Ice mode triggering in 2014 on Hoosier A6
 

Hello, I wanted to ask if anyone knew of a solution to the ice mode issues that the 2011-2014 (a friend who races locally with me in Virginia Beach had to replace the front bumper, bumper support, radiator, fender, and hood when ice mode triggered in his white 2011 GT Brembo package car at Pungo airfield, sending him into the trees, so this issue is not limited to my 2014 V6) Mustangs have once you go to the A6 for autocrossing? The reason I ask is that I just went to the Brembo calipers and rotors on my 2014 V6 that I run in ESP class, and on my last run today at Pungo, ice mode triggered at the braking point at the end of a 60 mph straight that had me pointed directly at the timing trailer. Normally, when this triggers (and it has before, on the stock rotors and calipers, just never this badly), both of us have been able to override by just releasing the brake pedal, then immediately re-applying, but it took four presses of the pedal for me to ice mode to deactivate (I was at the point that I was about to just put the car in the trees to avoid flying through grid/ paddock, or taking out the timing trailer). I have run with both braking systems on my street tires, and never had an issue, and never had an issue with streets or Hoosiers at a road course, only while autocrossing. I think that part of the problem was that the temperature was only 45 degrees Fahrenheit, old (very worn, not corded though) Hoosiers, 80% humidity, and 25 mph sustained wind, but I am not sure at all. Thank you for the input.

I've had ice mode twice before myself and it was very scary both times. See my other previous post about it. Buy the Boss 302 R/S abs module M-2353-CA and it will fix your problem for good. But your car will not have advance track from now on and the some of the warning lights will not go out but it's worth it.
Here is the ABS module from Summit.

This is interesting. I'd buy that module right now if it didn't trigger warning lights.

The lights aren't that bad. You get used to them being on. The hardest thing to get used to is driving without comfort steering. You have to give more inputs into the steering wheel when driving it on the highway that you normally do in comfort mode. But small sacrifices to not have your car try and kill you when you race it.

I may have had ice mode activate a few times, usually after accellerating hard and maybe spinning the rear tires a bit then immediately braking hard, pedal felt really odd and braking felt like less than half as effective, took a few sec and a few brake reapplications for it to go back to normal.

Not sure if this is what you are referring to and i dont know how to fix it.

"ice mode" is one of the most overly blamed things for braking mistakes ever. Yes, it happens, and when it does you get about .3g maximum braking. But it only happens the car seems something it interprets as ice. And you need to keep that in mind, because if you are getting that in the dry, commonly at least, there is something up.

Usually it's driver induced. Braking way too hard, way too late, and standing on the pedal. Even that on it's own won't do it, but add in some wheelspin and you can get it. Go directly from wheelspin to ABS and the car things (rightly so) it's in a low grip situation. This is just one reason it can happen.

Also it's not always ice-mode. I've been in cars where folks blamed that, when it was all driver induced non-stopping, non-turning because they tried to do too much of both at the same time. They feel the ABS cycling and blame it, never mind they came in way too hot, slammed on the brakes way too hard, and way to late, *then* try to turn whilst doing all that (often with way too much wheel).


I'm not saying you did that Jande063. But it's obviously something that changed about the way did something on that last run. Maybe not even anything you did wrong. Pungo is bumpy. And you were at the end of a faster straight. To be honest you likely didn't have wheelspin but can't rule it out with the bumps. And the bumps can also trigger ice-mode. And remember that you have more powerful front brakes than you did before which makes ABS intervention that much easier to get to. Add the bumps and stuff and then "ice-mode" is more possible.

But here's the thing. If you do get ice-mode much... it's a good sign you are overdriving on the brakes. :)


If you want to discuss more specifically, you know where to find me. This is one of those times having a guy around who knows autocross, and in this case the site in question even, might be helpful. :)

45°F plus old (heat-cycled) Hoosiers plus more front brake . . . hmmmmm




Norm

Yep, none of those things helped. More braking power. Grip was down vs. new tires, or even the same tires with more temps. The tire itself is not as warm in terms of carcass temp which makes it stiffer and less grippy, aside from compound temps and heat cycles, etc.

Again, "ice mode" isn't devil. It shows up under certain conditions. Understand those conditions and why it happens (and now it can be induced) and it really becomes a non-issue for most. I see this all the time at schools, and 90% of the time unless they are running some insane brake pads, the issue is resolved at the end of the day with no car changes what so ever.

Both times I had ice mode/ traction control turning back on did not involve braking at all. It happened both times coming out of S turns and getting back on the gas into a straight line. Traction control turned back on and tried to "fix" the loose grip that my tires were experiencing from getting back on the power. I almost spun out into a light pole the first time it happened and the 2nd time I would shift into 5th gear under full throttle and the car would lag due to the tires loosing grip during the shifts. But maybe my case was unique, but I bought the BOSS 302 R/S ABS module and fixed the problem of traction control turning back on.

That's an electrical gremlin, which are not uncommon with 5.0 S197's. Mine had major issues with power loss until a key cycle (that tore up the cats badly too). Ford never could fix it. I know of two other cars that after a couple runs have issues with the traction control interfering, but not actually being "on".

Regardless, that's not ice mode. Ice mode is exactly what the name implies. TC coming back on and interfering is a separate thing. It's possible that because the TC system uses ABS that when it comes on when it shouldn't that you get ABS actions that are not correct, and why changing the module (maybe a bad module) fixed the issue.