About a year ago I had a particularly nasty spin and as I was traveling backwards the brake pedal went to the floor leaving me without brakes until I stopped. When I released the pedal and reapplied everything was back to normal. I had forgotten about it until this past weekend when Jim Reyenga had the same thing happen in a borrowed RX-8 (not mine). So apparently I wasn't imagining it and/or my car isn't defective. Any ideas/explanations on what's going on here?

 

Was DSC turned on? Could it be the DSC was fighting for control and not letting you have any?

 

DSC was completely off in both cases (i.e 11 second hold). We never autox with it on intentionally.

 

Believe me, I understand why. Could the force of the spin have moved all the brake fluid out of the base of the master cylinder? Leaving it against the side of the reservor? If this is posible, the piston in the master cylinder would be pushing air.

 

I would guess the ecu/pcm did it as some sort of ice mode program.

 

All those can do is interupt brake pressure from the pedal to the wheel cylinder. This is allowing the release of brake pressure somehow. Doesn't feel anything like ABS, more like loss of vaccum boost in a car with poor brakes. I've spun several other times and these two occurances are the only ones I know of where this happened. Both were pretty violent but ended up with the car sliding backwards.

 

Did the engine stall???

 

Then stop doing that.

 

Wrong pedal??

 

Nope. Both feet in.

 

Wow. That is scary.
I'm gonna go try to duplicate that tonight.

 

I keep telling myself that.

 

Ja, ULLLOSE says I have skinny wheels, why don't you get some like me?

Then you can really your 8 and have fun!

 

that's typical for most ABS systems when the wheel direction reverses while going backwards

 

Try both feet OUT!

 

i've spun several times while autocrossing and the brakes on my 8 do stop working
briefly while moving backwards. normally this is not a problem except for the one time
i got the car stopped about 20 feet from a light pole...

fyi, an ice driving tip. if you are headed toward a tree and your tires can't get any grip
on the ice to turn and the ABS won't let you lock up the brakes, turn your engine off
and pray you stop before you hit the tree!

 

yeah, but did you shake it all about ...

 

goodness gracious, that was painful

 

What is this all about?

 

you've never done the Hokey Pokey?

 

You put your right foot in,
You put your right foot out;
You put your right foot in,
And you shake it all about.
You do the Hokey-Pokey,
And you turn yourself around.
That's what it's all about!

I was making another "Hokey Pokey" reference.

 

Wasn't that the cause of the problem in the first place?!?

OMG, it's a recursion problem