All things considered, the E34 is easier to control in an oversteer situation than a lot of cars. Things is has going for it include:
- longer wheelbase
- reasonable weight balance front to rear
- not a ridiculous amount of power
In the dry, it's pretty hard with these cars to get power oversteer. Just too much tire, weight and not enough power (insert comment from Martin here about Jeff's cam). You can get what's called trailing throttle oversteer - that's the effect when in a corner and you lift the throttle slightly, the tail steps out and the car rotates to the inside of the corner. Trailing throttle is dangerous in that it's what will typically cause a driver to spin to the inside of a turn when you overcook the entry to a turn (slow in, fast out...be safe, huh?)
Rob, what likely got your car to snap back is not the open diffy. I suspect when the tail rotated out in the wet, it may have gone further than you expected. Typical driver response to that is to abruptly lift the throttle to stop power oversteer. When done abruptly, this will stop the oversteer while at the same time shifting all the weight forward which digs in front tires and unloads the rear leading to the snap back the other direction. Next time, try breathing just a bit off the throttle vs. a full lift. This should be more effective. (I'd really suggest a drivers school and try this on a wetted down skid pad - harmless place to sort all this out vs. the street).
More than oversteer, in stock form, the E34 plows like pig with understeer. Understeer of course is a much safer handling tendency than oversteer because the natural driver reaction is also the correct response to recover the car. It's when you start modding it up that the E34 gets a little twitchy. But twitchy is very relative to what it could be - lots of cars are famous for being a lot worse.
So..yup...all things considered, the E34 is a pretty smooth and safe ride.
Last edited by Jeff N.; 01-09-2006 at 05:35 PM.
Bellevue WA
90 535iM - not much stock remains. 3.7 liters, ported head, cammed, 3.73 diffy, M5 brakes, MAFed, yadda yadda yadda
86 Porsche 951 - Track Toy