Ferrari Festival! • One-Make • Events Complete!Full

[BrandonW77]

When I have this problem trying to join a friend, I ask him on what track he is and I use the track filter to find the room, not the "friends only" filter, and that works well 👍

The reports were saying that no rooms were visible at all, not friends' rooms or otherwise. So if that's the case, searching by track wouldn't be possible because it would show zero tracks being used. Hopefully it's sorted.

 

[BrandonW77]

So, I've done a bit of testing over the weekend but before I go any further with it I want to make sure it's something people will be interested in. The addition of number plates allows me to do something I've always wanted to do, but it's a bit of a different route than what we've done before. Using the parity method we've been talking about, I want to loosely recreate some real world racing series. What I've been testing so far is based on a series I attended this weekend at IMS, the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge. It's based on production cars, and to my understanding the cars remain fairly close to their production counterparts, mainly just stripped of weight and exhaust and with a roll cage and aero bits added, as well as race suspension, transmission and brakes. Here's their site.

So, with that in mind, I took the street versions of my Camaro, Mustang (Boss), M5 and 370Z Fairlady and converted them into race cars. I put all the aero bits (front aero I picked the option at the bottom of the list) and Generic Wing A on them, along with fully adjustable suspension and transmission, as well as the LSD and all the weight reduction possible. And of course, the number plates, which makes them look like proper race cars instead of "ricers". All 4 cars were right around 580-590pp and did surprisingly close lap times/top speeds around Laguna Seca. With some minor tweaking I was able to get them all right at 1:29.00 lap times with a top speed at the end of the front stretch of 140mph/225kph (+/- 1mph). The cars sounded, drove, and looked like proper race cars and they were very fun to drive (on SM tires, with SS also being available for slower guys, using the parity method).

I realize that most people come here for stock racing, and adding wings and performance parts kind of goes against that and might turn some people off. But it's really not much different than just driving a stock race car, and none of the adjustable bits need to be tinkered with if you don't want to. I just slapped them on there and took it on the track, only thing I ever adjusted was a slight tweak to the transmission on the Nissan. They were a hoot to drive, would be a hoot to race, and I actually quite enjoyed "building" the cars.

Any thoughts on this? Are you guys totally turned off by the idea of adding some parts to cars to make them into race cars? Again, no actual tuning would be needed besides adding/removing some power or weight to meet the targets, and maybe a slight tweak to the top speed of some transmissions. So no worries about having to become a tuning expert, or even needing to know anything about tuning, but I think the racing could be grand and the grids will look spectacular! Here's a taste of what they look like.

This could be done to recreate many series, such as BTCC, Pirelli World Challenge, FIA Touring Cars, Aussie Super V8's, any number of the SCCA categories, could be real fun!

 

[MC-Chase]

I'll be on the 370z. Any reason to limit tire compounds in a parity race? I'll stick with SM if that's the case but SH would be preferable for me.

And yeah I'm interested.

 

[BrandonW77]

Any reason to limit tire compounds in a parity race?

I suppose if you want to go down a grade on tires it wouldn't be an issue, though you'd have to add more power to get the lost time back. There will be an upper limit though, no racing tires unless we get into some really powerful race cars and then it would be limited to RH and RM, but nothing like that is on my radar at the moment.

Also, you particularly will be happy to know that the aero bits down't add any functional front downforce and the wings only add a tiny bit of rear downforce (I know you don't like downforce). I'm hoping the rear wing adjustability can be used to tweak top speed, add a little to reduce speed or remove a little to increase speed. It only goes to 20 though, so I'm not sure how effective that would actually be. It's a good thought though.

 

[MC-Chase]

Unfortunately the small amount of rear wing aero doesn't yield much discernible loss in ultimate velocity. Your best bet would be setting the target time at stock weight, weight reduction will up the cornering speed but won't help on the straights like more horsepower would for the same PP.

 

[Cu3e]

Camaro SS '10 ok for this?

Edit: i should have asked, is that the list of cars allowed or just some examples? 👍

 

[KingKlingeling]

@amarynceos and I did some modern murican muscle testing (laguna seca), he was in c7 vette and I was in a srt8 ,both with 1,36 target time on sh tires and with 135mph max .
we both did +\- 0.200 laps .
i'm definetly interrested in those events , just inform me which cars/tires/tracks/max speed/max lap time and I'll be there as often as I can

 

[LongbowX]

@BrandonW77 I really enjoy the Continental Sports Car Challenge. It seems you've done a better job balancing than they have (even their cars have noticeably different characteristics). I think you meant M3 and not M5 in your original post on the subject maybe? 580-590PP seems a bit high as well...I'd add only about 50PP to the cars with the weight reduction and minor power mods (eg. The Camaro Z/28 CSSC still weighs around 3500lbs, so their weight reduction wasn't that much). The suspension they can put on the car is limited by the OEM fittings as well. The Transmission gears themselves are also the OEM gearing. The cars on CSSC don't have wings like you put on, just wings that are available from the parts bin of the manufacturer. So definitely not with supports like that.

I'm nitpicking, sorry.

 

[Torzilla]

I'm interested, I generally don't like tuning but am much more open to simply adding wings and tweaking the transmission as opposed to spending 2 hours incrementally changing the fan belt.

 

[Cu3e]

I have almost the same amount of cars color coded for the Parity Racing as I have for the Mixer Shuffle I think I joined majority of B's early tests 👍

Just waiting for the spec and date

 

[BrandonW77]

Unfortunately the small amount of rear wing aero doesn't yield much discernible loss in ultimate velocity. Your best bet would be setting the target time at stock weight, weight reduction will up the cornering speed but won't help on the straights like more horsepower would for the same PP.

I was only thinking of using the wing to loose 1-2mph, just a sort of fine-tuning. Since these are supposed to be race-car "replicas" I wouldn't do any testing at stock weight, and the upgraded tire selection could be used for increasing cornering speed. I could maybe do it at a Stage 2 weight reduction which would leave a little room for more weight to be removed. And I noticed in my testing that reducing weight didn't really effect top speed, so that's a good thing.

@BrandonW77 I really enjoy the Continental Sports Car Challenge. It seems you've done a better job balancing than they have (even their cars have noticeably different characteristics). I think you meant M3 and not M5 in your original post on the subject maybe? 580-590PP seems a bit high as well...I'd add only about 50PP to the cars with the weight reduction and minor power mods (eg. The Camaro Z/28 CSSC still weighs around 3500lbs, so their weight reduction wasn't that much). The suspension they can put on the car is limited by the OEM fittings as well. The Transmission gears themselves are also the OEM gearing. The cars on CSSC don't have wings like you put on, just wings that are available from the parts bin of the manufacturer. So definitely not with supports like that.

I'm nitpicking, sorry.

I was already waiting for these kind of comments. I guess "inspired by" would be a better term, I'm not trying to exactly replicate these series but as you pointed out I could probably get a bit closer to the real-world specs (I had a hard time finding them though). I guess I just presumed they would have racing suspension and transmissions. Thing is, I can't police these parts and since everything is allowed with parity I figured it's best to just do the testing with those parts added. There would be nothing stopping someone from throwing all the handling and power parts on there, but as long as they're hitting the targets it's all good.

When I saw them Friday it looked like they had some non-OEM wings on them, at least the GS class did. I supposed there are probably custom wings that would be a better representation, I was just trying to make it easy for everyone to find/pick the same one so there was some uniformity to the grid. I only did a quick search for the specs but didn't find much so I was just kinda winging it. And I thought the M3 was in the GT class but the M5 was used in the upper class? I could be wrong on that, but the M5 fit in with the others nicely (maybe the M3 would too).

I mainly just wanted to see if my theory was sound and if people would be interested in that kind of thing. Using parity it could be really easy to recreate these real-world series without having to do a bunch of individual testing of cars/specs to get the performance balanced. If enough people are interested I can get some kind of formal spec list and targets together for us to do some proper testing.

 

[BrandonW77]

I would say, don't get your hopes up too high for any of this. It is something I've always wanted to do but the time required to make it work might be more than I (or you guys) am willing to put into it. It took a few hours just to get these 4 cars upgraded and dialed in, I really don't have the time or desire to do that each week. So if we did to it, we would use the same group of cars for at least 2-3 weeks to minimize the prep time needed. For those who don't have the prep time they could just prep one car and use it for the next few weeks. For those with time to prep multiple cars, they could do so and race a different car each week (which would help to keep things from getting stale). Then we could maybe have a week off for prepping the next group of cars before starting up another "series". We could do a week or two of multiple "sprint" races each night and then the third week be an enduro. With a couple weeks of sprint races everyone would have their cars really dialed into the targets and would have been able to find their favorite to take to the enduro (45-50 minutes with a pitstop).

I'm also not sure many people would fully understand the concept I'm trying to achieve and I'd have to field a bunch of questions about why other cars aren't allowed or why I'd like everyone to use the same wing, or why we race the same group of cars for several weeks, etc. If everyone plays along and understands the goal is to recreate some of the real racing I/we watch on the tele, then it could be a whole lot of fun. But if other people wander in and just want to bring their own cars and not play by the rules, then we might as well just do open parity where anything and everything is allowed. It could be a real can of worms, or it could be a whole lot of fun. It really depends on the group, and while I know the group here would be great to work with, I'm not sure I could say that for others that might wander in. But if you guys are interested in this type of parity racing to loosely simulate some real-world race series then I'm willing to put some effort into it. 👍

 

[LongbowX]

@BrandonW77 Hehe. The real modifications on the cars are more difficult to find, however from reading the competition rules (Available on the website) and such gives a good indication of the modifications. Supplimenting that with what I remember from individual interviews and from informal chats I've overheard personally. I actually found out that you can swap certain parts between completely different cars...as long as they are from the same manufacturer. Certain parts anyway.

I have no problem with running racing suspensions or transmissions, it was more for your information. I know it's impossible to police, so I understand the necessity.

All the cars have OEM wings, including the GS class (though they might be from the "performance catalog" or whatever the manufacturers call their add-on features). I think the "custom wings" are a better representation but again...I'm not really too bothered. In the lower class (ST) they use 328i Sedans and in the GS class they use M3 Coupes.

I think other cars could be used too like the Challenger (which did briefly race in the CSSC), IS-F, Gran Turismo S, V12 Vantage (granted, it was the V8s that raced), CTS-V Coupe. But now that I read your follow up post (which was posted as I was getting ready to post this), I guess you don't really want the extra complication! Open rules would be interesting too, regarding the parity. A "Car list" is a better idea to still give people choice - and limiting the grid to cars that are closer in theme which is what you seem to desire. So, if you want to keep just those 4 cars, that's fine too.

 

[MC-Chase]

It does sound like a lot of work - hats off to you for giving it a go (I certainly wouldn't have bothered with the workload!). Similarly if you decide the work is too much I would be totally fine with just vague themed parity nights; '80s FF hatches, or MR under 1000kgs, etc, etc, all would be good fun I'm sure.

 

[BrandonW77]

@BrandonW77 Hehe. The real modifications on the cars are more difficult to find, however from reading the competition rules (Available on the website) and such gives a good indication of the modifications. Supplimenting that with what I remember from individual interviews and from informal chats I've overheard personally. I actually found out that you can swap certain parts between completely different cars...as long as they are from the same manufacturer. Certain parts anyway.

I have no problem with running racing suspensions or transmissions, it was more for your information. I know it's impossible to police, so I understand the necessity.

All the cars have OEM wings, including the GS class (though they might be from the "performance catalog" or whatever the manufacturers call their add-on features). I think the "custom wings" are a better representation but again...I'm not really too bothered. In the lower class (ST) they use 328i Sedans and in the GS class they use M3 Coupes.

I think other cars could be used too like the Challenger (which did briefly race in the CSSC), IS-F, Gran Turismo S, V12 Vantage (granted, it was the V8s that raced), CTS-V Coupe. But now that I read your follow up post (which was posted as I was getting ready to post this), I guess you don't really want the extra complication! Open rules would be interesting too, regarding the parity. A "Car list" is a better idea to still give people choice - and limiting the grid to cars that are closer in theme which is what you seem to desire. So, if you want to keep just those 4 cars, that's fine too.

^ See, it's already getting complicated! I don't mind some complication as long as everyone understands the purpose and ultimate goal. I think it would be worth it, but I also don't want to be going through this every week which is why we'd run each group for a few weeks. Kinda like a mini-season, just without points, but I'd still have the Wall of Champions so the winners can get some glory.

I thought about having the other models (intended to include the Aston since it's a current competitor) but figured I should probably keep it to just the current models being raced. If for no other reason, it cuts down on test/prep time because there's fewer cars to go through. I'd want to do some basic testing of each car to make sure it can meet the targets before adding it to the list, but after 10-15 minutes I'll generally know if it's going to qualify or not. That's not too bad if there's only 5-6 cars, but much more than that would get cumbersome. Over the next couple days I'll re-tool them to be closer to real-world specs and see what the results are, but for the reasons stated above we're just going to have to go ahead and toss the racing suspension and transmission on there. The only power added was from intake and exhaust, and I'll check the weights to see if they should be in a different ballpark. Again, none of those things can really be policed, but there will be a point where you've added so much stuff that you can no longer meet the targets so to an extent it's self policing. I would list the parts I added to get to the targets, if people add those and get close then great. If they want to go bonkers and add more stuff that's fine too as long as they meet the targets.

It does sound like a lot of work - hats off to you for giving it a go (I certainly wouldn't have bothered with the workload!). Similarly if you decide the work is too much I would be totally fine with just vague themed parity nights; '80s FF hatches, or MR under 1000kgs, etc, etc, all would be good fun I'm sure.

Might end up just going that route, or some combination of the two.

EDIT: Like I said, this is the kind of thing I've been wanting to do since the GT5 days so this is something I'd be willing to put the effort/time into if I think it's going to work. I watch all kinds of racing, just about anything I can find (besides NASCAR and drag racing) and I see so many Gran Turismo cars in these races and think "I want to do THAT!" but the only way it works for me is with parity because that's the only kind of tuning I know how to do or want to do. And IMO it would produce much better results than just setting a weight/power limit and whatever lap times people get is what they get. With parity, we tune to the driver, not to the car. And while the addition of the number plates seems like an incredibly simple thing, for me it suddenly makes the whole thing worth investigating. 👍

 

[BrandonW77]

Well, I guess since someone is already doing an "official" version of the CTSCC maybe I should look into doing another series to start this parity idea off with. Thoughts? BTCC comes to mind, as does Pirelli World Challenge (which uses some of the same cars we've mentioned today), or maybe DTM or FIA TC's. Any suggestions?

 

[amarynceos]

PWC! 👍👍👍👍

We're only missing two of the cars that run in the Flagship class of the PWC (Bentley Continental GT and Porsche). I've got them all kitted out with the aero bits, just need to tune the power a bit on the m all.

I'm more than happy to take on part of the testing load. Now that Le Tour has ended and Zero Cup is on summer break, I've got more time available for GT.

 

[LongbowX]

Although someone is doing a version of CTSCC, there aren't that many participants. I think you could still do it...especially since your version is only "inspired by".

PWC is good (Although I never get to see it because in Canada we don't get that channel!), wouldn't that just be GT3 car racing, essentially? Because that's pretty much what it is now. At least in the top class.

BTCC is great, and doable too I think.

 

[BrandonW77]

That's why I hadn't looked too hard at PWC, it's mostly straight up GT3 cars. I think BTCC might be a better option to start with, we have some of the cars and could find similar ones to fill the gaps. Are they all FF now or are there still some FR's?

 

[LongbowX]

There are still some FR: BMW 1 Series' and Audi A4s. But mostly FFs.

 

[VBR]

I see that this event has been completed. If anyone is wanting stock car racing on a Saturday, check out the Club Shuffle-Esque link in my signature.


👍

 

[BrandonW77]

There are still some FR: BMW 1 Series' and Audi A4s. But mostly FFs.

We don't have a FR version of the A4 do we? Maybe there's a good substitute available. Or we could grandfather in a FR from previous seasons. Since it's only "inspired by" we could kind of do a greatest hits car lists with previously run cars and current cars all together.

 

[amarynceos]

And here I've spent all my remaining credits on building PWC cars.

The A4 in BTCC is AWD, I'm 95% sure of this.

Some of these might be off, I'm going by a spreadsheet list, don't feel like firing up the PS3 again.

BTCC Cars / GT Equivalent / Substitute

Audi A4 / No premium equivalent
BMW 125i M Sport / BMW 135i Coupe '07 or Concept 1 Series tii '07
Chevrolet Cruze / No equivalent
Ford Focus ST Mk. III / Ford Focus ST '13
Honda Civic / Honda Civic Type R '08
Mercedes-Benz A Class / No equivalent
MG6 GT / No equivalent
Proton Persona / No equivalent
Toyota Avensis / Would have to look in-game
Vauxhall Insignia / No equivalent
Volkswagen CC / No equivalent / Scirroco R '10 or Golf VI R '10

So that's only four current cars that we can approximate from BTCC. If we use the 'greatest hits' idea of looking over previous seasons, that would certainly widen the options.

Personally, as much as I enjoy watching BTCC, I'd rather work on a CTSCC GS or PWC TC-A / TC-B series.

Also, @LongbowX , PWC live streams all their races and all their broadcasts, both live and TV-repackaged, are available on their site or on their Youtube channel. 👍 Have you looked at that or is it region-blocked in Canada (which would be crappy)?

We ditched TV over a year ago and apart from F1 everything a person could want is available online.

 

[SagarisGTB]

I know I'm late to the party, but I really need to state how much I like that we've got number decals for road cars (and a few race cars). This is actually something I contemplated suggesting in the suggestions part of the forum (along with sports wet tires). Now racing in GT6 will look a lot more like actual racing in almost any specs.

Even a modest battered Aqua looks the business with numbers.

Whatever Brandon cooks up, it'll look better after the last update.

Have you thought about Super 1600 touring car type racing with the Fit, Punto, Mito, Clio, Vitz, Demio, Mini and/or Micra? Or is that too slow?

 

[BrandonW77]

I'd say anything's a candidate! I'm not familiar with that but it sounds reasonable. I generally prefer FR, MR or AWD cars but don't mind tossing some FF's in occasionally. I'm gonna need to further educate myself on the world's racing series.

@amarynceos when I said equivalent I meant we could possibly substitute another similar car from another manufacturer. I'm sure we could find a couple that are pretty close to what we'd need.

 

[amarynceos]

@SagarisGTB that sounds very similar to the Pirelli World Challenge TC classes.

This year's entries for PWC TC-A/TC-B:

Honda Civic Si
Mazda MX-5
KIA Forte Koup
Honda Fit
Ford Fiesta
Mini Cooper
Fiat 500

The Punto, Mito, Clio, Vitz, Demio and Micra would fit in quite nicely with those I think. 👍

 

[LongbowX]

@amarynceos Rob Austin's A4 is FR. Because AWD systems are banned in BTCC. So they got to choose the layout. And they chose FR.

The Pirelli TC-A/B class is a good idea too. I also prefer other drivetrains besides FF, but willing to run them for a few weeks.

As for watching the races...well. I should check it out on Youtube. Streaming it onto the TV is a pain though, hah. I can't stand watching on the Computer. And our bandwidth per month is quite limited in Canada. I didn't know it was also available on Youtube though, just the site. That's helpful, thanks.

 

[amarynceos]

Well, glad I only said 95% sure, at least that way I was 5% not-wrong. XD I can only plead that it's been over a month since I watched a BTCC race, or indeed much of any Auto Racing -- Le Tour always eats up July's sports time allotment.

I always watch PWC on youtube, the resolution is slightly better than the video imbedded in their site.

 

[BrandonW77]

@SagarisGTB that sounds very similar to the Pirelli World Challenge TC classes.

This year's entries for PWC TC-A/TC-B:

Honda Civic Si
Mazda MX-5
KIA Forte Koup
Honda Fit
Ford Fiesta
Mini Cooper
Fiat 500

The Punto, Mito, Clio, Vitz, Demio and Micra would fit in quite nicely with those I think. 👍

Now that sounds like an appetizing group. Instead of the Kia maybe we could toss a BMW 1 Series in there to get another FR option. Or maybe the Concept version so it would have racing stripe livery. 👍 I'd enjoy racing FF's more if I could swap to a FR the second race.

 

[Jonnaidoo]

Brandon, your idea sounds excellent. I will keep watching this tread and join the series if thats ok with you.