Adjusting stabilisers

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Hot4

Hot4

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Ok, i been searching for over and hour now and im getting really confused.
Most people agree that having a higher number setting for your Stabilisers means they get stiffer so im sticking to that theory. However...

What i simply want to know is 2 things.

What Stabiliser setting to use for insane oversteer? ( Front 1 rear 6) or (Front 6, rear 1)

and

what setting for insane understeer? (Front 1 rear 6) or (Front 6, rear 1)

This is a general question and not for any particular car.

From my understanding having a stiffer front bar and a more soft rear bar would create oversteer seeing there is more movement (more momentum during weight transfer) in the rear causing it swing out when turning corners...a lot of people disagree with this. I also know that adjusting your stabilisers is not the only thing when it comes to eliminating or adding oversteer/understeer, but i think it play a big part and any simple advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
 
Over steer is induced by making the rear stiffer. It prevents the tires from moving as much over the surface and also reduces the ablity of the car to try to shift more weight to the outside tire. The result is a lost of traction at the gain of stablity. Many of my cars run 3 in the front and 4 in the back, or just a difference of 1. My MR2 GT-S drifts nicely with 4 in the front and 4 in the rear though.

Other things you use to adjust oversteer and understeer are the toe and camber. The Initial Torque on the LSD is directly related to power over induced oversteer.
 
Yeah it did, but im still confused. I'll have another read and try to make some sense of it.

I really thought that having a softer rear stabliser would induce oversteer seeing there is more roll on the back end. You would think that extra roll momentum in the back end of the car would cause it to fling out during cornering through more agressive wight transfer. Guess not. :indiff:
 
No, as the weight transfer that is most important in driving is the front/back transfer. As I stated before, the extra roll helps to keep the tires in contact better, and works to aid the car in keep solid contact.
 
Well, truthfully, if it was a straightforward as simply tuning for extremes, people would just dial in 'grip' or 'drift' as desired and be done with it. In actuality, both extremes can provoke oversteer or understeer, but for different reasons. In tuning for grip, the compromise is to be found in the middle.

The reason you can tune handling balance with stabilizers is this: it has to do with the relative amounts of roll stiffness front to back, called 'roll couple distribution'. If the rear is stiffer than the front, the outside rear tire actually takes more load, but it helps equalize the load across the front tires. This promotes oversteer because not only are the front tires gripping better due to more even weight distribution, but the outside rear tire is heavily loaded and likely near its grip capacity, promoting oversteer.

Conversely, a front bias on the roll couple will promote understeer (or, more desirably, reduce excess oversteer).

Don't forget that spring rates also affect roll stiffness, so that's another way to adjust it. The advantage that stabilzers have is that they work in cornering but allow the car to absorb bumps on the straights; the disdavantage is that there is only so much they can do. All parts have to work together to get the job done.
 
That makes sense. So it's safe to say that having a stiffer rear stabilser is going to induce more oversteer?

What component has the greatest effect on controlling oversteer and understeer? I know it would be a combination of them working together but surely some have greater effct than others, and i imagen camber and spring rate would play a large role also. Having a strong positve(i think it's positive) front camber angle set to a higher angle than the rear, would cause the front tyres to grip more around corners and help thow the rear end out.. If this is correct, please correct me if im wrong, then everything now makes a lot of sense.
 
Thats my understanding of the camber as well, so yeah. But I tweak all sorts of things.. in a kinda random process at first, and then slowly to what I need. However, I think I'm adaptive in that I never tune to perfection, I just get use to the car :P
 
Heh yeah it's much the same for myself. I change my driving style to suit each car rather than trying to adjust the car to my driving style... i wish it was the other way around tho, that's why im trying to learn more about tuning 👍

Whats a stock car in GT3 that is known to have heavy understeer and one that has heavy oversteer? I think by trying to tune a car that has a balance flaw in it, you might get a better understanding of tuning. Any ideas? I heard a lot of people complain that some of the stock WRX's in the game have understeer problems.
 
Most of the AWD cars understeer too much in GT3. Giles Guthrie used to own an Impreza Turbo, and when we drove that car in a small OLR comp at SS R5 Wet, he said the understeer was massively unrealistic.

One car everybody complains about oversteering is the SVT Mustang. I happen to like loose cars, but that's just me.

You are correct about your understanding of camber, except the game is (sort of) wrong. What they show as positive camber is actually negative camber in real life. Negative camber means the tops of the wheels tip in toward the centerline of the car. That's what you want, because it keeps the contact patch square on the bottom of the tire during cornering, rather than rolling up onto the sidewall. You would never actually dial static positive camber in for any reason. The game models it correctly, they just forgot to indicate it as negative on the diagrams.

Typically I start with a baseline of -2.5 to -3.0 degrees up front and -1.0 to -1.5 at the back for most cars. For an FWD car I'll usually end up cutting back to zero camber at the rear, in order to reduce cornering grip.

There really is no single thing that will generate oversteer. Stiff spring rates in back will do it, but they can cause the car to bounce or unload too easily on uneven pavement, leading to unpredicatbility. Stiff stabilizers in back will help, but the effect is somewhat limited.

I'm not a drifter, but if I was setting up a drift car, I'd try this general arrangement first:
  • Medium-low front spring rates, dampers, and stabilizers
  • Medium-high rear spring rates
  • High rear stabilizers
  • (-)3.0 degrees front camber, zero rear camber
  • zero front toe, -2.0 degrees rear toe (toe out)

That should bias the car pretty heavily toward rotation, while keeping the cornering stance fairly flat. Don't go too soft in front or the car will get sloppy in transitions, but keep them notably softer than the rears.
 
Sounds very similar to my approach for setting up for oversteer.

However, those look like they'd have me driving thru my rearview mirror. My usual appraoch is drop the car a bit, up the springs about the same, maybe .2 or .3 kg more in the rear, camber goes 3 and 2 or so, toe to .5 or 1 in front and 0 or -.5 in the back. Stablizers are at 3 front and 4 rear.

On the MR2 though, its more like camber of 3 and 2, toe of 1 and .5, and 4 and 4 on the stablizers. Those settings you have there Duke would lead to an ass first approach to corners I feel ;) with an MR2 anyhow.
 
Yeah, for a midengine car they'd be a little wild. With the engine right near the CG like that, it doesn't take much to get them rotating. But for a front engine, RWD car, that's a decent starting point for the dial-in.
 
Ok, thanks, thats handy i'll have a go at it. I notice that the SVT does have a lot of oversteer but unlike other cars it is still very controlable. It's probably one of my favourite american cars in the game.

Generally speaking, how stiff do you normally adjust springs if you want to make the car nice and responsive but not have too many side effects? I know it depends on how sloppy the car is to begin with, but is there a general spring rate setting you can't go wrong with? In the description for camber settings, in GT, it recommends adjusting them around 3 to 4 but they dont mention any recommended number setting for spring rate... i kinda always leave the spring rate stock and most cars handle ok, but i would like to muck around with it a bit. Probably better to make them a bit stiffer all round for better response on most cars yeah? I dunno how stiff to make them tho, is there a point you shouldn't go beyond? For example if you go beyond 5 for camber say, you start to notice some side effects. What shouldn't you set the spring rate over?
 
Usually, I stiffen them up by 1 or 2 kg in both the front and rear, and maybe a little different depending on how the car feels. Also, 1 kg for a 10 mm drop is also what I do, but I have no idea if that is a good idea or not :P
 
Yeah, thats pretty much my approach, since stock is set to have decent travel and stuff, and I tend to get up on the curbs and what not... where I need some travel.
 
I just won that ZZ II car, i think it's Tomy Kaira or something, i forget how to spell that manufacturers name. Anyway, i checked out the stock suspension setting and it was set at around 13. something on the front and 15. something at the rear. Really stiff settings yeah? It handles very well tho.

I was mucking around with the suspension on a Trueno and my EVO V and i found that changing the suspension could dramatically increase/decrease oversteer and understeer, more so than adjusting stabilisers. Stiffining the front shocks so they were harder than the rear, really helped my Trueno maintain good grip and eliminate oversteer around corners. 👍
 
...
Sounds.. backwards to me.. odd...

There is aproblem with stiffening the springs up - it causes stablity and issues with the tire contact and what not. So, like anything else, there is a trade off.
 
I imagen stiffining the springs makes the car more responsive, but i think your right when you say it may cause loss of traction with the tires.

It felt like making the front springs a little harder on my Trueno helped induce a little understeer to balance the car out. Before i did that it was oversteering like crazy. Do you think it's normal that stiffining springs in the front will induce understeer?
 
Yes. That's perfectly normal.

All things in suspension tuning are a compromise. Too soft, and the car in not responsive and rolls too much, causing problems. Too firm, and the suspension doesn't work enough, forcing the tires themselves to soak up loads, causing problems. Either way, extreme settings cause unpredicatbility and bad handling.

My rule of thumb on stiffening spring rates is this: rather than, say, 1kg per 10mm, use a proportional system. If you lower the car 20% (say, from 100mm to 80mm), then you should stiffen the spring rate by 20% to compensate. The same goes for downforce. If you increase downforce, you should raise the spring rates by a proportional amount. This removes the factor of different cars having different base spring rates.

This is just a rule of thumb, though, to make a baseline. Further adjustment is usually necessary. I don't like to stiffen things up too much or lower the car too much; I prefer to let the suspension work a little since that's what it's designed to do. Only on flat tracks do I really go all the way down on ride height.
 
Are there really that many bumps in GT? I mean, I have every track in GT3 memorized and off the top of my head I cant think of a single place where a looser suspension would make the car faster. I stay off the curbs and stuff and other than that I dont see any bumps. Of course I'm one of those guys who would just as soon weld the suspension links to the chassis, so perhaps I'm a bit bias. Maybe my cars are hard to controll. Maybe I've just gotten used to it. I am of the disposition that I'd rather make the car fast and learn to drive it than make it easy to drive. Or maybe I'm just confused.

Oh yeah, here's a question for you.

First, a bit of background. As you know, when a vehicle rolls in a corner what is actualy hapening is that the force of inertia attempting to pull the vehicle in a strait line is causing weight to shift toward the outside of the turn. this increases the load on the outside springs and decreases the load on the inside springs causing them to compress and extend respectively. This roll or lean in itself causes more weight to be transfered to the outside tiers, and the cycle repeates. since the goal is to keep the weight distributed equaly across the left and right side tiers then stopping this roll or lean is a verry good thing. stiffening the springs lowers the amount of change that occurs when weight is added or taken away. So when the initial weight transfer occurs the springs dont allow the body to roll as much drasticly reduceing the amount of weight that is transfered during cornering and increasing overall lateral grip. This is a universaly (spelling?) agreed fact, that stiffining the springs increases the cars lateral grip. So please explain to me why it is that making one end of the suspension SOFTER than the other gives that end MORE grip? I understand that on say a high powered rear wheel drive car, losening the rear springs allows more weight to transfer to the rear under acceleration giving the rears more grip for accelerating out of the corner. But how on say an FF car can the softer end have more traction?

p.s. By the way, in my defense, I've seen it work many a time on wildly understeering cars, that losening the rear springs causes the rear to step out in the corners. Obviously by reducing the grip at that end. And in fact, On heavily front biased cars, the game wont even allow you to adjust the rear as stiff as the front. Perhaps we should have a chat with kaz about this?
 
Perhaps so.

Taking anything to an extreme will hurt the grip of the car. Stiff the springs up too much, and the outside wheel gets too little weight - too loose and the weight overwhelms the tire sooner. That, and the inside wheel does nothing then.

I do race, as in real life, and I know that cars that have a slightly looser suspension setup will do better on wet or less the ideal surfaces, because they have a bit more control over how the weight moves and how the tires react.

And removing the suspension would destroy any cars road perfomance...

But meh, to each his own I guess.
 
yo guys! this is exactly what my thread was asking! too bad i didn't get decent answers... umm... ok... i think i will state what i know.. and probably a couple more questions.

Inferno : what you think is exacty what i thought at one time... then i read some racing physics things... and realized i had a lot more to learn. Heh, ok.. long winded response coming up
Well... you're right about the roll equals weight transfer... because thats what weight transfer essentially is, the force of inertia resisting the outside force of the wheels trying to corner. Therefore, the distribution of weight is pulled towards the outside corners. However, if you think about it... weight transfer can never be reduced or increased... only the rate can be reduced or increased.
If the mass of the car, and the initial velocity of the car at the instance before you take the corner are the exact same, then the force of inertia/momentum should not change. momentum=mass x velocity. I'm still not entirely too sure why... but a stiffer setting increases the rate at which weight is tranferred. Consequently, the amount of download on the tires increases much more rapidly, and the grip capacity is exceeded sooner, causing the rear, or front wheels to slide.
An easier way to think of spring rates in that respect is.... since springs are stiffer, they compress and decompress at slower rates. As the wheel travels along and encounters any deformations in the road, a stiff spring will cause the contact patch to diminish. A softer spring will allow for faster compression and decompression so the tire maintains more contact with the road, overall.

However, what everyone must realize is that there is a tradeoff in tuning for oversteer and understeer. These two factors vary at either corner entry, or exit. I still have not figured out what exactly happens, but if one just thinks logically about it, unless it's massive amounts of oversteer/understeer, nothing comes freely.

Ok, now for my questions... first one i'm going to pm DelphicReason about, but if any1 wants to explain it to me, please do! :)

Well, as neon duke so eloquently put it earlier, he would have higher springs rates in the rear of the car for a drift setup. This makes sense because stiffness supposedly induces entry oversteer during cornering. However, most of the elite drifters i know (check out idm forums) use a stiffer front spring rate. The only clarification i got, was that it helped to keep the front more planted during the corner, as to help countersteer. That left me quite baffled, because i'm quite confident in my knowledge of physics and racing.. but hey, i'm probably wrong or something. Guess there's much more to learn in life.

If any1 has an answer, please help! Oh... last things, the two other question during my post were why does weight transfer more quickly w/stiffer settings, and how would one explain corner entry oversteer/understeer with exit understeer/oversteer respectively? Thanks a lot!

Long post :crazy:
ChiShi
 
Inferno:

The fundamental flaw in your thinking is, as was pointed out, that spring rates don't affect the amount of weight transfer. Think about this: a shifter cart doesn't have any operating suspension at all, but they transfer weight like crazy.

The other thing to remember is that the relationship between grip and any given setting is not linear. If it was, everybody would just build peformance cars like shifter carts and revel in huge amounts of traction. It's really more like a bell curve, like the graph of students' test scores. As you start from soft, and work your way up toward the optimal stiffness, grip increases. But eventually, you pass the optimal stiffness, and grip falls off again. The art lies in finding that optimal stiffness that makes the best compromise.

I'll try to post more later.
 
I was thinking today when I was driving around. And realized how could you change the laws of physics?? The inertia does have to go somewhere, so weight shift will happen, just maybe at a different rate.

I hadn't really realized that was there as well, so I kinda left it out, but I guess I was thinking it in the back of my mind.

And neon, excellent analogy with bell curve 👍 Would like to hear more of what you have to say on this, cause it always help to hear more, who knows, I might learn something :dunce:
 

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