DSJ: Vol 7 - '05 Ford Mustang GT

[Boundary Layer]

Welcome to the Drift Settings Journal!

​

Here we will thoroughly examine the handling characteristics of various cars in Gran Turismo 4 with the primary focus of the discussion set on their potential as a drift machine. The discussion will remain open for as long as people wish to add input, but a new subject car will be selected on a bi-weekly basis based on the results of a nomination thread.

I don't intend to impose a heavy structure on the conversation. Basically, you're open to post any observations, feedback, or settings for the car that you wish (provided that it is constructive and drift related). Drift it how you want, where you want and let us know your thoughts and about your tuning process and tactics.

I would like for this discussion to be a way of discovering new tuning methods and styles from others. Hopefully it will also become a place to openly talk about drift related handling problems of the current topic car and learn how others have compensated for such short-comings.

If you have any suggestions with regard to how this idea may be made more succesful, please PM them to me.


The subject car for this volume as selected by the forum in the nomination thread is:
Subject Car: '05 Ford Mustang GT

• May be purchased from the Ford Dealership.

Let the drift settings discussion begin.​

 

[ekmatt9]

Niceee. Hey BL, can we post videos of how our lap went to show the car??

 

[Boundary Layer]

sure, go nuts

 

[Ske]

sure, go nuts

... Gonna get busy with this one, I hope.. good to see we're doing FR again, so maybe I can actually contribute this time. I wanna make this car good too, it's a looker and it suits what I've been drifting the most lately (heavy, big engine cars).

 

[nos2]

This car understeers like a pig (Is pig fwd or rew or awd? ). I have to stagger tires to make it kinda drift. My settings sucks, but anyways, here it is.

529hp

Mods:
Racing exhaust
Sport ECU
Tires: N3/N2
Nitrous: 50
Supercharger
Racing brakes
Brake balancer
Racing suspension
Full customize trans
Triple plate clutch
Racing flywheel
Carbon driveshaft
Wing
Full customize LSD

Settings:
Brake: 9/3

Spring rate: 8.8/4.0
Ride height: 86/86
Shock bound: 8/8
Shock rebound: 8/8
Camber: 3.0/1.0
Toe: -1/+1
Stabilizer: 3/7

Trans: auto 12

Driving Aids: off

Downforce: 12/0

LSD:10/40/5

Balast weight: 50
Balance: 50

With this tune the car still understeers a bit off throttle and the front doesn't slide too well, but this is the best I can come up with. Someone try it and see if it'll work for you.

 

[Ske]

I have to stagger for now as well... and I did like it a bit better with really stiff springs, I have no idea what to do with dampers and stabilizers yet.. it's still not very nice to drive.

 

[Boundary Layer]

I was working on it last night trying to remove the understeer. I find the mustang responds in a big way to slight damper adjustment. But, since we do not care about tire wear, the most effective change I've made so far was to set the rear toe to -1. Give that a try if you are sturggling with understeer at turn in.

here are my jot notes so far (I keep little logs on my compy when I set up cars now, because I'm a nerd)

Purchase ’05 Ford Mustang GT

Oil Change = 315hp
Enkei 048 Rims
Stage 3 Weight Reduction = 1301 kg
N2 Tires
Brake Balance Controller
FC Tranny, Clutch, Flywheel, Driveshaft, LSD
Racing Suspension

Grand valley full
Aids off

Car looks too tall (aesthetics count for something)
High speed understeer.
Bound should be softened to hit curbs more gently.
Understeer throttle off at turn-in / mid-corner – check stabilizers and lsd decel.
Uses torque to bring back around and exit corner. Power-over!
Front rear balance of springs feels pretty good right now.

Ride height 115 -> 96
Spring rates increased proportionally (multiply by 115 / 96 = 1.1979)
Account for reduced mass, assume reduction does not change center of mass. (multiply by 1301 / 1568 = 0.8297)
Front: 10.0 -> 10.0
Rear: 8.0 -> 8.0
funny how that worked

Shock bound 5 – 5
Rebound 7 – 7
(my typical starting point)

try these settings out – pay attention to make sure car is not bottoming out anywhere (my math says it shouldn’t be)
- - - - -

doesn’t seem to bottom out – I’ll use current spring rates as minimum values.

Bound to 6-6
Rebound to 7-8
Stabs to 4-5

After several test runs and a little trial and error, these damper settings gave a compromise of responsive turn in, curb handling, and over/understeer. Still slight understeer appearing, but can be quickly fixed up with further mods to spring rates and LSD later (maybe camber as well, but not my first step). Reducing the front stabilizer setting made the car a bit less darty. I lost some agility, but it made dynamic drift entries a little easier - easier to retain control during braking.

Rear spring 8.0 -> 8.5 (bit more oversteer everywhere)
LSD Accel 40 -> 25
LSD Decel 20 -> 10
Camber 2.8 – 0.5 (again, bit more oversteer and quicker handling)
Rear toe to -1 makes a HUGE difference
​

Be very careful not to go too soft on the dampers. I got the bound to about 3, and the rebound around 5 or 6, and it made the car difficult to recover after a highspeed drift. Super violent weight transition occurs - it's almost impossible to avoid snap oversteer. I had to stiffen the dampers to avoid this, and just put up with the poor ride over the curbs.

if you're struggling to find a starting point, try some of these ideas and see if they help.

 

[?whygostraight?]

Hey BL those settingsare nice , they seem to free the car up a bit. But that understeer is nasty. It seems like that's all this car wants to do. Also is it just me, or does the handbrake not want to work on this car?

 

[Boundary Layer]

Hey BL those settingsare nice , they seem to free the car up a bit. But that understeer is nasty. It seems like that's all this car wants to do. Also is it just me, or does the handbrake not want to work on this car?

I'm not feeling the understeer to badly after making the toe change - but I always seem to feel it less on the DFP than others do on other controllers (although, I'm not 100% sure what you use). I suppose you could try going to -2 with the rear toe and see how that goes, but straight line stability will certainly suffer from this. I was already noticing it just by changing to -1, it became a little more difficult to exit a drift in a tidy fashion.

I still havent really figured out why the car understeers so badly. I don't know a whole lot about the car in real life, and I've certainly never test driven one, let alone driven one at speed. But I quickly googled it and found that it has a front-rear weight distribution of 53 / 47 stock. If the spring rates are anything to go by, it is 55.6 / 44.4 in GT4, so... not too far off, and spring rates are only my way of estimating this figure, it is by no means exact. (for interests sake, my 'improved' spring rates are 54 / 46).

The article I found (http://www.musclemustangfastfords.com/features/0412mm_drive/) also says the following:

The extreme body roll and imprecise steering we've grown used to accompanied us around the track, as did the heavy brake dive. At the limit we found the understeer ponycars are famous for.

So I won't say the handling is innaccurate or exxagerated. But I will say that it is a nuissance. It doesn't feel so horrible that we won't find a way past it though.

As for the handbrake issue, I can't explain that either beacuse I haven't played around with it too much. I've spent more time grip driving trying to balance the car a bit better than I have spent drifting it so far.

 

[?whygostraight?]

The understeer isn't that bad, but it's enough to frustrate you. I seem to initiate the drift just fine, but as im going the understeer slowly comes on stronger and stronger, and i either end up stalling, or snapping back in the other direction. When i finally drift succesfully it's not the most wonderful looking thing. I'm using a DS2 also, because i haven't mastered the DFP yet, so that might be another reason, im feeling the understeer alot.

The reason i brought up the handbrake was, it just felt stiff to me. It almost feels like it dosen't wanna work.

 

[nos2]

Anyone know the settings for the real life drift Mustang? I think it might be a good place to start from if we can find it.

 

[?whygostraight?]

That would be nice. I have a magazine with that mustang in it, but it dosen't say anything about settings. It just lists what it has on it. I wouldn't know where to look for real life settings.

 

[DARKEST_HOUR]

Here are the settings i been working on

Power Mods: Supercharger

Parts: Racing Brakes, Brake Balance Controller, Racing Suspension,Triple Plate Clutch, Racing Flywheel,2-Way LSD,Carbon Driveshaft, Increase Ridigity, Stage 1,2,3 Weight Reduction,Comfort Tires

Settings:
Transmission - Autoset 6
Brake Balance - 22(F) / 9(R)
Spring Rate - 15.0(F) / 4.0(R)
Ride Height - 86(F) / 86(R)
Shock Bound - 8(F) / 8(R)
Shock Rebound - 8(F) / 8(R)
Camber - 2.5(F) / 5.0(R) (Demon Camber)
Toe - 3(F) / 4(R)
Stabilizers - 6(F) / 4(R)

all aids Off


Comments: You can't depend on the E-Brake to get it drifting.You'll need some weight transfer to get this thing sideways !!

Edit- Changed some things.

 

[Boundary Layer]

Here are the settings i been working on

...
stuff
...

I'll have to give those a quick try later. A lot of stuff looks a bit backwards, but I'll hold off until I've felt the settings out.

Is that a typo in the toe? or do you actually have both the front and rear set positive?

 

[nos2]

Ok, made some change to the settings, the car drifts a bit better now. (Remember I'm using DS2, this may not work for DFP)

Settings:
Brake: 10/3

Spring rate: 8.8/4.0
Ride height: 86/86
Shock bound: 5/6
Shock rebound: 7/8
Camber: 3.0/1.0
Toe: 0/+1
Stabilizer: 4/1

Trans: auto 12

Driving Aids: off

Downforce: 12/0

LSD:10/40/5

Balast weight: 50
Balance: 50

I think positive toe is toe out, that's why I have +1 toe in the rear, if you think negative is toe out, please use -1 in the rear.

 

[DARKEST_HOUR]

Not a typo . . my settings are a little strange.

 

[ekmatt9]

Dude's!! This friggin' car is hard. I tried to over steer the heck out of it by trying N2 tires in front and then N3's in back. It worked, but it was extremly hard. The physics with this car are wayyyyyyyyyyyyy off...I'll start a new video tommorow and post it Saturday (Morning or evening) and then post settings along with the video

 

[rev]

Dude's!! This friggin' car is hard. I tried to over steer the heck out of it by trying N2 tires in front and then N3's in back. It worked, but it was extremly hard. The physics with this car are wayyyyyyyyyyyyy off...I'll start a new video tommorow and post it Saturday (Morning or evening) and then post settings along with the video

Wouldn't that induce understeer?

I haven't even gotten a hold of this car yet, but I have some ideas...

 

[ekmatt9]

If the car Understeers when you put the rear toe to +4...That would increase Oversteer which you would need Understeer for that...I think it made sense lol

 

[HiyakuShiro]

Parts to buy(these are just settings to address the understeer issue)
racing transmission
triple plate clutch
racing flywheel
full LSD
carbon driveshaft
stock HP/weight

Front/Rear

N3/N2
spring rate:8.8/10.4(this should help with the snap back do to increased traction in front tires/for me anyway)
ride hight:105/105
shock (bound)7/7
shock (rebound)6/7
camber angle 2.4/1.0
toe angle 0/0
stabilizers 4/6(also to cope with added traction in front)
Adds: 0
LSD:27/40/18

These are generic settings just to deal with understeer (user perference can be added to these for style or control)

Edit:test track=trial mountain

 

[Ske]

Lots of weird settings up here this time me thinks

Well, can't say mine makes any more sense...
I got all the parts, NOT stiffening (it ruins the car even more)..
I'd avoid the racing muffler too, it seems like the car's powerband suffers a lot when it's on.
I strapped on either a chip and NA 1 or a supercharger, but once I got the suspension sorted a little better I took the lower power option (360ish HP)..
This seems to work with N1s for me, N2s would probably work as well but I feel like I have to work very hard to keep it sideways then. Anyway, user preference, and at least I'm not staggering anymore.

Springs: 8/8 (altered rates don't seem to affect handling much on this car)
Ride: 100/110
Bound: 2/8
Rebound: 8/2
Camber: 1.2/0.8
Toe: Any extreme combination seems to work, but I prefer 4/-4 or -4/-4
Stabilizers: 7/1

LSD: Standard (!)
Brake balance: 2/10
Ballast: 50kg, +50 dist

Note: It's still not a fun car to drift, but with these settings it will go sideways and even be slightly responsive to steering, thanks to the stabs and front toe settings, I think... might be the standard LSD though..

The damper settings allow for slightly quicker weight transfer to the front (I think), but it's still not exactly responsive.

The ballast doubles as pendulum weight as well as keeping wheelspin a little more bearable, though the engine/spin response is still boggling.. Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that the GT is running 1950s rear suspension? Who knows...

Anyway, like this the car actually responds a bit to feint and dynamic entries, as well as brake drift good. Power over still comes naturally, though I've tried to even it out. If anything, I'd like to make it more oversteery and responsive.. it's still too hard to get the front to react when you want it to..

Edit:
I must have been unconscious when I set this up.. it's still a pig It's like driving on rails.. only these rails don't follow the track... I don't know what's up but I can't seem to get this car to react properly to weight shifting at all, the front wheels never grip and the rear just seem to enjoy spinning in place rather than stepping out.

Right now the biggest gripe is the lack of mid drift control, to be able to turn potential understeer into oversteer and adjust angle direction while drifting.. Like the 350Z we did earlier, only worse.

@BL: Sorry, but I just can't feel the difference at all adjusting rear toe.. front toe MIGHT do something, at least the car seemed to respond better to countersteering when I first tried setting it, though I can't figure out which setting is the best... it's vague at best and probably not the thing I should be focusing on.

 

[HiyakuShiro]

and at least I'm not staggering anymore.

Thats funny bacause this is the first car I had to stagger lol.

 

[Boundary Layer]

@BL: Sorry, but I just can't feel the difference at all adjusting rear toe.. front toe MIGHT do something, at least the car seemed to respond better to countersteering when I first tried setting it, though I can't figure out which setting is the best... it's vague at best and probably not the thing I should be focusing on.

It must be a result of other variations in our settings. ~shrug~

I fiddled with my settings a little more last night, and they took a step backwards. I'll give it another go tomorrow. I'm sure I can get rid of this understeer.

 

[Valve Timing]

Well I got it to drift rather well I think .. I used ske's settings for a base and then I went from there here are the pics to show what it can do since i dont have recording abilities at this moment




And here are the settings
Ford Mustang GT 05' Stock Horsepower and Torque
Parts to buy
Full Suspension
Full Tranny
Race Clutch and Flywheel
Carbon Driveshaft
Full LSD
Stage 3 Weight Reduction
N1 Tires
Springs 8 8
Height 100 100
Bound 4 3
Rebound 8 6
Camber 0 1.5
Toe -2 -4
Stabilizers 5 4
Tranny Trick Auto 1 Final Drive 4.000
LSD 35 , 45 , 10
Ballast Weight 50 Kg
Distribution +50
Brake Controller 2 15

Description i worked hard on this car and i think i made it a very driftable vehicle sorry for the long post enjoy tell me whats good / bad

 

[DARKEST_HOUR]

Right now the biggest gripe is the lack of mid drift control, to be able to turn potential understeer into oversteer and adjust angle direction while drifting.. Like the 350Z we did earlier, only worse.

Yup

(specs from Car and Driver)

Handling:
Nissan 350Z .88g
Mustang GT .89g
2. Weight distribution:
350Z 53/47
'05 GT 53/47

 

[ekmatt9]

I quit this friggin' Mustang. I just tried again, and it keeps peeling out and sheet that it's pissin' me off badly lol. I'm gonna see you people in DSJ Vol 8

 

[Boundary Layer]

I've got a whole day to spend on the car tomorrow. I'll see if I can figure out anything more.

So from the sounds of it, the biggest problem everyone has is just overcoming the understeer to initiate drift? or is it that the understeer doesnt allow you to maintain drift?

 

[?whygostraight?]

My only problem is oversteer when im trying to maintain. Sometimes it can hurt the initiation, but i can overcome that.

 

[Ske]

So from the sounds of it, the biggest problem everyone has is just overcoming the understeer to initiate drift? or is it that the understeer doesnt allow you to maintain drift?

d) All of the above

The biggest gripe for me is maintaining drift while keeping speed up.. as well as weight shifting forwards for a link. Although it's also a hassle to initiate with it, it's more bearable... I'll do some more work on it, but it certainly looks like this will be the first FR where I have to stagger to make it fun to drive.

I do imagine it's a bit nicer on a DFP though, it does bring a new level of oversteer to the game

 

[Boundary Layer]

^^ ya, at times it feels like a crutch. But I'll try my settings on the DS2 as well before posting anything that I consider helpful to gain some other perspective. My goal is no stagger, no ballast weight, and no aids.