Highlandor, your post has some excellent suggestions, but... and I don't mean to sound rude...I reckon your claims about "common knowledge", "everybody knows", etc are going a bit far."
Yes, true, it's the way I speak and words I use, plus I tend to be a bit presumptious about people sometimes.
When I mean "everyone" and "common knowledge" I'm talking about a certian group(s) of people (that just happen to be mostly the people I know on GT5, race with, chill out with and bounce idea's off with). I tend to speak like this in real life, so when I type I use the same language.
There is an element of driver preference in the balancing of spring vs roll bar strength. People have different ideas about how much dive, squat and roll they want to feel, so there are many tunes which "feel right" to some people even though you would call their settings "unmatched".
Even if the handling behaves the "correct" way if you use the method you posted, this is a very narrow set of tuning possibilities to base a universal "springs, dampers and anti-roll bars work correctly" theory on.
Yes, I'm 100% aware of this, this is why I said that once you hvae a basic tune it needs to be tweaked to suit another person's driving style and equiptment.
One of my closest GT5 friends is now convinced of this method of tuning, BUT his driving style and wheel setup is completely different. He still starts each tune via the weight ditribution and % theory, he also matches his springs, dampers and roll bars accordingly - and says his cars have never felt better.
But, we'll have very slight differences between dampers and roll bars - possibly -1 or +1. The affect of a simple click on the roll bar or dampers can be dramatic though, it can completely change a car's handling when tuning this way. As I said, you need to tweak one click at a time, then suddenly, the car will come alive - it's a real knife edge, but when you hit the sweat spot, it's instant handling nirvana.
He likes his cars really loose at the back, I don't, I like my cars to be 'planted'.
I reckon the "observations on suspension settings" thread (aka "which settings are backwards") will continue until the end of time without any consensus
...so I don't think it is valid to state that "everyone knows this"
It has been covered so many times because people have very different perceptions of what is happening. It won't ever be common knowledge while people have vastly different opinions on the issue and it's unlikely we'll ever be able to prove what is "right".
Yeah, I've got that thread saved and read it loads.
Think of these two things:
1) The entire scientific community and ship building industry used to say the highest sea born wave possible was 12 metres. So every sea going ship ws built to withstand waves of 12 metres, because it was scientifically impossible for a sea born wave to go higher (not a breaking wave on a beach - a sea born wave that remains at sea).
An American professor teaching in Italy had this crazy theory that waves could in fact be unlimited - everyone laughed at him when he published his theory.
Then in 1996, in the North sea in the English channel, a wave of over 20 metres was recorded (this was famously know as the New Years Wave) - after much extensive further investigation, it was found that at least one wave of up to 30 metres was happening at any given moment throughout the worlds seas, other waves of over 20 metres were happening in virtually every sea across the world.
He proved the entire scientific comminity and shipping industry wrong - just on a crazy theory, and now everyone has to look at his theory and forget what they previously had always known and relied on.
(I like that man - nice one Al).
2) More apt to GT5. Look at ballast - if you add ballast to an umodified car, it changes the handling right?
So, within GT5 somewhere, there must be somethng to do with the weight distribution of the car that is linked to the program, equaton, calculation, code or 'whatever' that tells the physics engine of the game to make the car act the way it does and change when ballast is added.
So weight distribution must be recognised in the physics engine that calculates the handling of a car, somehow, or at least it's an 'important' factor.
Take a car with poor weight distribution, say 60-40 like the Evora or the HPA Audi TT, work this theory on those cars, you'll have low springs and dampers where the weight is 40% and high where the weight is 60%.
The anti roll bars would be reversed, so they'll be tight where the weight is 40% and loose at the 60% end.
Try this, then 'reverse' it (i.e left hand side theory) - see how different the car feels.
As mentioned before, the Evora has very hard springs naturally, so I won't increase their stifness, but I use this theory on all cars now and pretty much 8/10 will be running 20% stiffer springs and 1/10 will be 10% stiffer springs, and the final 1/10 that already have really stiff suspension I don't make it any more stiff, it's good enough as it is.
Here's an example of what I do:
HPA Audi TT (the one I use for my race series - rules are 585pp - racing hard tyres - no power limiter or ballast allowed)
648bhp - 1338kgs - 585 pp - racing hard tyres (aero 5 fr - 5 rr)
Weight distribution = 59% front - 41% rear (not great is it?)
So (with FULL custom suspension added):
Front springs:
Min = 5.1 & Max = 15.5
So the spring travels - 10.4
59% of 10.4 = 6.136
The add minimum setting (5.1) = 11.236
That's your stock spring rate, but I prefer stiffened springs, so:
10% stiffer = 12.3596
20% stiffer = 13.4832
I tend to round up or down at 0.5 being the cut off:
So my front springs would be:
13.5
Rear - do the same
Min = 4.1
Max = 15.5
15.5-4.1 = 11.4 (travel)
41% of 'travel' = 4.674
+ min (4.1) = 8.774 (stock spring)
10% stiffer = 9.6514
20% stiffer = 10.5288
So my rear spring is:
10.52
So I've got:
Front = 13.5
Rear = 10.5
These are numerical values, but it's the % of 'strength' which is now important.
The front are over 3/4's strength, but not maximum, the rears are just over half. So match your damper extension to this (front 8 and rear 6), then reverse your roll bars to this (front approx 1/4 = 2 and rear just under 1/2 = 3).
So the basic starting point setup would be:
Front
13.5 - springs
8 - damper extension
2 - roll bar
Rear
10.5 - springs
6 - damper extension
3 - roll bar
This is the starting point for your setup, but you will now have to tweak to personal driving style and equiptment setting.
Some of my friends also run this car and they will 'tweak' the roll bars either +1 or -1 - but I've said this all along, this is not uncommon, people's style and equiptment setup and settings varey hugely.
I run modest ride height, camber and toe settings, nothing crazy, all within the realms of acceptability, I just tweak the roll bars mainly.
BUT, with some cars, this does take ALOT of tweaking, especially if the track has elevation changes as you may need to change the dampers +1 or -1 to stop tyres from going 'red'. This is not uncommon, but when you finally get it 'right', it all comes together, the car is balanced, tyre wear is excellent and tyre temperature remains stable - you've hit the sweet spot and the car is flying and feels very good.
Try it on another car - same result, and again, and again, and again - every car I've tried, all my friends that have tried this, it's the same result, their cars feel better then ever before. What am I supposed to think when I'm getting feedback like this from so many people and my own pesonal cars tell me the same thing to??
If the left hand side figures were reversed, this theory simply wouldn't work, but it does, which is why I'm so against this left hand side 'reverse' theory.
The above is alot more complicated than what it seems, the amount of variables between cars, level of tuning, tracks and individual driving styles are huge - however, the theory of basing a car's setup on it's weight distribution remains (at the moment - until I find something better!).
The more you try it, the more experienced you get, the easier it becomes to tweak and fine tune setups, but at first it might seem confusing and a little bit daunting. Also, there are, for some people, some cars that might mean tweaking a roll bar + or - 2 will give them what they need, but this doesn't affect the fundamental belief of setting up according to weight distribution.
... No serious.
