Tuning Competition Week 11 - RESULTS

Pagani Zonda C12S @ Autumn Ring
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TS
48

Der Meister/XGT Taipan
52

slowman
56

sucahyo
61

stiggs
56

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Winner: sucahyo. Congrats!

Special thanks to gregc for judging this week.

gregc's Ratings:

Tuner: TS

Turn-in (entry to corners)
Ranking (1-10): 7 - not quite as responsive as I'd like, but not bad at all.

Mid-Corner response (whether the car under/oversteers mid-corner or holds the racing line well)
Ranking (1-10): 6 - needs better agility, especially in the chicanes.

Corner exit (how quickly you can exit a corner whilst staying in good control)
Ranking (1-10): 7 - a bit understeery, no traction control would probably help here.

Stability (rear end staying in line, car not 'jumping' or feeling skittish in turns)
Ranking (1-10): 6 - poor over the kerbs in particular, getting knocked off line too easily.

Grip (start-offs, how much power can be used without the drive wheels losing traction? Does the car oversteer excessively?)
Ranking (1-10): 9 - no problems here.

High-speed controllability (whether the car becomes 'frantic' and turns far too sharply at high speeds)
Ranking (1-10): 8 - pretty good.

Handling while braking (are you able to easily turn the car while braking, and without going into oversteer?)
Ranking (1-10): 5 - I didn't like this car on the brakes, there's way too much understeer.

Acceleration (how good is it? Is there a lot of traction while doing it?)
Ranking (1-10): 6 - feels like too many gears, set too short. It feels like it needs fewer, longer gears.

Total Combined Ranking: 54

Missing parts deduction: -6, FC Transmission and S3 tyres not specified.

Final Ranking: 48

Final Thoughts: An OK setup, but never really feels alive, just not involving or entertaining enough for me. At this sort of power level TCS is just unnecessary, and the gearing and braking let it down.

Tuner: Der Meister

Turn-in (entry to corners)
Ranking (1-10): 8 - good, nicely responsive.

Mid-Corner response (whether the car under/oversteers mid-corner or holds the racing line well)
Ranking (1-10): 7 - OK, could be a bit more responsive.

Corner exit (how quickly you can exit a corner whilst staying in good control)
Ranking (1-10): 7 - not bad, just a bit tail happy for me (and I don't often think that!)

Stability (rear end staying in line, car not 'jumping' or feeling skittish in turns)
Ranking (1-10): 6 - mostly OK, but way too bouncy on the kerbs.

Grip (start-offs, how much power can be used without the drive wheels losing traction? Does the car oversteer excessively?)
Ranking (1-10): 8 - Mostly good, just a bit too much wheelspin in the lower gears.

High-speed controllability (whether the car becomes 'frantic' and turns far too sharply at high speeds)
Ranking (1-10): 7 - just let down over high speed undulations in the track.

Handling while braking (are you able to easily turn the car while braking, and without going into oversteer?)
Ranking (1-10): 6 - too unpredictable, sometimes under and sometimes oversteer.

Acceleration (how good is it? Is there a lot of traction while doing it?)
Ranking (1-10): 7 - again, an odd gearbox setup. Another one that feels like it needs 1 less gear. Note that I couldn't achieve the specified gearing so went as close as I could.

Total Combined Ranking: 56

Missing parts/info deduction: -4, "impossible" gearing with no method for achieving it, S3's not specced

Final ranking: 52

Final Thoughts: I mostly enjoyed driving this but it's let down by a number of niggles. Stability and odd gearing in particular for me. Mostly good to drive, but not consistent enough.

Tuner: slowman

Turn-in (entry to corners)
Ranking (1-10): 8 - responsive but still stable.

Mid-Corner response (whether the car under/oversteers mid-corner or holds the racing line well)
Ranking (1-10): 7 - not bad, but could be a bit more responsive.

Corner exit (how quickly you can exit a corner whilst staying in good control)
Ranking (1-10): 7 - a bit too understeery, couldn't get on the power as early as I'd like.

Stability (rear end staying in line, car not 'jumping' or feeling skittish in turns)
Ranking (1-10): 8 - Good, handles the kerbs well for the most part. Could just be a bit better when you take a bit too much kerb.

Grip (start-offs, how much power can be used without the drive wheels losing traction? Does the car oversteer excessively?)
Ranking (1-10): 9 - no problem here.

High-speed controllability (whether the car becomes 'frantic' and turns far too sharply at high speeds)
Ranking (1-10): 9 - very good.

Handling while braking (are you able to easily turn the car while braking, and without going into oversteer?)
Ranking (1-10): 7 - not bad, but the balance just doesn't feel quite right to me.

Acceleration (how good is it? Is there a lot of traction while doing it?)
Ranking (1-10): 7 - 5 gears, and it feels more natural. The higher ratios demand more power than is available here, however.

Total Combined Ranking: 62

Missing parts deduction: -6, FC Transmission and S3 tyres not specified.

Final ranking: 56

Final Thoughts: Pretty good stuff, enjoyable to drive, and lets you get away with a fair bit of kerb through the twisty bits. Needs more power to cope with the (effectively 5 speed) gearbox, though I do prefer this gearing approach, and is also slightly restricted by the TCS.

Tuner: sucahyo

Turn-in (entry to corners)
Ranking (1-10): 8 - nice and sharp, just as long as you've managed to slow it down...

Mid-Corner response (whether the car under/oversteers mid-corner or holds the racing line well)
Ranking (1-10): 8 - good stuff, adjustable but fairly stable.

Corner exit (how quickly you can exit a corner whilst staying in good control)
Ranking (1-10): 10 - simply stunning. Powers out of any bend, tail wagging just so, and catapults up the road. If I could spend a day just powering out of corners, this would be my weapon of choice!

Stability (rear end staying in line, car not 'jumping' or feeling skittish in turns)
Ranking (1-10): 8 - Good, handles kerbs well. The power can make things a bit hairy occasionally, but that's more down to driver error than anything else.

Grip (start-offs, how much power can be used without the drive wheels losing traction? Does the car oversteer excessively?)
Ranking (1-10): 9 - no problems here.

High-speed controllability (whether the car becomes 'frantic' and turns far too sharply at high speeds)
Ranking (1-10): 8 - good and solid.

Handling while braking (are you able to easily turn the car while braking, and without going into oversteer?)
Ranking (1-10): 2 - woeful. The only problem with this car, but it's a big one. The brakes just aren't anywhere near up to the job.

Acceleration (how good is it? Is there a lot of traction while doing it?)
Ranking (1-10): 8 - my gut reaction is, again, too many gears. But... it's so fast I didn't really notice.

Total Combined Ranking: 61

Missing parts deduction: none 👍

Final ranking: 61

Final Thoughts: A fantastic car, let down immensely by it's brakes. I loved pretty much everything else about it. Mad, bad, outrageously fast - everything a Zonda should be. Except those brakes...

Tuner: stiggs

Turn-in (entry to corners)
Ranking (1-10): 7 - not bad, but could be a little sharper.

Mid-Corner response (whether the car under/oversteers mid-corner or holds the racing line well)
Ranking (1-10): 7 - OK, but could be a bit more responsive.

Corner exit (how quickly you can exit a corner whilst staying in good control)
Ranking (1-10): 8 - good, just lacking some fine control - probably due to too much TCS.

Stability (rear end staying in line, car not 'jumping' or feeling skittish in turns)
Ranking (1-10): 7 - good, handles the kerbs fairly well for the most part but a bit too bouncy.

Grip (start-offs, how much power can be used without the drive wheels losing traction? Does the car oversteer excessively?)
Ranking (1-10): 9 - no problems here.

High-speed controllability (whether the car becomes 'frantic' and turns far too sharply at high speeds)
Ranking (1-10): 8 - good and solid.

Handling while braking (are you able to easily turn the car while braking, and without going into oversteer?)
Ranking (1-10): 1 - aaargh, again! A pretty good car destroyed by awful brakes. They would be bad at normal power levels, but here - hopeless.

Acceleration (how good is it? Is there a lot of traction while doing it?)
Ranking (1-10): 9 - just about spot on, plenty of power and well judged ratios.

Total Combined Ranking: 56

Missing parts deduction: none 👍

Final ranking: 56

Final Thoughts: Not a bad setup at all for the most part, but again let down hugely by an awful brake setup. Doesn't have the wow factor of sucahyo's setup, but nevertheless it handles and copes easily with the power - the gearing in particular is spot on. Way too much TCS though, and those brakes, again

Final comments: sucahyo's car gets the most points, and it's definitely my favourite - even with the horrible brakes. It's entertaining, and the way it comes out of corners is frankly astonishing. I'll be keeping this one... It's not often I go for the full power tuning, but even with poor brake setups, the two high power ones were my definite favourites this week. The others were just too conservative, too safe, for my liking.

Well done to everyone who took part 👍

And, of course, to Greg for flying solo on the judging this week. Good man

At least we had a conclusive winner, unlike my single judging week

DE

Well, that was one expensive weeks judging

Congratulations sucahyo, and well done to everyone who took part, I had a lot of fun with this one. Looking forward to having some judging company next week though

Updated Leaderboard:


Speadsheet

Congrats to XGT Taipan, you join the leaderboard this week having completed 3 competitions 👍

Congrat's one 'n' all.

I actully spent most of the time on this set up trying to sort out the break's, i gave up in the end and had to settle for the way i had them.
Looking back they may of worked a little more effectivly had i of lowerd the camber angle but then it would'nt of turned quite the same. I think the main problem i'snt that the break system is rubbish its the oppersite its actully to strong a system and quite hard to find the threshhold, hense i had the controller set low and approched braking in the zonda as most if not all would in an american muscle car ie: break about 12 years before you arrive at a turn i also prefer to drive it with no TCS but set it at 5 for the comp to reduce wheel spin

A word on setting up the brakes, since I was pretty harsh about them in some cases... the method that works for me (borrowed from Scaff, 👍 for his tuning guides) is to take the car to the test course and brake from about 120-130 mph to a standstill several times on the lap. Then you can use the data logger to check stopping distances - the setting that gives you the shortest stopping distance is probably the optimum.

It might need tweaking from there for the specific circuit, but it gives you a good starting point.

Doh if only i'd had that info before submitting my mintola set up:tup:
only joking

What i do is take a car out on laguna set the rear to 1 and the front at about 10 then use bit of straight before the first turn, nail the accelorator to the floor then jump on the breaks if they squeel i lower the front till they stop screaming then adjust the back accordingly, unless i want or need the rear set higher then i reverse the process, (yeah no real science involved) may have to employ your suggestion in future thanks gregc

I knew the brake would be awfull, need to learn to tune it properly fast ............
Great judging gregc, I can learn how each tuning affect driving 👍.

@ gregc: Thanks and all - and yeh, the gears are almost impossible. You have to use the reverse tranny trick to recreate them - but I was unknown to how difficult it was to reproduce until after you had judged it (because when I set it up it was trial and error).

To set the gears up; set the final drive to 2.500, then Auto Set 1, then the gears individually, then set the final drive back to 2.700 (I think that's what I had?) - with this ratio there is next to no wheelspin and the overall handling is vastly improved. Braking problems is also not an issue because the gears perfectly match the braking areas so that you never have a high-rev let-off in the middle of a corner.

Although there is no way of rejudging the comp I do request that you go back and try my setting just to tell me what you think, I was more supprised than you would think, saying that I think you will be too!

Also, I never mentioned tyres because I assumed that it was a given due to them being in the regulations.

Where I wrote "Wheels" was left blank because my memory card was playing up, and wouldn't show me which wheels/mags I had bought, so I left it blank.

XGT - If I get time I'll go back and try it with the gearing as you describe it - no promises, but if I get a chance I'll let you know what I think.

For all those where I docked points, not mentioning the tyres only cost 1 point - I know it's in the rules, but it also says "list all parts" and when you're testing a number of setups it's easy to miss the tyres if they aren't listed, which means you end up going back and forth to the shop - which isn't fun.

List the tyres? Harsh!!!!....Lucky I list them then.