(ETZ)Esattezza Autosport! Lancia Stratos "La Italiano" Model added

Lotus Elise 111R




Tackling the streets of Paris


As well as TVR's, I have been a long term fan-boy for the wonderful Lotus marque. This is despite many barbs and quips from my missus (a big American car fan-girl) and my brother-in-law-to-be (who has owned two Esprits and confirms the truth of the mocking acronym of Lot's Of Trouble Usually Serious).

So it was with great pleasure that I took a request from a friend here (and at other GT boards around the Web) to dial in an Elise 111R with the power ramped up, Downforce added into the mix but with the tyres staying in the Sports Grade 2 category. The primary goal was to be able to hit 7' 15" laps of the Nurburgring, with the snap oversteer tendencies ironed out. But another important target was to be able to win the Pan European Series (European Hall) for maximum A-Spec rewards. Implicit in this was the requirement that when the chassis 'wore out' there should be no catastrophic degradation in the cars handling.

I set to work to achieve this with the basic strategy that I could wear her down whilst setting her up for the 'Ring, thus killing two birds with one stone, as the saying goes.

For a while, I made some headway but could not quite conquer the oversteer problem on braking into a corner from high speed over rough terrain. The break-through was to correctly realise that what was happening was actually understeer building up sheering forces in the rears until the grip level of the tyres was exceeded by camber change. A couple of tweaks to Ride Height and Camber improved things greatly and I polished the results with a change in Toe Angles.

On the matter of Toe Angles, the car will drive just as well with a reduced Rear Toe but I found that with it set as it is the car was much more predictable and forgiving, not requiring as much delicacy of input from the driver.



Enjoying the hairpin at Monte Carlo


The hardware modifications for this build are:

Racing Exhaust
Racing Chip
Stage 3 Turbo
Racing Suspension
Fully Custom Gearbox
Triple-Plate Clutch
Racing Flywheel
Adjustable Aerodynamic Parts
Fully Custom Limited Slip Differential

This gave the car 296HP. The custom gearbox is there for those who do not feel comfortable unless the box is set to hit redline in top gear at each track. I'm reasonably confident, however, that the stock gearbox would work fine in nearly all circumstances. On the other hand, I do like the 'whine' of the straight cut gears in the Racing Box .


The whirling of the spanners yielded the following suite of settings:

Brakes: Stock

Springs: 5.4/7.3
Ride Height: 102/111
Damper Bound: 3/3
Damper Rebound: 4/7
Camber: 1.5/2.0
Toe: -1/+3
Stabaliser: 4/4

Gears: Final 3.760 @ AutoSet 11
1st: 3.666
2nd: 2.515
3rd: 1.857
4th: 1.436
5th: 1.163
6th: 0.986

ASM/TCS: 0/0/0

Downforce: 12/18

LSD: 7/14/21

Ballast: 181kg @ -9 {giving a total car weight of 1041kg}



Turn 1, Lap 1, Monte Carlo leg of the Pan European series. Say goodbye to the AI, we won't be seeing them again this race .



Testing out the car's balance on the highest speed corner of the Paris circuit



Those two bullies just behind me were a major problem at the La Sarthe leg of the Pan European. Luckily, they spent time beating each other up too . Qualifying on pole for this race was essential, as was some defensive driving the first time down the Mulsanne.

The race that I was really looking forward to was, of course, the Nurburgring. I was confident enough in the car that, even for a 200 A-Spec race, I was happy to start at the back of the field to allow for some decent photo opportunities. My faith in the Elise was justified as I hit the front before we got to Kallenard on lap 1.




Teaching the Audi the importance of good corner exit speed just after the start of the Nurburgring leg of the Pan European.



Illustrating the value of mid-corner grip and poise to the AMG Mercedes.



About to get the door slammed in my face by the McLaren as I try to pass both him and the TVR in one go at Aremburg .



Got him in a risky overtake around the outside, over the bumpy crest just before Adenauer. The TVR got startled onto the grass as I popped through the gap it seems .



About to learn that I cannot out-drag a Cizetta in an Elise



But then he fails to slow down enough for Metzgesfalt and goes rallying.

sukerkin, for a long time I have wanted to state my appreciation for the quality of your photos. They are always entertaining and often illustrate instructive points of tuning and driving.

But today it is necessary to inquire if you are related to the illustrious Mr. Sherlock Holmes! You have solved a puzzle that has eluded me for the last few weeks as I've puttered about with my own Elise 111R at Tsukuba and Motegi, i.e., oversteer at high power levels. Your solution is novel, effective, elegant, counter-intuitive, and instructive. All hallmarks of the great detective.

After switching to your settings, the handling was a revelation: always precise and with the back end under control at all times. I never would have got there with the approach I was taking. Hats off to the mighty sukerkin!

After mopping up the Pan Euro (grid #1) for maximum A-spec, I took her to the El Capitan 200 to try for a million credits in B-spec. Here, I was confronted with strong rear tire wear and strong competition from the Motorsport Elise. On S1's, and after dumping ballast, adding wing and bumping TCS, the million was soon in hand. In your Elise, we have a true multi-purpose sports car, a winner all over the world.

Please keep up your great work here at ETZ.

My deepest thanks for such appreciation, my friend. As I ever say, when someone, besides myself, gets pleasure out of my work, it makes the effort most worthwhile 👍.

Effing nice review Dotini.

I really feel bad about neglecting ETZ and MFT during the tuner challenge, I'll try to get back early in the new year.

Keep up the good work old feller

Holidays over, I've rigged up the simulator again and am hard at work wearing down a Stingray in order to do some verification work for Dotini after his successful 200 A-Spec campaign in the American Hall {kudos to that man for winning every race in every series in the same car 👍}.

Well, it would appear that the Stingray is an immortal when it comes to the longevity of it's engine and oil. I've put over 2500 miles on her this month and the HP still hasn't dropped more than a handful.

So, to keep the doors open at ETZ, lest people think we've packed it in, I'll post up the special project I've been working on with the Stingray as a means of putting miles under her wheels and figuring out what characteristics she has at various rates of tune.

Chevrolet Corvette Stingray L46 350 1969

Supercharged 515HP Version


Catching a little airtime over Flugplatz

We've had some technically difficult briefs to deal with here at ETZ before but I can't think of any that have given us as big a headache as this one. It sounds simple at first:

Configure a Supercharged Stingray, carrying maximum Ballast, such that it can complete two laps of the Nurburgring on one set of Sports Soft tyres. The Stiffness (Rollcage) option must be fitted but no Aerodynamic Modifications (Wing) are permitted. The total time for two laps must be as close to 15 minutes as possible.

Even tho' if I had my way we'd leave the Rollcage out, that's easy, right? . It turns out that the Stingray is fine as a fun muscle car to throw around Seattle and such like but it turns into a nightmare when the horsepower is ramped up and the track gets seriously uneven.

She exhibts manic rear tyre wear, terrifying braking snap-oversteer, evil power-on oversteer, massively over sensitive steering (that can occasionally go 'numb' without warning) ... in a word "terrible". It makes you understand why Corvettes have the bad reputation they have.

Anyhow, I set to work and after several false dawns, have reached a solution that works. The one problem is that it breaks the brief insomuch as we have to run S2's at the back because, even with very high TCS, S3's just don't make it to the end of lap 2 in a useable state.

The hardware suite for the car is:

Racing Exhaust & Chip
Sports Soft (S3) Tyres at the Front, Sports Medium (S2) at the Rear
Supercharger
Brake Balancer
Racing Suspension (with Stiffness modification applied)
Fully Custom Gearbox
Triple-Plate Clutch & Racing Flywheel & Carbon Prop Shaft
Fully Custom Limited Slip Differential

Below are a few shots of the Stingray in action at a track day event at the 'Ring where we were allowed to put our car through it's paces against an impressive field of good cars whose stock condition allowed us to get past them quickly and get on with data-gathering. The event organisers were very good about letting us have access to their media coverage to get our pictures.


First victim right out of Turn 1. The TVR driver was not happy to be passed so quickly but he was outgunned in this case


Second victim between Turns Two and Three. American Muscle claims American Muscle.


Cutting inside the big Mercedes made for an easy pass as he set up for the technically faster exit line


The fourth in a quick string of passing manoevers, faking a move to the right and then cutting left.


The very fast Lotus kept ahead until we got to Schwedenkreuz and it made for a dicey overtake


The suite we came up with is still one that requires a fair degree of driving skill to handle at high speed. The car really needs either better rubber underfoot and/or some aerodynamic tweaks to make her more 'friendly'. That development is to come in a few weeks when we try for a high A-Spec win in the All American Championship series.

How it panned out is as follows:

Brakes: 2/1

Springs: 12.6/12.0
Ride Height: 109/129
Damper Bound: 6/6
Damper Rebound: 7/9
Camber: 1.8/2.4
Toe: -2/-2
Stabaliser: 5/4

Gears: Final Stock @ AutoSet 12 then Final to 3.410 and gears set manually
1st: 2.500
2nd: 1.800
3rd: 1.300
4th: 1.000
5th: 0.800

ASM/TCS: 0/0/5 (I know that's a shock on an ETZ tune but it helps make sure the rear boots endure)

LSD: 12/36/24

Ballast: 200kg @ -5



Getting a good line into Adenaur is still important as correcting a bad one is not easy when putting a tyre on the grass will have you sideways


A tricky pair of corners to get right is the entry to Miss-Hit-Miss. I'd recommend a dab on the brakes before turn in to shed some mph and get the weight forward. Then keep her straight and turn her on the throttle as you exit the second corner



As with Miss-Hit-Miss, the trick here at Pflantzgarten II is to minimise steering input by getting the line through the corners as straight as you can. The uneven surface here will otherwise give all sorts of bump-steering trouble


Coming home on the last lap. The Stingray is now pretty stable under braking so don't be afraid to enter the final chicane with the anchors on.

That's a great set of photos, sukerkin. Starting off with the one featuring an absolutely heroic amount of air under the car, accompanied by a caption of droll understatement, and later featuring those interesting shots and explanations of taking Miss-Hit-Miss and Pflantzgarten; it's all professional level stuff.

Although this almost archetypally macho American muscle car/boulevard sports car has little place at the Nurburgring, I'll gleefully do some lappery with your setup on my fully worn out sample, both at the 'Ring and at Seattle. I'm sure the setup that works at the Nurburgring will work just fine on most North American courses, especially since your springs rates look good and firm.

It took me 8k B-spec miles to get mine down to 336hp. But you'll need every pony this old girl's got to take that North American Championship.

Cheers, Dotini. I must caution that, even with all that research, she is far from a fire-and-forget or point-and-shoot drive. I'm not sure that without the throttle and steering modulation possible with a G25 that she will give much joy - let me know, however.

I'm convinced that the problem lies in a flawed downforce model, as she's great in corners when doing around 100mph but gets all out of shape when faster. We'll see once I get to work on the Winged incarnation .

Many thanks for those very kindly spoken words, S-Line. It has taken a great deal of work to put together the garage arrayed above and it is ever pleasing when someone appreciates both the effort and the results 👍.

sukerkin, I have spent all morning in innumerable Family Cup races at the Nurburgring, wringing out both your Stingray setup and comparing it with my own setup adapted from El Capitan. At length, I was able to approach your bogey time with both setups. But as you noted, this old girl has her issues with the bumps and fast swerves. And you are oh so right about the tire wear; all four corners suffered terribly, at least in my rough hands.

I was able to come to only one tentative conclusion:
Your setup with the supercharger has almost an extra 100 lb-ft of asphalt-ripping, tire-shredding torque compared to my setup with NA3, semi-racing exhaust and no chip. This both lowers A-spec and increases tire wear without significantly improving the overall elapsed time, in my opinion.

Although I leap to agree it is well nigh impossible make S3 rear boots last the course, I am going to respectfully suggest that dropping that horrid blower in favor of normal aspiration would certainly allow for better rear tire life, and to possibly permit a slightly revised approach that improves front tire wear as well by some softening at the front, possibly accompanied by other measures. For instance, do you think that the PD physics modeling of LSD accounts for higher values of coupling to increase inside tire scrub?

In sum, I do think your many manful miles of testing has resulted in a very feasible setup that goes the 11th mile to tame an unruly beast that has little inherent calling to such a demanding course as the Nurburgring; you have my wholehearted admiration for this and all your setups. Here, my critique is based on a measly 3 hours of running and is in no way meant to be anything other than affirmative of your efforts.

Sincerely,
Dotini

Aye, I do have to confess that the Supercharger is in the mix because:

a) I happen to favour them as a means of forced aspiration
b) I love the noise they make
c) It's cheaper
d) It's rarely available and that in itself lends a certain je ne sais quoi
e) It got me the horsepower figure I was looking for without having to use unremovable engine modifications

I did almost weaken part way through the tuning process and stick the high-end NA engine modifcation on instead but once a brief is started I prefer to battle it through if it is at all possible . Now I've reached a conclusion, perhaps I shall reconfigure the lady and see how she dances.

I do have another set-up worked up for a lower power-level and it is very different indeed but I'm holding that back until I've gotten the All American version ready so that I can present a Stingray 'package' for winning all the Amercan Hall races. After all, it was your inspirational 200 A-Speccing of those series' that got us driving down this road {take a bow good sir 👍}.

The Winged version I'll be preparing next (hopefully a shorter process ) will more than likely be using the NA3 engine work as it grants an extra 30HP and gives me the chance then to, as you suggest, play around with the exhaust and combustion cycle mapping.

EDIT: One thing I forgot to add is that part of the motivation for this work was to engineer an alternative approach to the one you so ably used. I found that once I'd solved the most basic handling problems the actual pace of the car didn't change a great deal no matter what I did to the suspension ... just the frequency of crashing steadily declined ROFL.

I know what you mean with regard to the supercharger. Here in America they are ubiquitous at the drag strips. It has long held a noble place in the history of motor sport, winning at Indy in the Millers, Deusenbergs and Maserati. It is said the sound of a pre-war Mercedes GP engine had the Banshee wail that would make an Irishman's socks roll up and down! And, even in the GT4 game, that 1937 Auto Union V16 at full tilt boogie aimed towards Antoniusbuche has the ominous sound of a WWII divebomber thru my 5 speaker setup. And your infamous British BRM V16 with its centrifugal supercharger is said to have a turbine that turned at 70,000rpm. Exquisite torture!

The new "See how she dances" version of the Stingray is completed. It's night and day compared to the supercharged model. The brittleness of handling is gone and she's actually a bit faster as a result, despite having a few less horses and running S2's all round.

I'll post her up tomorrow - I'm off to shoot zombies in Left for Dead just now .

Chevrolet Corvette Stingray L46 350 1969

Naturally Aspirated 509HP Version



Speeding away from Aremburg without a care in the world

Having spent 2500 miles of road time beating the unruly Supercharged version of the car into some semblance of submission but still finding her to be a rebellious handful for most drivers, we decided that we could not leave that as the only ETZ variation of the Stingray on the forecourt.

During development of the Supercharged car, we soon began to suspect that what was giving us most of the trouble was the vast swathes of torque during acceleration with concomitant overly destabalising effects of engine braking on car balance when trying to slow down.

Also, we tried every trick we could think of to hone the suspension, drivetrain and brakes into a workable package but every set-up we engineered had very poor tyre life at the rear.

So, the obvious thing to try was reconfiguring the hardware by removing the Supercharger and fitting harder tyres. We fitted the top of the range honing kit for NA engines and lowered the HP a bit more by fitting a Sports exhaust (rather than the Racing example from the previous model) and putting back in the stock engine management chip (i.e. none ).


The hardware suite for the car therefore becomes:

Sports Exhaust
Sports Medium (S2 Grade) Tyres
NA Stage 3 Engine Modification
Brake Balancer
Racing Suspension (with Stiffness modification applied)
Fully Custom Gearbox
Triple-Plate Clutch & Racing Flywheel & Carbon Prop Shaft
Fully Custom Limited Slip Differential



We hit the track and found that even without changing anything other than the hardware the car was transformed. We had suspected the ill-effects had come from the Supercharger but even we did not think that the change would be this dramatic!

We spent a couple of hundred miles trying suspension layouts to improve rear tyre life but nothing much helped significantly. The best way to deal with it is, as ever, to be smooth and gradual with the throttle and brake. By the end of a second lap at the Nurburgring the rears are still going to be well worn but good enough such that a tap on the brakes prior to the final chicane will see you safely through to the finish (it would be adviseable to watch the vigour with which the 'loud pedal' is pressed exiting Galgenkopf too).


The Shelby cutting up rough on my plans to take two places in one pass

A quick scan of the settings we spannered onto the car this time is enough to see just how much of a distorting effect the Supercharger had been having on the handling:


Brakes: 3/2

Springs: 11.0/10.0
Ride Height: 119/119
Damper Bound: 3/3
Damper Rebound: 9/6
Camber: 2.4/1.8
Toe: -2/0
Stabaliser: 3/6

Gears: Final Stock @ AutoSet 12 then Final to 3.410 and gears set manually
1st: 2.600
2nd: 1.800
3rd: 1.300
4th: 1.000
5th: 0.800

ASM/TCS: 0/0/5 (It is possible to drive her without this but again it helps with tyre wear)

LSD: 12/36/12

Ballast: 200kg @ -15



A fun Dukes of Hazzard moment . The Stingray shows a small lateral rotation due to weight transfer as I've just cut across from left of shot

Congratulations on your latest, revised Stingray setup, sukerkin. I loved it; so much improved!

I arrived at the destination with all 4 tires still with life, and the getting there was much more fun. I found the handling to be more predictable and forgiving, yet at the same time more thrillingly authentic. I can just imagine Walter Mitty driving this Stingray at the Nurburgring, and having this same feeling of slewing through the bends, tires screaming in protest, yet knowing there is control beneath it all and coming through in style without crashing is in no doubt.

And that basso profundo exhaust note, accompanied by loud backfires, added a heightened sense of drama that brought a big grin to my face. What a hoot!

I very much liked this - please keep them coming.

Very happy indeed to hear that, Dotiini.

I knew that the first version would not be winning many popularity contests because of the difficulty of driving her hard and competatively under race conditions. She's just too fragile in the handling stakes, especially if the control interface is a DS2 .

Who would have guessed that that cheap Supercharger would have turned out to be such a villain!? The extra money for the NA tune is well worth it if the driver is after a car to 'race' rather than a grin inducing challenge to make it round a lap alive .

I can turn my attention to comnpleting the fully worked up racing version now. Hopefully it shouldn't take too long.

Amped up build of the Stingray for the All American race series is done. Not perfectly matched for each track in the series but good enough to win in each case without having to have a set-up for each circuit. I'll post her up tomorrow night.

Chevrolet Corvette Stingray L46 350 1969

Naturally Aspirated 550HP Aero-Packaged Version


And we thought the Flugplatz gave us 'air time'

It's been a long time coming but here at last is the Race Tyred, be-Winged, high horse-power version of the Stingray designed to take on the All American race series for maximum reward.

The long road to this point has meant that the work for dialing this old warhorse in was quite easy. It was more a question of deciding whether to go for power or grip in the hardware choices and finding the right grid to go up against when it came time to spend petrol in earnest.

The grid was easy to determine. Fourth in the cycle from reboot, as Dotini had previously unearthed, works well for our purposes as, altho' it has the unfairly speedy Ford GT LM Spec II in the mix, it leaves out the Caparral 2J and the Panoz Esperante. Plus, it has three GT40's running and that just adds to the pleasure .

Note: This may be a difference between the game versions as Dotini notes that the Oreca Viper runs in this grid whereas I got the 'original' GT40 race car.

Some experimenting showed that, with the aerodynamic changes in place, it was possible to get R3's to run the distance at all the races in the series. The points reward was too low, however, which meant shedding horsepower (adding ballast adds tyre wear and we didn't want that). We settled on using the Sports exhaust as that gave us more than the power drop we needed and sounded good too, allowing the race gearbox whine to show through .


Trying to stay out of the packs way in turn 1 of lap 1

This gave us a hardware suite of:

Sports Exhaust
Racing Chip
Stage 3 NA engine rebuild
Racing Compound Tyres (R3 Grade)
Brake Controller
Racing Suspension (with Rollcage/Stiffening modification)
Fully Custom Gearbox
Triple Plate Clutch & racing Flywheel & Carbon Propeller Shaft
Aerodynamic Modifications
Fully Custom Limited Slip Differential


A nice perspective on the early lead

The settings for the car were relatively easy to spanner as we had the basics hammered out already. We just need to equalise tyre wear as best we could and calm down the tendency for the downforce to cause the Stingray to resist turning and then suddenly lurch into a new attitude. Toe and LSD tweaks did most of that. We found that our chassis balance must have pretty close before and our thoughts about a faulty 'downforce model' close to the mark as we discovered that simply cranking the wing angles up to maximum achieved the result we wanted.

Brakes: 2/1

Springs: 11.0/10.0
Ride Height: 119/119
Damper Bound: 3/3
Damper Rebound: 9/6
Camber: 2.4/1.8
Toe: 0/0
Stabaliser: 5/5

Gears: Final Stock @ AutoSet 12 then Final to 3.410 and gears set manually
1st: 2.600
2nd: 1.800
3rd: 1.300
4th: 1.000
5th: 0.800

ASM/TCS: 0/0/3 (It is possible to drive her without this it helps with tyre wear and the grid start at El Capitan)

Downforce: 30/30

LSD: 12/36/21

Ballast: 0kg @ 0


A familiar sight in this series - mobbed at Turn 1

A game 'feature' we think we may have found we could do with some confirmation of from outside sources. The Spec II version of the GT40 is the primary adversary in this grid/series and we found that if, whilst qualifying, we allowed the first AI car to pass us at the start of our run then the Spec II invariably qualified down the grid rather than in second slot (even if we subsequently overtook the AI car during the qualifying run).


How many hundreds of horsepower sit on this grid?

A recurring theme in the race series was that the higher powered opposition would be all over our rear end for the first few corners (especially at New York where a careful block or two might be necessary on lap 1) but then we would build up a lead of a few seconds and maintain it to the end.


Lap 1 at Laguna Seca and this entry to the Corkscrew is as threatening as the opposition gets at this race

sukerkin, thank you very much for confirming this old doll, properly fettled and driven, can win every race in the American Hall. I do believe this to be a distinction few other cars in the game can claim; i.e., to win each race in a particular hall. Although I imagine an '86 Celica 2000GT-Four 4WD could make a fair run at the Special Events Hall...hmmmmm?

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the racing as much as I did, and perhaps those specialists seeking the fewest number of cars needed to "run the game" may see fit to include her on their short list of pedigreed champions.

Thanks again, and may we lift high the cup of nectar for as long as life and light shall reign!

My pleasure, my friend.

It was a great test of my spannering endurance when I worked on her with the 'lo-cost' supercharger fitted but all that wheel time came to fruition in short order once I re-jigged her to an NA suite. With the Racing Boots and the Wing bolted on, the transformation was complete .

I have to continue grinding her down to prove that she can 200 A-Spec every race as her HP is still stubbornly too high but she can certainly win each (non-All American series) race with panache on the Sports tyres build I have yet to post up. If I can't get the HP down over the weekend to 'prove' it to myself by 200 A-Spec'ing each race, I'll post the set-up anyhow.

Thank you, kind sir 👍. It's good to get some feedback on the efforts behind these builds, especially when it's so positive .

Having trouble finding a 200 A-Spec grid for Laguna Seca in the Muscle Car series. Even with N3 tyres the best I have found is 197 A-Spec and that wasn't winnable without NOS.

I'm going to continue searching and experimenting to see if I can shake an appropriate grid out of the mix, in the meantime, as the basic tuning of the car is not going to change, I'll post the S-Tyred, worn down, max ballast version of the Stingray as promised.

Chevrolet Corvette Stingray L46 350

High Mileage 321HP Version




Hardware:

Optional Sports Exhaust (giving 325HP)
S1 Tyres (or S2 if the Grid A-Spec permits)
Brake Controller
Racing Suspension (plus Rollcage Stiffness Modification)
Fully Custom Gearbox
Triple-Plate Clutch & racing Flywheel & Carbon Prop Shaft
Fully Custom LSD

Set-up Suite:

Brakes Front 3
Brakes Rear 2
Springs Front 11.0
Springs Rear 10.0
Ride Height Front 114
Ride Height Rear 114
Damper Bound Front 4
Damper Bound Rear 3
Damper Rebound Front 8
Damper Rebound Rear 6
Camber Front 2.0
Camber Rear 1.0
Toe Front +2
Toe Rear +2
Stabaliser Front 5
Stabaliser Rear 4

Gearbox Final 3.611
Gearbox AutoSet 5
1st 3.345
2nd 2.250
3rd 1.580
4th 1.190
5th 0.950
6th Stock

ASM/TCS 0/0/0

Downforce Stock (Wing set to 0/0 if fitted)

LSD 10/45/18
AYC None
VCD None

Ballast 200kg @ -10

This gives 200 A-Spec at Stars & Stripes versus Grid 1 at Laguna Seca. The car has 321HP after 9500 miles of ‘wear’. BL 1’44.xxx.

Grid: Pontiac GTO 5.7 Coupe ’04, Chevrolet Camaro SS ’00, Shelby Series 1 Super Charged ’03, Ford Mustang SVT Cobra R ’00, Dodge Viper GTS ‘99

Knowing from Dotini’s research that I can use more hardware than I did above, I add the Sports Exhaust, S2 tyres and reduce Ballast to 161KG for Seattle. Got BL 1’48.7xx and 200 A-Spec against Grid 2:

Pontiac GTO 5.7 Coupe ’04, Chevrolet Camaro SS ’00, Shelby Series 1 Super Charged ’03, Chevrolet Corvette Z06 (C5) ‘00, Dodge Viper GTS ‘99

For Infineon, Grid 3 has the slow cars at the back and the Series 1 too close to the front. It also only yielded 180 A-Spec tho’ I did win by having the joy of seeing the Series 1 completely mess up on the closing stages and go grass-cutting in a big way . Grid 4 has the Viper on Pole. Grid 5 has the Shelby on Pole. So does Grid 6.

Grid 7: Pontiac GTO 5.7 Coupe ’04, Ford Mustang SVT Cobra R ’00, Dodge Viper GTS ‘99, Shelby Series 1 Super Charged ’03, Chevrolet Camaro SS ’00

This only gives 190 A-Spec, tho’ it does give a comfortable win. Try some more grids and find the same mysterious A-Spec reduction at Infineon. Obviously the game does not like me winning the series Prize car and then continuing to compete in single races. Reboot and try Grid 2 again. That did the trick. 200 A-Spec with BL 1’26.312.

Welcome to Esattezza Autosport Developement or simply ETZ an MKT organisation. Esatteza or precise/exact is MKT's Gran Turismo 4 autosport division. Our purpose here is to take factory platforms and develope them into race series competitive vehicles and also retain the maximum amount of A-Spec points possible. We specialize and some of the most elegant and exotica automotive marques in the GT series. Our Group-C competitive factory originated Tommy Kaira ZZII and Aston Martin Vantage are prime examples of our goal orientation. All our presentations are and will be thorough, giving deep and detailed commentation and illustrations to insure that the viewers have a complete understanding of our dedication and research but also keep them entertained as well. Our vehicles will have proven credability through various test and competitions, proving the unprobable and creating benchmarks in every presentation. We use this showroom as a archive for our products, and to make available for the public. We ask nothing in return, we tune to fuel a passion and its what we enjoy, but if you do have a review, question or comment about one of our products feel free to post. Also please feel free to put in request, perhaps something that you would want to see in the showroom or questions that we can answer please contact one of our lead engineers personally by clicking one of the name plaque links below.


Sincerely, Mark Turismo




https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/private.php?do=newpm&u=5285

WORKING AND LIVING THE DREAM...​

Because Soprano's other 'real life' work committments are eating into the time he can give to managing the front-of-house for ETZ, I've taken the keys, hopefully temporarily. I shall try to bring the model list up to date as soon as I can.

Model list updated and expanded long ago. The long hiatus shall have to come to an end soon or my PS2 will seize up from lack of use . - Sukerkin

New links added to front-of-house.

Links now up to date for front-of-house.

TVR Cerbera Speed 12

809HP Race Bodied Version




This car was a huge favourite of mine back in GT2 days when we could shroud her in a wonderful and effective race body. It was the mark of a tuner and driver back then to be able to take this car and bend her to your will. I recall, with great affection, doing ludicrously fast laps of Midfield Reverse in her. Since then it has languished somewhat as her immense power has not been matched by control.

Hopefully ETZ is up to the challenge of getting this monster back on the track and into serious useage once more. Our client is particularly interested in racing her but is not too concerned about A-Spec rating, recognising that 809HP is going to shred that anyhow . So what we are aiming for is driveability but also sufficient tyre life to do a couple of laps of the Nurburgring without having to pit for new boots.



The hardware we settled on was somewhat determined by what comes fitted to the car as standard and by what is not available for purchase {TVR obviously only made just enough parts for their own race team and not enough for everyone else }.

The suite ended up as:

Racing Exhaust
Racing Tyres (R2 grade)
Brake Balance Controller
Racing Suspension
Fully Custom Gearbox
Aerodynamic Modifications
Fully Custom Limited Slip Differential



Heading down into Fuchsrohre, the line showing how well the car handles the bumps

The biggest problem we had to face was, obviously, marshalling all that huge power so that it got down to the road and didn't simply rip the tyres to shreds. A lot of gearbox tweaking went on to try and solve this and we largely succeeded, taking an old 'leaf' out of the book of tuning about how to get ratios that are spread out enough to allow for high torque engines (sort of a reverse Tranny Trick). The Differential settings are a touch odd too and altho' they do make the handling somewhat 'stiff', especially when it comes to throttle-off situations they work very well to preserve the rear tyres.

The next big problem was getting the Twelve to stop in time for corners. This called for a fair bit of chassis balancing as well as higher than usual pressure values for the brakes. This of course had to be done in such a way as to not compromise the handling too much.


Blasting down to Miss-Hit-Miss

The suite we finally spannered on her is as follows:

Brakes: 5/5
Springs: 9.0/12.5
Ride Height: 83/83
Damper Bound: 4/3
Damper Rebound: 8/6
Camber: 2.4/0.8
Toe: -1/+0
Stabalisers: 4/3

Gearbox: AutoSet 21 @ 5.500 then adjust individual gears
1st: 2.025
2nd: 1.290
3rd: 0.980
4th: 0.760
5th: 0.605
6th: 0.493

ASM/TCS: 0/0/5

Downforce: 30/33

LSD: 18/38/18

Ballast: 200kg @ -6


Tackling Wehrseifen without a murmur

We're quite proud of how she turned out, we have to admit. There remains the muscular character that we like in TVR's, wherein you have drive her firmly and not be afraid of using the loud pedal to make the nose stick to the line. But there is also the driveability that seemed lacking before. We delighted in going over Flugplatz with the accelerator flat to the floor and only braking on landing to make sure we could stay on the road at the next corner . Perhaps our favourite moment was when we realised that she would dive into the Tiergarten Hohenrain Schikane at full pelt (about 220mph), only braking after the first element

Hopefully others will like her as much as we do.