Literal Sidewalk Surfing... damage?

[jy116]

Its raining a lot now in Norcal and I was driving home so I decided to see how the car handles when its slippery... I got it to oversteer a little turing on a street leading to an on ramp. Pretty cool considering my stock everything and auto tranny. I wasnt trying to go all out or anything...

Later, I get off the fwy and the lights red so I decided to make the right turn that bypasses that intersection [turns before the light]. I was going 40ish maybe and the car slid a bit and, not wanting to hit the curb of the island on my left, I braked. I thought it would work since I wasnt too sideways. It didnt... it made me slide out more and i hit the island going pretty fast.

I knew it was unavaoidable and I think I had the sense to turn the wheel towards the slide allowing my front tires the roll over the island and the car to follow. I got over the ~4-5 ft island with a few thuds and scraping sounds.

More reason for me to stop being stupid and join SCCA or NASA to quench my "curiosity"... BUT now Im wondering what could be damaged. I didnt notice any oil leaking. Anything else I should check for damage? I know I probably need allignment even more since the car already had uneven tire wear when i bought it...

Anyone done this before? Any info or insight is welcome :confused:

[ZOLTAN]

Not cool.

Yay, another kid telling a story of how he hit something while being a mad tyte street drifta.
Good job, you successfully messed up your suspension. I'll make sure to send you a cookie.
Look, I don't want to come off as a complete dick. But, what do expect when you post something like this.

More reason for me to stop being stupid and join SCCA or NASA to quench my "curiosity"...
The only smart thing in your post.



.Eddie.

[Dousan_PG]

haha
please STOP BEING STUPID!

now you dont gone fucked up your car

um..jack up the car and inspect

or if you need someone to help

call your local mechanic.

be sure and bring the anal lube, it might hurt.

[aznpoopy]

i'm glad ur not injured and the car wasn't messed up. i hope u learned to know ur limits and keep the dangerous experimentation off the streets. getting the car to oversteer in the rain is pretty standard for any 240sx... or most rwd cars for that matter. it doesn't take mods to oversteer a rwd. it doesn't take skill to oversteer a rwd. bad jerky inputs in the rain will get your rear going. why do you think so many 240s are fukked up? better go back and learn what you did wrong. have you figured it out yet? also think about what you should have done to avoid the curb without plowing over it.

if you want to check for dmg, get it up on some jacks, break out the flashlight and start checking. sounds like you could've scraped up anything on the bottom of your car. get the wheels off and look at the suspension pieces too. besides that, if it was a bad impact you could've rattled something loose in the engine bay or what-not.

40 mph is way too fast for a tight right hander in a stock 240sx on wet roads, especially for an inexperienced driver.

[transient]

I'm going to go ahead and guess that you' were a FWD driver before this. Most FF cars can handle a higher entry speed than FR's so this kind of thing tends to be sort of common with newbs (no offence, but you fit the bill).

Definately use this as a learning experience tho, don't just hang around and feel bad about it. People fuck up and make mistakes, that's part of life. What makes the difference is whether the person learns from that mistake or not. Hell just a few days ago I was drivin my old granny wagon (I want my 240 back!) and I knocked a curb while going too tight on the corner. Luckily it only popped the tire and didn't do any more damage (I don't think so anyway, haven't really inspected the suspension, but it's alignment held so I think it's ok). I learned, tho, that I should be more careful about curbs being covered by snowfall here. It was basically invisible until the snow was wiped off it (unfortunately by my car , lol).

Anyway, enough rambling. Here's your assignment. Think about what you did wrong and post back about it. There are some skilled drivers here who can give you some insight.

Drive safe, and don't worry yourself too much. What happened happened, no sense in dwelling on regret.

[SilviaNinja240]

check the allignment, and if the frame is bent. It doesn't sound like you took on any serious damage, otherwise you probobly would have noticed soon after. You're lucky that it's not bad at all, be careful:)

[holisticbeatz]

So you fucked up trying to hot dog your way in the rain. Big fucking deal. Now everybody is jumping down your throat when all you asked was how bad could the damage be. You won't get any flames from me because I know what it's like to be in your position.

Moving along now. Depending on where you hit, remove the wheel and inspect your suspenion. If you notice a few bent parts, don't panic. I'm sure it could be replaced. You could use this opportunity to better familiarize yourself w/ your S13. Parts aren't cheap, so you'll have to shop around online. Use Zilvia and other forums as resources on how to repair/replace things. Use the SEARCH function, because nobody is gunna spoon feed you here. Good luck.

My $0.02

[citizen]

if you want i can help you check out the damage, im located in marin county. hit me up at [email protected]

[jy116]

Yeh... i kno it was stupid. Thats why I said "more reason to stop being stupid..." But thanks for the pointers...

Havent got a chance to get the wheels off or check allignment. I assume that means lookf for bent/broken stuff... I dont think it was that bad. I drove it for at least 30 min street and fwy last night and seemed ok. Maybe you guys are imagining me being more stupid than I am/was... :hammer: Ill try to get pics of that turn soon. Its just a common turn off from a main intersection

Apparently the turn was sharp enough [not sharp really] to make me oversteer a little, and instead of breaking like i did I should tapped em or pressed lighty so that the wheels didnt skid...
This is where ABS comes in handy right? Since this is in a chat forum... ABS stops wheel lock and thus skid right? Or does it totally not apply in wet conditions?

I agree, learn from experience/mistakes, AND learn from asking questions. Thats what forums are about right!? Flamers are just in the forums like weeds in a garden... or maybe to rub things in a little, like wax on a clear coat?! yeh... its late. im done

[transient]

Heh, glad to see you didn't get scared off.

Anyway, you shouldn't have hit the brakes at all. Hitting the brakes is a very common mistake in this situation. You feel you're going to fast, so obviously you should brake and slow down right? Unfortunately it doesn't quite work that way as you saw. When you hit the brakes you transferred more weight to the front of the car, taking weight off the back end. Less weight over the back end means less traction over the back end and, as you found out, oversteer gets worse.

I believe the best thing to do in this situation would have been to throw it into neutral to let the rear wheels get back to speed with the pavement and just do your best to correct with steering inputs. I may be wrong on this, though. I don't have anywhere near as much experience as some of the other members on this board. *cough*dousan*cough* :)

[Dousan_PG]

i hate internet diagnosing.....
but if you off throttle completely you'd probably spin
if you tap brakes youll rotate more usually
best bet, slightly off throttle (not completly off gas) and steering input to balance car to pull it straight again/keep it sideways (depends what you want to do)

just takes practice, i used to be scared too. its all about keeping a calm head and relaxed. when you freak out, thats when bad things happen.

i wouldnt start learning on street
imho, its better to learn in a safe environment (ie: track) then back to streets. at least you'll haev some of the basics of your car's handling and response down. hit up an auto-x and learn how the car feels as you grip through the course.

try a drift event or open track to go nuts.

good drifters are great grippers.

[gijoe69]

I hit a curb long time ago by accident and only thing that got fucked up was that bottom part by the door it sorta bent in a bit.

[Flybert]

Originally posted by Dousan_PG
i hate internet diagnosing.....
but if you off throttle completely you'd probably spin
if you tap brakes youll rotate more usually
best bet, slightly off throttle (not completly off gas) and steering input to balance car to pull it straight again/keep it sideways (depends what you want to do)

just takes practice, i used to be scared too. its all about keeping a calm head and relaxed. when you freak out, thats when bad things happen.

i wouldnt start learning on street
imho, its better to learn in a safe environment (ie: track) then back to streets. at least you'll haev some of the basics of your car's handling and response down. hit up an auto-x and learn how the car feels as you grip through the course.

try a drift event or open track to go nuts.

good drifters are great grippers.

Come on man. You're getting rusty. You didn't even mention left foot braking. That would balance things out, of course not everyone knows how to do it, but yeah, he should have done that.

[Dousan_PG]

if a guy is hitting stuff because of lack of basic techniques, left foot braking isnt something i'd recommend! haha

that's lke telling a newb drifterfirst day at the track
yeah ok
this set of turns here
come in top of third, feint, clutch in, ebrake, when you come to corner lock up fronts, pop the clutch, shift the weight for next corner, change direction of drift, on throttle and modulate,clutch in, pull the ebrake and downshift to second, pop clutch out and throttle modulate out


you gotta start small.

[HyperTek]

dont worry, my friend did this yesterday too, all in his first week of driving his car. im pissed cuz I wanted to sell him my body kit but now he has to fix his car... oh well..

[Tuck&Poke]

Originally posted by jy116

Apparently the turn was sharp enough [not sharp really] to make me oversteer a little, and instead of breaking like i did I should tapped em or pressed lighty so that the wheels didnt skid...
This is where ABS comes in handy right? Since this is in a chat forum... ABS stops wheel lock and thus skid right? Or does it totally not apply in wet conditions?


abs only works during the first 17deg of steering wheel angle (or is it wheel angle) i dont remember, either way, abs is for str8 line braking, it causes instability while turning

[jy116]

hm, the best "technique" would probably have been to go slower... :bash: . But thats no fun right?!

...Now I may be paying dearly for it though, my check engine light keeps going on! I just noticed it since that night. But hopefully its not major. Maybe its also due to me using Premium for the 1st time since i bought the car...?

I got the codes checked by a frends shop and its ECU codes 33 and 34 corresponding to Oxygen Sensor and Engine Knock Sensor respectively. Any ideas how or why? I dont want to pay $115 to a shop to guess for me... Maybe I smashed the O2 sensor going over the curb? I dont even kno where on the block the knock sensor is. Is it also smashable on the underside of the car?

pics:
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid97/p138c00e91768968997fd4a36455aaa66/fa095572.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid97/p19f72c1ba3283ae4b9d7f058e2c5d69f/fa09556c.jpg
*multiburst mode with a sony p-72