For all those who participated yesterday thank you for sharing my inaugural on line race. There were a lot of firsts for me including pit stops, tire ware, starting grid etc. As you no doubt noticed or did not because once we left the grid I was not around I was not very competitive. One of the reasons I joined CLART was to learn and gain experience. I understood a long time ago the easiest way for me to succeed was to find and observe talented people and copy what they do. That having been said I need help on two fronts. I need help both picking and race tuning a good car to compete with and would welcome any suggestions.
The second issue will be more challenging. It is fairly clear to me that although I managed to keep on the track my driving skills need to be better. Good technique is essential to be fast and it probably also solves some handling issues. I would like to see some video of the lines that the front runner used and some data on gears speed etc. I dont know whether that exists or not. I also would welcome any suggestions that you more experienced drivers think would be helpful other than taking up tennis
Bob
the best advise is practise, practise and more practise.
try breaking early and turning in a little early. this way you will hit avery apex and get a good exit from each corner. sometimes by not trying to go fast, you actually do.
as for the tuning. last night i was running stock settings on everything.
the best guide i have seen on tuning has come from denilson who runs and races in the PURE racing league.
i have took the liberty of copying his tuning guide here.
Tuning Tips
In this section, I'll share my view on how I experiance the different settings and what they do to the car. This is not stated as any sientific proof, or something that's concidered to be truth. It's simply my view on things. The ones of you who already feel confident in your tuning do not need this list I suppose. I made this one for some of you who claims you can't tuna car at all and need some help/guidinece.
Down Force:
Airflow. By increasing your wing angles, more area catch the air, and push the car towards the ground.
In GT5, maximum settings are recommended at all times.
You can tweak the settings a tad to help your cars balance.
If your car does not rotate (Tend to go straight forward, or "under steer") mid corner, a slightly lower rear aero setting can help your car to rotate more.
If you feel the opposite (Your car tends to oversteer) mid corner, a slightly lower front aero setting can help your car to rotate less.
If your car feels heavy in the front, and you got issues with front tire wear, reducing front aero can help your car to put less weight on the fronts during cornering (Also on straights, but it's rarely on the straights you experiance this feeling)
Gear Ratio:
How fast do I need to go?
A good indicator on how you should set your gear ratios is acchieved by looking at your engine specs. Where does your engine produce peak power?
Let's say 518 Bhp at 6500 rpm.
The number 6500 is what you should look at. When driving on a long straight close to top speed, your revs should be at 6500 rpm even if your rew counter allows 8000 rpm.
Why? Because at high speed, air resistance is huge, and to make the car charge thru the wall of air, it needs as much power as possible.
I am not one of those who set my car up for a slip stream race. Sure, we can need those extra km/h maybee once or twice during the race, but to maximize your speed on all the other laps is a priority for me. You will always be able to keep up anyway.
LSD:
The differential got 3 different values to set.
Initial: Power goes thru the engine-> Gear box -> crank shaft->differential (LSD)->wheels. This setting can decide how much power it requires for it to be active. Meening a high value will make the drivetrain stiff->the car will feel like an old muscle car. The car will not turn, cause the rear wheels spin at the same pace all the time->The car rotates less. Set it too low, and the tires that need power to accelarate will get less power feeded thru the LSD, wich will have a negative affect on acceleration.
If this setting is too high, the settings you make for the acceleration and breaking will have no impact, cause the LSD is never active.
Acceleration: Assuming your initial setting is good, this settnig will feed the wheels with different power depending on the grip of the wheels. If set too low, your inner wheel (The one with less load on it) will be fed all the power, causing it to spin, and the outher wheel that got more grip will not be able to accelerate the car. The trick is to find a level where the outher and inner wheel do not spin. You could turn up this setting, but if set too high, the rear axel will become stiff, and the car will get in to powerslides (over steer). A tip is to watch your tire indicators while accelerationg out of corners. If the inner wheel picks up more heat (Or even turns red) than the outher wheel your setting is too weak. If the car powerslides, your setting is too strong.
Breaking: When approaching a corner, you want stability in your car. But if you turn this setting too strong, turn in will be affected in a bad way and the car tend to just keep a stright line. Set it too loose and the car will over steer on entry. Even the slightest steeringwheel movements can trigger this behaviour. A car like the NSX need a higher setting than a GT-R for instance. The GT-R is well balanced and does not need much of this setting at all, while a car that tends to over steer as soon as you turn in need a higher setting. We are driving Super GT cars, and the ones who might have a harder time with turn in are the NSX's. However, since we added the extra 30 kg to the front, the NSX handles much better at turn in. I had to run this setting at max when driving the EPSON NSX before, but now, when the weight distribution is better, this setting is almost the same as for the GT-R's (5), but I tend to keep it at 10, cause the NSX is still heavy in the rear.
Camber:
1. Negative Camber: //-----\\
2. Positive Camber: \\-----//
We always use Negative camber (Positive Cambers are for cars that needs off set suspention due to monotonius conditions. I.e NASCARS)
I estimate what kind of speeds I'll be at in the corners for a sertain track. A track with many fast torns equals more negative camber, and a slower circuit with slower corners meens less camber.
Why?
When turning your car, the majority of the weight will "rest" on the outher wheels. So when turning left with a negative camber setting will force the outher wheel (The one with most weight on it) to lay flat agains the tarmac, nicreasing grip. Your wheels will look like this in a left turn //-----|| when camber is set properly. If you set too much camber, your wheels will look like this //-----//, causing the car to slide (your tire wear indicators will go red).
And the faster the corners, the more weight on the outher weels, the more negative camber is needed.
Why does many ride more aggressive camber on the fronts compared to the rear?
Because the front is less sensitive when it comes to camber. If you apply to much camber to the rear, it will decrease the contact area of the tires when going straigh. What do the car do when going straight? It accelarates. During acceleration, we want as much tire as possible in contact with the surface. By setting too aggressive rear camber also wears out the rears faster due to less grip, wich equals spinning tires.
I.e. At Suzuka (A track with a lot of fast corners) my camber tends to be around 2,4 in the fronts, and 1,9 in the rear. Compared to Monaco, where I might run 1,9 in the fronts and 1,5 in the rear. All because the cornering speed at Suzuka is much higher than at Monaco.
Toe:
- Toe seen ("toe out") from above: \\-----//
+ Toe seen ("toe in") from above: //-----\\
Front:
I'm not sure att all about this setting. When I set my car up, I often use -toe. Because the car is pretty stiff (It's a race car, right?), so the car does not "sit" during acceleration or "dive" during breaking. And because of that, I use -toe. When driving a race car, it tends to help at turn-in. Some tracks requires a very soft set up, and when my car is very soft, it tends to "sit" and "dive" during acceleration and breaking. When the car is soft enough for it to "dive", the front wheels get more load, and if I turn with a lot of weight on the fronts, I tend to run +toe ( //-----\\ ). Cause the weight is even more on the outher wheels, and if the outher wheel points more to where you want to go, the initial turn in becomes quicker. This is not something I use that much, but sometimes I think it's required. It wears the fronts more tho.
Rear:
This setting is something that really depends on the car you're driving. I want my car to rotate as much as possible without loosing my rear in over steer. A -toe setting will help your car to rotate more. Cause the outher wheel get more load than the inner one, so if the rear outher wheel forces the rear to come out, the car will turn more effortless. Too much negative rear toe, and you'll experiance oversteer. My best tip is to get a feel for the car, and decide if you want it to rotate more or less. One corner where you def can feel this is the famous dunlop corner at Suzuka (The uphill left after the S-bends towards the end of sector 1). I had a lot of trouble going thru there at full throttle without going wide out in the sand. So I had to let of the throttle for a second to get the car pointing to where I wanted to go. And by increasing rear -toe, I could now hold my throttle down 100% thru the entire turn.
A really tailhappy car need more +toe, and a car that tends to just plow straight in the corners need more -toe in general.
Ride Hight:
I tend to run this setting as close to 0 as possible. I beliwve that these cars are low as default, and not like your everyday car fittet with an aftermarket suspention that lowers it an inch or two. What I try to find is a good relation between front and rear ride hight. This does not meen that I set them at the same hight, it meens that I want a car that feels neutral. If my car over steers on exit, I lower the rear to force the back end to stay still, or if I feel that the car is too low in the rear, pushing it straight forward when accelerating out of a corner I loose it up.
The front ride hight is a bit more complex than the rear imo. If you feel that your car is under steering, I always loosen the front rather than lowering it. A lower front will only put more strain on the car, increasing tire wear as a result. So by softening the front, I feel that the cars front is "lighter" and moves around more effortless. A good comparison of what I men is to try the M3 E46, and then try the M3 CSL. The difference how "heavy" the front feels is exactly the feeling I get when making my front higher in a race car. Not to the same degree, but the same principal.
Spring Rate:
I always set my spring rate in relation to the ride hight. But also taking in to account if the car over or under steers. If I run 0/0 ride hight on a car that tend to under steer, I run slightly lower settings in the rear compared to the fronts. And if my car tends to over steer, I run harder rear settings. It's hard to say a fighure, but somewhere between 13-16 is what I use if my cars ride hight is close to 0 ( + / - a few "clicks").
Dampers:
*Extention: How hard will the suspention push the car up again. I use 6 or 7 almost all the time. 8 is a hard setting imo, and 5 is a soft setting.
To cure over steer on exit of corners, I tend to increase rear extention in relation with the rear spring rate and rear ride hight. All I'm really thinking of when tuning this setting is that it cant be too stiff, cause it will cause my car to bounce on bumpe-> contact with the road is lost->acceleration, breaking, handling is affected negatively. Basically, you want to keep your tires in contact with the track. If a track is bumpy, your setting should be a tad softer (5-6), if the track is more level a setting between 6-7 should do the job, and if you run on a really even track like an oval or similar, my settings could perhaps end up at around 7-8. Remember that all these numbers are in relation to my ride hight and spring rate.
*Compression: How much does it take to press it together. Pretty much the same as above.
I do know that you can cure over and under steer with this setting, but I've not yet fighured out what does what. Instead I just set the ext and com in relation to my ride hight and spring rate.
(Would love to have more knowledge about this setting)
Anti Roll Bars:
While the in-game information says that a hard suspention per automatic should loose up the anti roll bars is not something I would agree on. Perhaps it's more true for a production car rather than our SGT's. I've found that this setting can be pretty much whatever. The most important thing is to adjust by the way you feel the car, not by the numbers on your RH, SR, EXT, COM etc. A car that "plows" thru a corner a tad could be helped with a looser front anti roll bar, and a car that over steers can be cured with a stiffer rear anti roll bar imo. This setting does not have near as much affect on the over/under steer issues as the RH, SR, EXT, COm does, but what it can do is to make minor adjustments if you feel that you got your other settings spot on. A settings for small small tweaks if you ask me (When it comes to SGT's that is).
Brake Balance:
The higher the number, the more power to the breakes.
Mainly, I look at tire wear when tuning this setting. I.e, the GT-R's can be hard on the fronts, and if so, I reduce my front brake bias, and increase the rear. On the other hand, an NSX def wear out the rear more compared to the fronts, so in this case, I do the oposite, a higher value on the fronts and a lower value on the rears.
This setting can also help to create over/under steer on corner entry. A higher front setting will throw the rear around if you brake while turning, and a higher rear setting will help the car go straight while breaking.
Relations: More or less everything in a tune relates another setting to various levels. Ther's a million different relations when it comes to tuning, so including them all in this guide is impossible. I'll list some of my most used ones and hope it will help enough.
Ride hight - Spring rate - dampers are closely related. You must make sure to tune it all to work together. If your car is set up well, and you adjust for more or less rotation, make sure to change all these settings, not just one.
LSD - Rear Toe are related. If your car rotates perfect, but you want more power out of the corners, you might want to stiffen up your LSD acceleration, but when you do, you'll feed the outher wheel with more power, so the toe angle you had might not work so well any more, you might need to decrease it to keep your cer from powersliding.
Front camber - Rear toe are ralted. Let's say your car rotates perfect, but you have trouble with fron tire wear. If you reduce the front camber and put more negative rear toe, the rear toe setings will help the car turn, and less stress is put on the front->need less camber->less front tire wear->same rotation.
once again all credit for this guide goes to denilson