bumper to bumper, its a mess

[MLCrisis]

Yep, that does suck mate, It's very easy to lose it with the tiniest bit of oil on the road.

The sharp boost curve when you have a 10psi bleeder/ebc doesn't really help either Are you running stock boost ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks - it is just stock boost and stock turbo. I would love to claim that I controlled it in a power slide, feeling like Michael Schumacker, but I didn't. I managed to catch it and keep it on the road, but there was a lot of luck in that, I reckon.

Definitely a fright, Shmiddy! But I was more worked up about it afterwards, when the "what might have been" sank in ..... .... ......

And I know what you mean about those sprinklers too!

Cheers.