Classic Race Cars are underperforming compared to the IRL counterparts

[LeGeNd-1]

Are you going only with 4 gears or shifting with all 5 gears? Because if you are doing all 5, that 212 speed is invalid as the car originally had a 4-speed gear box, car simply can't reach it's 212mph speed. It's missing something. Going on the mulsanne straight. I can't reach any of that speed at all, even if the gear ratios are wrong, the car feels absolutely awful when I try to accelerate.

I used all 5 gears. Again, unless you have irrefutable proof that the car which set 212 mph only used 4 gears, this is all getting too technical for the level of game that GT is.

Do I wish the Mk IV is better balanced to be more competitive with the 330/XJ13? Absolutely. Do I care that the acceleration and top speed numbers don't match exactly with real life? Nope, there are bigger problems with GT physics to be fixed first.

EDIT:

As proof of concept, I tried tuning the gears only with 4 speed. Stock power & weight, minimum downforce, La Sarthe no chicane arcade mode time trial. Set top speed to 450 km/h, then Final gear to 2.900. Top speed is 330 km/h (206 mph). If we could reduce all downforce to zero I have no doubt it would reach 212 mph like the "claimed" real car.

Myth Busted

 

[eran0004]

Are you going only with 4 gears or shifting with all 5 gears? Because if you are doing all 5, that 212 speed is invalid as the car originally had a 4-speed gear box, car simply can't reach it's 212mph speed.

The number of gears doesn’t matter for top speed. The only difference is how long it will take to reach the top speed.

 

[RichiPuppy]

The number of gears doesn’t matter for top speed. The only difference is how long it will take to reach the top speed.

Yes, but the gear ratios certainly do mater in what the top speed ends up being.

 

[eran0004]

Yes, but the gear ratios certainly do mater in what the top speed ends up being.

Yes, but the number of speeds in a gearbox doesn’t determine what gear ratios that are possible, so the fact that the test was done with a five speed gearbox is irrelevant.

 

[Nuschel01]

Exactly. More gears just narrow the rev-range down for each gear but top speed is only determined by the final gear

 

[Sick Cylinder]

I've read this thread with interest and enjoyed some good information within!

A few random comments / observations from me - some of which may have already been made and most of which are probably irrelevant, but may be of interest to some.

The top speeds quoted over the flying kilometre for the Ford MK4 were a lot higher than the Ferrari in 1967 - 340 v 310kmh. The range for the Ford was 343 to 333kmh (207mph). I would assume that the lower figure of 207 is the most accurate - the higher figures could easily have been set with an element of slipstream as there were 47 other cars on track.

The MK2 and MK4 definitely only had 4 speed gearboxes - at the time there was no transaxle available which could handle the torque of the 7 litre engine so a four speed was custom built for these cars. The MK1's used a different transaxle.

The transmissions were easily damaged - in his book "The Unfair Advantage" - Mark Donoghue talks about his team mate causing damage by starting too briskly.

The engines were in a very low state of tune as a result of the quest for reliability.

Dan Gurney used to rest the motor periodically on the Mulsanne Straight by coming off the power. The car was coasted for a relatively long period at the end of the straight to save wear on the brakes and engine. There was no rev limiter so great care had to be taken on every downshift - changes were slow and deliberate.

In preparation for 1966 Ken Miles drove at race speeds around La Sarthe in a MK2 which was fully instrumented - the data was used to construct an incredibly complex and expensive electro-mechanical test cell capable of exactly replicating the effect of the 24 hours of Le Mans on engines and transmissions: