Enzo Ferrari '02
Test Track: Tsukuba
Part 1
I stumbled into a mini Endurance Race Online this weekend for Ferrari's only. I only owned the 430 and the Enzo and the 430 wasn't even close to the PP limit, so I hoped in my Enzo.
Now, I know the Enzo has it's issues and I think that's why I like it. I enjoy being in cars that other people aren't and when it comes to an Endurance Race you can imagine what people think when the see some random American show up in an Enzo. So my quest here is to find or create an Enzo designed to run with the 430's and 458's and make the doubters suffer in their arrogance.
I've chosen Tsukuba for two reasons. The first of which, is if you can make the car nimble enough to get around this track, it won't have any issue on the tracks that I'll actually end up seeing. The second of which, is the track is short and tight. This means I can easily get side by side comparisons of my ghosts to see exactly where and when each suspension characteristics are gaining ground. Finally, it allows me to test all of the 11(12 with default) different Enzo tunes to date without consuming
too much time.
Due to the quantity of tunes available, this will be done in 2 to 3 parts.
Part 1 - The Baseline
Knowing that this car will be condition specific I've only tuned it to a moderate level. Every upgrade is installed, with the exception of each Engine Stage Upgrade, all three of which have been excluded to keep the PP at a reasonable level of 632 with maxed downforce, which we won't be needing, due to it's natural understeer. So as the car sits, 1044kg and 789hp, 622/632pp Min/Max Aero.
Default - 52.346
I've begun with every setting at default. Brakes, Suspension, Tranny, LSD, Aero, Ballast, everything. I ran probably about 15-20 laps on Tsukuba to try and get a solid baseline and the lap time I've come up with is 52.346. In it's default form this car is an understeering hog that lacks front end grip, but I'll be damned if it doesn't accelerate like a bat out of hell. I'm not going to go into too much detail here, as anyone who has driven the Enzo stock, knows exactly what I'm talking about. What I do like about the Enzo and part of the reason I've picked it for this project, is that the slower and easier you drive the car through the corners, the faster you go. And any car that lets you get away with driving it easier, and rewards you with not only increased tire life, but also faster lap times, is an Endurance drivers dream. So to sum it up, default the car understeers on entry, exit, through the center, and I think I felt a push on the straight aways too
I'll be going down the list of tunes as they're ordered in the database, so first up will be RKM. RKM's Enzo tune is somewhat special in the fact that it not only marks their 50th anniversary(kinda) but it was collectively tuned by both Roj and RJ. Please keep in mind, that I'm testing the Enzo with only 789hp despite any of the tuners designs and I'll also be ignoring any transmission settings(for now) to ensure that no one is gaining an advantage from a part of the tune that I feel irrelevant. I want to find the best handling suspension and I want lap times to only reflect changes in said suspension, not transmission. It's my personal opinion, some may agree, some may disagree, but it's really not worth arguing. I'm only interested in how the handling effects lap times and tire wear, not the gears, because I fully believe I can have the best of both worlds in the long run.
52.988 - RKM
RKM's tune didn't mesh well with this track. I have used the RKM tune before with success on a separate track, but it didn't work for me today. I found there to actually be more understeer on corner exit than the default tune, but a bit more entry angularity. Unfortunately due to the Enzo's acceleration I think the tune that can get the car out of the corner best, pointed to the straight the soonest will probably be the winner. I also had an issue with the brake balance, but that can easily be changed to drivers preference, but I had some slight lock up on the front wheels under hard braking. The last thing that actually concerned me the most for this project was the rear end of the car seemed very skatey, with a tendency to kinda slide around. I can't claim that it actually broke loose at any time, but in a tire wear environment, it's not what I'm looking for.
52.168 - Avid
Avid, our long lost friend who has indefinitely left us. In the past I have had much success with Avid tunes, with the exception of one aspect, which was always their LSD settings. In all honesty, at face value, RKM's tune 'looked' like it was headed in the right direction. The ride height, the LSD and rear toe, all looked like exactly what I thought the Enzo would need. I have a feeling the front toe and spring rates are what caused the major set back. So, here we are with the Avid tune and the first thing I notice about the settings is... you guessed it, the LSD. An initial of 26 is pretty high by my standards and I thought it would kill this cars ability to rotate. But apparently I can't take anything at face value, because as you see, Avid's tune has posted the best time so far. Now, that's not to say Avid fixed any of the issues this car has been plagued with from the start. In fact the Avid tune feels very similar to the default tune. It doesn't roll the center as well as the default tune, but it had a slightly better exit which allowed me to get to the gas sooner and honestly I think that's the only real difference in the lap time between default and Avid's tune. If I had less tunes to test, I would Frankenstein RKM and Avid's tune together, because I have a hunch. Depending on what happens in the next 8 tunes, I might come back to this. So as for now, my notes say that Avid's Spring rate ratios, were a lot closer than RKM's and I think this may be the cause. RKM's rear toe, ride height and LSD combined with Avid Spring Rates have potential if combined.
52.019 - flashjuan
flashjuan has a total of 2 posts to date. 1 of them is this tune, which is currently sitting on the top of the leaderboard. I liked the way this tune felt, and I think it has to do with the springs. Lately I've been noticing I really prefer soft suspension. This tune gave me the best feel of being 'in the track' so far. It rolled through the center the best of all 3 so far, but it's exit abilities weren't as good as Avid's I must say. With the softer suspension, I did run into some outside tire spin on hard acceleration from center out. Also noticed, that the ghost was able to accelerate faster than I could, which I assume is LSD related.(Higher initial, better accel) The roll bars are a bit extreme, so for notes, I'm just going to note that I prefer the softer feel and feedback of this tune and I think if I combined the things above with some softer springs, we're headed to a solid set of notes, to design our own tune if needed.
51.784 - dLo GSR
This is an altered tune of the above. dLo said he had taken flashjuan's tune and spent some time tweaking it and I can feel a very slight difference. The car seemed to hold the same tightness through the center, for just a split second longer than flashjuans was able to. This helped me get a better line through the turn and into the straights, but I think Avid's tune still has the best exit so far. The outside tire spin was still present and on the exit of turn one actually gave me a few spins in the session. The only note here, would be that, as usual, I feel the lower the LSD DeAccel setting, the better.
51.679 - MrGrado
Another altered tune that originated from flashjuan. This one seems to actually be a variation of dLo's, but as you read above, indirectly flashjuans. MrGrado opted to use the standard differential, which according to the specs, is a 5/20/10 set up. I did seem to allow me to drive into the corner with more angle, but it didn't accelerate as quickly as any tune with a higher Initial. Other than that, there really isn't much else to say, because the differences are nearly non existent. The lower rear camber seemed to help the rear end stability on entry but that's about it. Notes: Lower rear camber was better, 20 accel is too low, 30 seemed to be slightly too high.
Enzo Ferrari '02
Part 2
Tune 7... Was a mistake upon further reading. I realized it was just a failed attempt at a quote, not an actual second set of suspension settings. So we'll be moving right along to #8!
52.193 - Uxi
Again we run into another variation of flashjuans tune. I gave this one some extra laps, being as that it's the first of the day, but even with that I was still only able to run a 52.193. I feel MrGrado's variation has been the most successful of the bunch. This one just didn't seem to hold it's line through the corner as well as the others.
51.602 - Woody3says
Finally we reach a tune that isn't just another variation. Although some of the settings are polar opposites of previous tunes, I'm interested to see how reversed spring rates and the odd shocks will work out. Uniqueness has seemed to paid off. Not only did this tune produce the best lap time thus far, it also had the best feel of them all, and the cherry on top, is that I feel this tune has the most potential to be improved upon. There were a few things like ride height, rear toe, aero, shocks and the LSD that I feel could be adjusted to benefit lap times. It was very smooth throughout the entire track and was also consistent. I ran multiple laps under the 52 second mark in my test.
51.472 - Gizmo247
This tune actually felt very similar to the one above. Very smooth and consistent overall, but somehow seemed to get off the corner a little bit, but sacrificed some late apex maneuverability. I'm not sure that's even possible, so I'm probably wrong, but regardless, I can't argue with lap times. I did see a very slight tendency to burn the outside rear tire, but I also think that's why it exits better. For the most part this tune was just barely ahead of the previous ghost for the entire track, it was the last large sweeping corner where it seemed to gain that time to become a new best. This could be due to a better line on my part, but it's hard to say. I suppose that's what there's more than 1 part to this test
51.510 - RVR
Now we're getting back into the regular tuners we've been seeing lately. RVR a rather young garage that seems to crank out tunes, which worries me as far as quality. RVR did well in my LFA test, but upon further inspection the values seemed eerily close to another large garages tune, which left a bad taste in my mouth. Regardless, a second chance is upon us, so let's see if RVR's quality matches their quantity. A note, is that RVR's tune called for SRF to be on, and I will absolutely have no part in that. It also appears to use ballast which I'm openly against, but it is what it is. Within the first lap, I noticed that RVR's tune had the best steering response. I'm not sure whether it's the ballast sitting on the rear bumper, or possibly, the very soft front spring, but it was nice. The car handled rather well overall. It seemed to lack forward bite and rear traction on exits. This combined with the extra weight of the ballast, hurt the cars acceleration, as expected. The RVR tune was actually ahead of the ghost after the last hairpin, but down the straight the ghost just powered away, slowly but surely. Another easily resolved issue, was that the rear end had a tendency to dance a bit when you release the brake pedal after a strong entry. Other than that, it felt good, I even had to double check that RVR didn't update their tune after reading part 1, because it seemed to fall into exactly what I've been leaning towards through the other reviews. An LSD like RKM's set up, a softer suspension and reverse rake. The ballast could be used to an advantage in PP races, so I'll keep this in mind for later testing.
51.783 - Praiano
Praiano's tune came with a disclaimer specifically stating that it's not for use on smaller tracks, lol. Despite this, the lap time is still respectable, the car handled well, but it just had more understeer from center out, than any of the last 2 or 3 tunes I just drove. This issue was also magnified under acceleration. I did successfully use Praiano's tune over the weekend on Monza and it seemed to do very well there. It got me the win, which is what's important
Part 3 will be conducted with the top 5 from test 1.
Enzo Ferrari '02
Part 3
High Speed Ring
Okay, taking the top 5 from parts 1&2, we move on to the High Speed Ring. What I consider to be the opposite side of the spectrum from Tsukuba, these 2 combined should exploit any and all flaws with the car. For part 3 we'll be reversing the order that they were tested in last time.
58.118 - Praiano
I'm quickly reminded of how much understeer this car has. In these higher speed sweeping corners, you're really fighting the car, just waiting, and waiting and waiting, for it to 'plant' so you can finally get back to the gas and enjoy the Enzo's powerful climb through the speedometer. Praiano's tune just didn't seem to rotate at all and under any form of gas application the nose starts going the opposite way of where you're headed.
57.822 - RVR
RVR's ballast takes the car from it's natural 44/56 weight distribution and pushes it to 42/58, right at the cliff of landing on 41/59. I don't expect the weight to be as much of an issue on this track, because your speed never really drops low enough for the car to really suffer from it, but I could be completely wrong. And, a side note, as I moved the ballast from 0 to +50, the PP
increased by 1. The weight did seem to slow me down a bit on the straights, but the ghost wasn't getting to far away from me. Maybe a car length by the end of the long straight. Seemed to have a strong corner entry with this tune. On the lower speed ess curves, it stays stuck to the bottom better than Praiano's, but on the high speed corners there didn't appear to be any difference. I didn't run my best lap until the very last lap(10). If I'm honest, I think it was only because of a single corner, where I just had a better line due to driver, not tune. On the other hand, for 5 laps in a row I ran 58.1's so this tune was just as capable as Praiano's. I'd be curious to see what would happen without the ballast.
57.984 - Gizmo247
Gizmo's tune was extremely smooth and consistent(handling wise). The car looks very calm and controlled through each part of the corner. But for some reason suffers from more understeer on exit than either of the 2 tunes above. I think there's 1 glaring defect with Gizmo's tune, that could really alter his tune and that's rear toe. All 3 of these tunes, would probably benefit from less rear downforce on this track too, but that's a track specific type deal.
57.980 - Woody3say
I just couldn't keep the car low through the corners and it was very resistant to any type of direction change once it had 'set' from the entry, so you're just kind of forced to ride it out and hope you make it through the corner.
57.617 - MrGrado
This tune has the best high speed agility. I could still steer the car even at the highest speeds, which was something I lacked in all of the above. The car felt good, balanced throughout and because of that it pulled the fastest lap.
57.617 - MrGrado
57.822 - RVR
57.980 - Woody3say
57.984 - Gizmo247
58.118 - Praiano
So based on both tracks combined so far, the 3 tunes that I'll be taking to the final(?) round will be
MrGrado, RVR & Gizmo247. The next round will be tested with tire wear on, at Grand Valley Speedway for 15 laps. I'll document both tire wear as well as completion time of the race to decide the winner.
Enzo Ferrari '02
Test Track: Grand Valley Speedway
Part 4
This test was performed in A-Spec > Practice > 1 Make > Tire/Fuel Wear: On > Grip Reduction: Real
4 Laps at Grand Valley Speedway, each lap, total time and tire wear all documented. All 4 laps were run as hard as possible, the same way I would if it was an online shootout for 4 laps. I tried testing 15 laps at a time, while conserving tires, but it was hard to remain consistent with all variables such as coasting, brake and throttle modulation, not to mention as tires wore down, the car was much more prone to slipping and sliding which added an inconsistent variable. So what I did, was run 4 really hard laps and re-started if any mistake was made that would alter lap times or tire wear, such as slides, or spins. Launched from the line at full throttle for all 4 tests. I tried to make it a controlled environment, and as you'll see from the following lap times, I must have been pretty damn consistent...
First off, I cleared everything, put the car back to default and ran 5 warm up laps, then a 4 lap test session.
Default:
1:52.729
1:46.179
1:46.627
1:47.001
7:12.536
Gizmo:
1:52.498
1:46.983
1:46.103
1:46.423
7:12.007
RVR:
1:52.641
1:46.153
1:46.566
1:46.896
7:12.256
MrGrado:
1:52.090
1:45.485
1:46.475
1:46.201
7:10.251
Tire Wear:
To be honest, the wear was the exact same across all 4 tunes with the exception of 1, which was RVR. The same 'wear' was evident, but where it was, was slightly altered compared to the rest. RVR's tire wear had the rear tires with 1 pixel line less than the other tunes, but at the front 1 pixel line more than the rest and also showed the Left Rear slightly more worn than the right rear. (Discussed below) All comparisons were done as accurately as possible, with a camera set in a specific position on my desk, with the picture being taken on the last lap, down the last straight, when the car reached 150mph. I then compared the pictures to make the best analysis I can within the limitations of accuracy.
Default:
Understeer, but stable.
Gizmo:
Oddly enough, it felt worse than the default as far as understeer goes, from center out, but lap times had a slight advantage.
RVR:
A little tail happy overall and I think this is verified by the tire wear. With more laps, I'd venture to say this tune could become a handful. It also stressed the tires on braking more than the other tunes, and can cause lock ups if not careful.
Grado:
If I'm going to be honest, I didn't really feel much difference from the default tune overall, but the laps times were noticeably better and corner speeds were just a touch higher. So I believe it has the same balance as the default, but just a better grip level at that balance. This makes it unnoticeable feel wise, but allows you to average 1-2mph faster around corners, which in the end added up to 2 full seconds over 4 laps. I really think the strength of this tune, lies within the rear toe.
Conclusion:
The winner can be none other than MrGrado. Winning 2 of 3 rounds, and staying within a margin of 2 tenths in round 1, combined with even tire wear, stable and consistent car lap to lap, makes it a unanimous decision. Although, I must say that in my personal opinion, none of these tunes are reaching their full potential. In the future I'll be mix 'n matching what I feel to be the best of each tune, to try and produce an unmatched tune among them. For now I can recommend that MrGrado's will give you the best results on larger tracks, with solid results on smaller ones. But if you're going to be focusing on smaller tighter tracks, you may want to take a closer look at test one and decide for yourself.
Front? Sure that you've tested the right car?
