Marty and I did some testing at the Twin Pines Mall. Here are the results of three hours of test driving using differing camber settings. Marty ran each setting for ten clean laps, driving at 90 to 95 percent, looking more for consistency than for time trial like single flying laps. I am showing the eccentric lap time against my own, custom time segments at Silverstone. The idea is to compare from one braking zone to the next to minimize the effect of a freak previous or following time segment. Also, using the eccentric (best time) for each segment is the best way to measure which settings were truly faster in each area of the track, after ten clean laps. So I thought. The results did not come back as pure as I had predicted, so I am looking for help to find additional insights from the data. All comments, positive and scrutinous are welcome.
First, I decided to test front and rear camber independently to see if a story developed. It did. What did Marty feel?
· It was easier and easier to lock the brakes with more and more front camber added
· Turn in felt better and better with more and more front camber added
· Exit understeer increased with each addition of front camber
· Rear camber seemed to loosen the car a little more with each addition, but nothing drastic; just slight difference in feel
Tune:
BMW M4 Coupe
Sport Soft Tires
Full Suspension Kit Installed
@Stotty Super Starter Setup (mentioned earlier in this camber thread)
Ride Height 100/100 stock
Spring Rate 4.53/6.28 stock
Dampers (Compression) 3/3 stock
Dampers (Extension) 3/3 stock
Camber Angle (Various)
Toe Angle 0.00/0.00
@Stotty
Brake Balance 5/5
Full Transmission (reset to default after power upgrades)
Full LSD 10/11/10 (to eliminate the possibility of exit wheel spin)
Triple Clutch
Carbon Drive Shaft
Power Limiter 97.6%
Engine Tuning Stage 1
Sports Computer
Sports Exhaust
Sports Catalytic Converter
Rear Aero Installed
Downforce 0/5
Ballast 23 kg
Ballast Position 0%
Weight Reduction Stage 3
Carbon Hood
Window Weight Reduction
550 PP
511 HP
1,250 kg
Weight Distribution 52:48
The Time Sectors:
#1 - Start, Abby, Farm - Abby high speed, turn in is important. Farm is high speed.
#2 - Village thru Wellington - Village is hard braking, sharp turn in, Loop, sharpest corner on track, Aintree high speed.
#3 - Brooklands thru Woodcote - Brooklands decreasing radius medium speed, Luffield long sweeping slow to med speed.
#4 - Copse & Maggots - High speed, turn in is important.
#5 - Becketts thru Hanger Straight - Right, left, right decreasing speed that sets up for long straight.
#6 - Speed Trap, Stowe - Sweeping medium speed
#7 - Vale, Club, Finish - Hard braking, sharp turn in, increasing radius to medium speed exit.
Data (purple equals fastest time of each sector):
#Overall - More front camber = easier to lock brakes, more turn in but more exit understeer.
#Sector 1 - 3.0 fastest with zero close behind. Theory; turn in for Abby felt better with 3.0, but had understeer through Farm Curve.
#Sector 2 - Mid range camber worked best. Theory; this section calls for sharp turn in on two corners and medium to high speed exit grip through Aintree.
#Sector 3 - 1.0 wins the section by a small margin. Very little difference in lap time through this sector.
#Sector 4 - 3.0 fastest with zero close behind. Theory; Copse is such a long corner that both turn in and exit are important.
#Sector 5 - 2.0 fastest. I did get only one lap this low, but ran three laps in the 23.6's so just as fast as zero camber.
#Sector 6 - Zero and 1.0 the clear winners at Stowe. Long sweeping corner where exit understeer would kill the lap.
#Sector 7 - Zero and 2.0 are best. Theory; another section with a sharp turn in and a long, sweeping exit.
#Full Lap - 2.0 was fastest by only 0.067 over zero.
#Overall - More rear camber = a slightly looser feeling car. The story here is that 3.0 rear camber or zero camber worked best everywhere except for Becketts.
#Full Lap - 3.0 camber was clearly the fastest, but not by adding grip to the car. Rear camber reduced rear grip. I wonder what 3.5 and 4.0 would look like - are we at the top of the bell curve at 3.0?
#Full Lap - 0.0 front / 3.0 rear clearly won the test, but there are some purple sectors for each of the camber settings, which I did not expect to see when I designed this test.
Final thoughts:
Camber worked and it did not work. This test shows that you can be almost as fast with camber as without. What really needs to be taken away from this test is how and when to use camber. Camber must be thought about separately between front and rear. Use front camber on a car that already has oversteer on exit and problems turning in. If your car already understeers on exit, adding front camber will make it slower on corner exit. Front camber also makes it easier to lock the front tires under braking so lowering the front brake balance may help or you will need to be easier on the brake pedal. Rear camber allowed for more rotation so it can be used on cars with plentiful rear grip. The final takeaway that I have from this
one test is that being fast with camber may be track dependent. Silverstone had a pretty equal amount of hard braking zone/low speed corners versus medium speed to high speed corners. Maybe more camber would be faster at Tsukuba and less camber would be faster at Monza? Who knows? There is easily a year’s worth of testing that could be done around camber alone, but by the time that testing is finished, game version 2.0 with “improved” physics will be here and force everyone to start testing all over again.
Did I miss anything useful in the data?