What about a separate brake pedal for handbrake turns?

Some people here don't like my what-if questions but
Ain't that what supercars are about? Doing the previously impossible?
If I posted about an aero brake some people here would have laughed loud. But now it[s a Bugatti Veyron feature.

Anyhow

What about a car with a separate brake pedal only for the rear wheels?
With a booster and hydraulic brakes.
This would make handbrake turns (immature but really fun) really easy.

Maybe even a another pedal for the front wheels?
For burnouts and close radius corner drifting.

But not everyone in the real world wants to do handbrake turns.

Laughing out loud is about right. Air or aero brakes were used in 1955 at Le Mans on the Mercedes 300SLR. No dinner for you until you finish your homework !!

Besides, there might be legal issues with an extra pedal to take driver focus and risk accidents.

There is nothing wrong with Questions, and no thing as a stupid question. But if you want people on a forum to take you serious, you need to think your subjects thru, do a bit a of research on your claims (ei Aero Brake and legal issues).
In that way people will discuss the matter at hand, instead of pointing out errors :)

I'm not sure if it was any good for handbrake turns etcetera but the Citroen DS/ID had a seperate pedal for the handbrake.

There's a bunch of cars that have foot pedals for handbrakes, but they ratchet on and have a separate pull handle to release them. The better solution is line locks in the braking system so you can quickly move the bias to 100% on the end you want.

If you put the brake bias directly into a pedal that swivels clockwise, counterclockwise I could see it being functional. Perhaps a dash button that would lock/unlock the standard brake pedal to allow it to swivel when hilarity is needed...

Mabey...

I remember a Bosch ad from years ago with pedals for each wheel to illustrate why ABS can brake better than you.

There was a model of Holden Toranas, I think LH/LX that had a pedal for the handbrake but it had it be released by a button somewhere. Being right hand drive in Oz I found the best set up was the HQ-HZ Holdens where the lever was next tot the seat on the right. It worked well. That said I haven’t done too many lately with the handle on the left. Lol.

The button on my mini's handbrake would pop off, which would cause the handbrake lever ratchet to be permanently released. This meant that it basically functioned as a rally handbrake, hold it on to lock the rears, just let go to release.

Rally/Drift handbrakes are generally hydraulically controlled though, not by cable. That would be alot easier than doing a 3rd/4th pedal. Ive seen some stunt cars operate with an extra pedal however, but i think that may have been related to keeping action shots of the driver unsuspecting.

I cannot speak for everyone, but I do not think your questions are a problem, in themselves. It is mostly how you present them that could be improved. For example, you yourself said that it is no fun having a forum where the last post is years old. Many of your suggestions have warranted fairly simple answers, of only a few posts. Consequently, the threads that are created for such questions will probably have only a few posts in them, and no new posts for years from now. Questions like those, such as the engine and seating location questions, would be best posted in the existing technical questions thread, instead of in new threads of their own.

The other thing that may help would be to change your phrasing of the question. "What about..." does not really have a clear answer, and makes the question seem more inane than it really is. You also seem to assume that no-one has thought of the idea before. You may get a better response by phrasing such questions without that assumption - for example "Why is this idea not used", because there is a pretty good chance that someone has thought of it, tried it and dismissed it, at some stage in the last 126 years. There is also a very good chance that someone in these forums will be able to tell you all about it.

I think you should be welcome to ask the questions, though, because they can provoke thought, and the resulting discussion can be interesting. In this case, I think that Sledgehammer's suggestion of a pedal-operated brake bias control is an interesting one. I would like to suggest a refinement. Instead of rotating the pedal, it could be operated, perhaps more intuitively, by rocking the face of the brake pedal up or down, or by pressing the top or bottom of the pedal, to determine bias. Side-to-side movement could control side-to-side bias, giving a driver a manual equivalent to electronic stability control. I would be astonished if anyone could master it, as an alternative to ESC, but it would be a neat test of skill. It would make directional control semi-independent of steering angle.

Existing cars, such as the afore-mentioned Torana or Citroen, could have the ratchet removed, or controllably locked open, from their foot-operated parking brake, so that it would function as a rally brake. This could be done very cheaply. I think it might be possible in the Torana by pulling the brake release toggle, and putting something behind it, like a bulldog clip, to stop it from re-engaging. I am sure that if anyone really wanted to, they could extend the conventional hand-brake cable or hydraulic line to the foot well, and install their own fourth pedal, at minimal cost. Hand-brake turns are possible using the hand-brake, so boosting would probably not be needed, with the force available on a foot-brake, unless the car is particularly heavy, or has unusually high rear-wheel grip.

The reason that it is not done with supercars is simple. Supercars would not go any faster if they had such a feature. Besides, as Brix says, I bet that some governments would have something to say if you included a feature, in a production car, that is specifically designed to make it easier to lose traction, for purposes of irresponsible driving practices. I don't think most manufacturers would want that image either, if they want to be taken seriously.

[quote=thebrochureman;979459]But not everyone in the real world wants to do handbrake turns.[/quote]

Same as not everyone wants to run past 200 or 150 mph in the world.
Not everyone wants to accelerate from a standstill to 60mph in less than 5 sec.
Not everyone wants to cornet at more than 1g.

[quote=Brix;979461]Besides, there might be legal issues with an extra pedal to take driver focus and risk accidents.
[/quote]
Agree there must be a disconnect option for security.

There's a bunch of cars that have foot pedals for handbrakes, but they ratchet on and have a separate pull handle to release them. The better solution is line locks in the braking system so you can quickly move the bias to 100% on the end you want.
They use line locks for drag racing burnouts and in amateur drifting.

Rally/Drift handbrakes are generally hydraulically controlled though, not by cable. That would be alot easier than doing a 3rd/4th pedal. Ive seen some stunt cars operate with an extra pedal however, but i think that may have been related to keeping action shots of the driver unsuspecting.
What true car enthusiast wouldn't want to be able to drive like a movie stuntman from time to time?


[quote=MilesR;979483]
The reason that it is not done with supercars is simple. Supercars would not go any faster if they had such a feature. Besides, as Brix says, I bet that some governments would have something to say if you included a feature, in a production car, that is specifically designed to make it easier to lose traction, for purposes of irresponsible driving practices. I don't think most manufacturers would want that image either, if they want to be taken seriously.[/quote]
That's what supercars are about: irrationality.

I confess I'm a Top Gear junkie.
So this reminds me of Jeremy Clarkson trying to turn off the traction control in a McLaren MP4-12C.
After a long turn off procedure he told he asked McLaren engineers why it's so complicated to turn it off.
They asked Why would you like it to turn it off at all?
He said because it's fun.
They said "Fun? Maybe I should look up fun in the dictionary"

Supercars are expensive TOYS.
It's not rational to buy or drive supercars.
If you want rationality you should buy a 4 cylinder station wagon or minivan.

Supercars/sport cars flourish when they are designed to be wild and irrational.
They go bananas when they become poseur cars.

That's why I love Top Gear so much:
Because they are not serious at all. They are the three stooges testing supercars.
So seriously: not to be taken seriously is the way to go.

From practical experience, It is not difficult to remove a hand from the wheel to the handbrake to do a handbrake turn.

In a manual car you need both feet working constantly during a handbrake turn, throttle + clutch to keep it from stalling. Adding an extra pedal is only going to slow down and complicate the process.

[quote=Big time;979577]Same as not everyone wants to run past 200 or 150 mph in the world.
Not everyone wants to accelerate from a standstill to 60mph in less than 5 sec.
Not everyone wants to cornet at more than 1g.[/quote]

[COLOR=#000033][FONT=Verdana]Yes, but this is a silly idea. Anyway like other have said, three pedals are enough having four will slow things down and make life a lot harder for handbrake turns which defeats the idea in the first place. [/FONT][/COLOR]

go watch a Ken Block video. You see that level next to his shifter that he yoinks when he drifts. yes that's his handbrake. yes its a lot stronger, yes it helps drifting. any proper drift car will have one.

Question, answered.

I could not quite work out how handbrake turns would be easier with a footbrake than a handbrake, either.

Also, I dispute that supercars are about irrationality or silliness. That is more likely to be projected on them by some of the people who want to drive them. Based on my understanding, supercars are designed to go very, very fast. How many slow cars have been labelled "supercars", based on their silliness? The Reliant Robin?

Supercar manufacturers depend upon their technical competence to market their cars. The people who actually buy an MP4-12C will do so because it has carbon ceramic brakes, a carbon fibre monocoque, and because it can challenge the performance of a 458 Italia, without catching fire (as yet). While I like Top Gear, I realise that Clarkson's approach is that of someone who is reviewing cars as objects of a fantasy, but is not actually putting his own money into it, nor having to translate that fantasy into an every-day reality. For the real buyers, who the manufacturers serve, there is a line between a car being the most extreme performance car that it can be, and a car that is impractical, undriveable, unsafe, or otherwise silly. For the amount of money that a supercar costs, I cannot imagine too many buyers making a deliberate choice of an irrational car. These companies still sell cars based on their perceived competence. They value their reputations.

Clarkson has had a Ferrari 355, a Lambo Gallardo Spyder, a Ford GT and currently has a Merc CLK Black amoungst others, so I wouldn't say his POV is out of alignment with supercar buyers. Also, if the news segments are anything to go by (grain of salt and all that) he does actually drive his cars around.

The average supercar buyer already has a practical car or two, so the idea that their choice of supercar might be something irrational or silly isn't too far fetched. Many do go for absolute [on paper] performance, true.. but in truth, that in itself is somewhat irrational unless you actually go to racetracks and drive it properly.

With the release of 'daily drivable' cars like the DB9 and the AMV8 Aston says they have moved from being a 3rd car to a 2nd.

[quote=Cyco;979649]With the release of 'daily drivable' cars like the DB9 and the AMV8 Aston says they have moved from being a 3rd car to a 2nd.[/quote]

Not in Toronto.

Interesting question and best advice I can give for your understanding is to seek out footage of the footwell of a rally car while the driver is doing a handbrake turn.

Both feet are already busy :)
You can steer with only one hand thus letting the other one operate gear and handbrake !

Equally a footbrake of two sides where say left side oeprated rear and right side operated front will make finesse difficult and if required heel-and-toe impossible. Left/right split braking would be a better choice if you wanted to do that anyway :)

As already said, best solution if required is to have bias shift by button or a seperate button to trigger and lock the rears. But suggest unecessary as with a lock-on handbrake it's easy to handle brake, clutch, gear, throttle and handbrake mid corner with the current pedals and appendages :)

I know that Clarkson is a supercar buyer as well, but my point was rather that the way that he drives on television, in a car that is not his, is probably quite different from the way that he would drive the same cars, after buying them for himself. I know that he speeds, but if he drove his own supercars the way that he does on television, he would need to replace the tyres every time he drives them, and would have lost his licence many times over.

In any case, most of his cars are from manufacturers with reputations for taking themselves seriously. Even Lamborghini have made their reputation around building competent alternatives to a Ferrari, albeit with more emphasis on style than outright performance, in some cases. The CLK Black is from the most serious manufacturer there is. His only relatively irrational choice, from a manufacturer without a reputation for serious performance, is the Ford GT. He subsequently returned it for a refund, within months, because he was so disappointed with its unreliability. It demonstrates that even Clarkson does not want to spend money on the fantasy that he sells on TV, if the reality is that bad. Even if you are buying a car for a reason that is not strictly practical, and can afford a high cost, you will still not be happy to find that it cannot do the impractical things for which you bought it.