Is lowering a car's suspension always beneficial?

[Samareye]

I have a Lamborghini Gallardo with these settings:

Max tuned EXCEPT for:
-Engine stages
-Weight reduction

Ride Height: -15/-10
Spring rate: 12/12
Dampers (Ext): 6/6
Dampers (Comp): 4/4
Anti-Roll: 4/4
Camber: 2.0/2.5
Toe: -.20/.20

The ride height was the last thing I set, and it drove pretty well before changing it. After lowering the car, it seemed like it would lose control more often, the tires would smoke, and once or twice it understeered where it shouldn't have.

I do think it may have been due to driver error. But i'm not ruling out the ride height either. Does anyone know what is going on?

 

[noisiaturismo]

If you lower the car, its going to drive worse.

 

[eran0004]

I'm no suspension expert, but I can try and offer some help*.

Lowering the ride height is not always good, if you lower it too much there is a risk that the undercarriage touches the ground and that will make the tires lose traction.

As you lower the ride height you need to make the suspension stiffer.

As you make the suspension stiffer you need to equip tires with more grip (because some of the cornering forces that used to be absorbed by body roll will now be transmitted directly to the tires as sideway forces)

That's about all I know about ride height.

Hope it could help* you!


Edit: Btw, what's most important in suspension settings is not that you do it by the book, the most important is that you like the way the car behaves. If you think the car was better without lowering ride height, then you shouldn't lower it.



* Be aware that the help I offer here mainly consists of wild guessing, with the purpose to lure a forum troll up to the surface to flame my ignorance. It is my hope that during the flaming part, the forum troll will accidentilly reveal the true answer to your question.

 

[Samareye]

If you lower the car, its going to drive worse.

So i've found... though I have always heard that lowering a car also lowers its center of gravity, thereby improving cornering.

If it gets worse lowering it, isn't it possible to counter that with other suspension settings? Like eran0004 suggested.

As you lower the ride height you need to make the suspension stiffer.

As you make the suspension stiffer you need to equip tires with more grip (because some of the cornering forces that used to be absorbed by body roll will now be transmitted directly to the tires as sideway forces)

Thanks, that's very helpful.

* Be aware that the help I offer here mainly consists of wild guessing, with the purpose to lure a forum troll up to the surface to flame my ignorance. It is my hope that during the flaming part, the forum troll will accidentilly reveal the true answer to your question.

 

[Tower Turn 13]

If you lower the car, its going to drive worse.

I like you. You're crazy, but I like you.

 

[Tvensky]

I lower the cars all the time if Im racing, I get beter cornering and better lap times! but I ussualy dont change anything.. just drive 100% pure standarts.. esspecialy old classics like JAG E-type.. puting racing susspension on it would be a crime!

 

[friedi]

I lower the cars all the time if Im racing, I get beter cornering and better lap times! but I ussualy dont change anything.. just drive 100% pure standarts.. esspecialy old classics like JAG E-type.. puting racing susspension on it would be a crime!

bit off topic but Jag E-Type man, you can win this car in a german car show i think its "vox"
they build up a E Type complete new, someone can win this car 👍


back to topic.
about the suspenion, rideheigh depents on track... on nordschleife its stupid to use -30/30 wich seems good to be for indy, but indy with higher ride heigh get you also better handling

 

[Windlebut]

I'm clueless about tuning cars so I get tunes off here and it seems that people always lower the suspension as far as possible. I assume these tuners know what they're doing and the cars seem to drive well.

Lowering suspension just always makes me think of those boy-racers who drive around in Vauxhall Corsas with hideous body-kits and attention-seeking exhausts, with their suspension so low that speed-bumps become an obstacle course and the tyres rub on the wheel arch when they go 'round corners.

 

[Scaff]

If you follow the links in my signature you will find two tuning guides, the first of which covers suspension tuning in detail and also contains an example of how a tun can be developed.


Scaff

 

[D-Max]

Well I've never had a problem setting my cars up when lowered.. If the lowest number is no lower than -35 i nearly always drop it to a number equal to 5 less than the minimum available. But then you need to work the ballast so it is 50/50 and tune your dampers, Toe and camber accordingly to get best results. 9 out of 10 times lowering the ecentre of gravity and adjusting the car around it helps a lot!

It's pointless lowering the car and just leaving it. Then yes, it will be horrible.

For example, lowering the car reduces turn in on most cases. Once i've sorted the ride height i then think of what drivetrain the car is and adjust accordingly. I prefer my cars a little tail happy so i stiffen the back if it is a front engine car and soften the front. Reverse this order for mid/rear engine cars. So then you go to the TOE angle and take it to A - number such as -0.35. On the majority of my cars I run between -0.30 & -0.60 on the front and 0.00 & and -0.20 on the back. This helps increase oversteer on the back and A sharper turn in on the front (Tune the oversteer out with the LSD according to preference). Sometimes it increases tire degradation but it rapidly improves handling.

Also for A mid-engine car this is A bit off...

Spring rate: 12/12
Dampers (Ext): 6/6
Dampers (Comp): 4/4
Anti-Roll: 4/4
Camber: 2.0/2.5

This is how I'd set up that car, increasing the handling alot..

Ride Height: -17/-15
Spring rate: 8.5/9.5
Dampers (Ext): 3/8
Dampers (Comp): 8/3
Anti-Roll: 3/3
Camber: 2.3/1.2
Toe: -0.40/-0.15

And be sure that the car is 50/50 on the ballast sheet

 

[MTLclllutch]

lowering the car will reduce jacking if tuned properly. Some tracks will let you get away with lower cars, others wont. I ttry to tune my cars to be happy on most tracks.

 

[iamjajo]

So the general consensus is...it depends - on the car and the track.

In general, I lower my cars; firm up the springs, and adjust the dampers to improve the handling for the way I like the car to work.

Usually I lower the front more than the back to improve weight transfer when braking and thus reduce understeer on corner entry.

 

[neil1280]

If you lower the car, its going to drive worse.

get outta town!!

 

[Motor City Hami]

I haven't posted any new tunes since 2.0 - just wanted to figure out the physics changes and how to use the Tire Load Indicator/bottom out thingy. My most recent testing around ride height has me thinking the following.

1.) Ride height depends highly on the car.
Race cars are already low in the game and slamming them doesn't seem to improve lap times much, if at all. They just get twitchy the lower you go and don't plan on clipping any curbs. I still lower race cars as much as I can get away with - no red indicators on the TLI and a consistent, non twitch feel. Here are some of my race car ride heights post 2.0:
FGT 0/0
Japanese GT cars around -5/-5
RM'd cars -10/-10 to -15/-15

2.) Most street cars can be fully slammed low without creating a bottom out situation, even on soft springs. Just manage the twitchy feel. For cars under 400PP I tend to slam it all the way and increase the springs/dampers a bit. For 450PP and higher, I tend to leave a bit of room and lower between half way and 3/4 of the available height and go a little heavier on springs/ dampers. Even so, I see only modest gains in lap time. Still seeing much larger gains with LSD settings, springs/dampers, ARBs, camber and toe. See my guide link below for further info on my tuning thoery.

3.) I still don't believe in the backward ride height thoery. Yes, some people are able to find some improvements in reducing understeer with the front high and rear slammed, but for the cars that I have tested, the time put into tuning LSD, suspension and aero will be faster every time.

 

[PAPPACLART]

I have found having a lower front vs the back makes the car understeer more. It can be useful to do this with cars that tend to oversteer.

 

[cactusOnR]

I think you should start by lowering the suspension not leave it till all your other setting are done.

The centre of gravity will change when you lower a car. So all your other setting would need looking at again to make the car feel better at the new height.


Mostly it should improve the cars handling. But as people have said everything in GT5 is car and track dependant.

 

[oppositelock]

My belief is that it's better to be too high than too low. I'm still trying to figure out a consistant proceedure for using the bumpstop indicators to set ride height. Ideally, you'd want the car just high enough so that it never hits the bumpstops unless you're jumping it, driving over curbs, etc. Unfortunately, for most cars in GT this doesn't seem possible, even with excessively high ride heights. Cars with a lot of downforce will even ride the bumpstops on a flat road at high speed. The question then becomes how much bottoming out is acceptable. I don't have a good answer for that yet.

 

[Motor City Hami]

Unfortunately, for most cars in GT this doesn't seem possible, even with excessively high ride heights. Cars with a lot of downforce will even ride the bumpstops on a flat road at high speed. The question then becomes how much bottoming out is acceptable. I don't have a good answer for that yet.

So far, in my testing:
- Street cars seem to never bottom out.
- NASCARs bottom quite a bit on Daytona and less at Indy. I actually raised my 2011 NASCAR on Daytona oval and went faster.
- FGT is highly sensitive to ride height. I change ride height by the track.

 

[Rallywagon]

As stated above. Your ride height should be determined by the conditions of the road. A smooth, flat road like in special stage 5, will use a lower height, while trial mountain will be a little higher. A few things happen as a car gets lower. The center of gravity drops, suspension travel is shortened, and, I believe in your case, side roll is diminished. This is something often not considered. While body roll is not really a good thing, it kinda is like a tire with high sidewalls, in that, it helps you get a better visual on the traction you have. Also, less energy is spent rocking the car, so that extra energy is placed on the tires, and less weight is distributed. So a good balance had to be found, and every time the height is raised our lowered, everything else has to be adjusted accordingly.

 

[assassin27]

Depends is it for drags, drift, or just circuit racin? Also if lowerin the car, raise the spring rate to reduce the amount of spin in the back wheels

 

[CSLACR]

Lower corners faster, higher has better straight line acceleration/braking grip.
Simple as that, of course imo.

 

[Johnnypenso]

lowering the car will reduce jacking if tuned properly. Some tracks will let you get away with lower cars, others wont. I ttry to tune my cars to be happy on most tracks.

Yeah what he said. Lowering can produce some benefits on some tracks. Multiple set ups work great for that if you want to put in the time and effort. But the difference is small in my opinion, often zero, so I tend to leave a lot of cars around 0/0.

 

[nomis3613]

So far, in my testing:
- Street cars seem to never bottom out.
- NASCARs bottom quite a bit on Daytona and less at Indy. I actually raised my 2011 NASCAR on Daytona oval and went faster.
- FGT is highly sensitive to ride height. I change ride height by the track.

Thanks for sharing this with us, MCH. I've been wanting to test the load indicators but my laps are awful as I get distracted by the bouncing circles!

My friend Z1-AV69 has a theory (hopefully he doesn't mind me posting it) that GT5 automatically changes the spring rate when you adjusting ride height. I thought it was crazy talk, but it actually worked when I tested it. For every 10mm of ride height reduction, the game seems to increase the spring rate 1.0. If you compensate for this, your balance will become very similar to before the ride height change.

In your case, the front is 5mm lower than the rear, so reduce the front spring rate 0.5 kgf/mm.

 

[oppositelock]

My friend Z1-AV69 has a theory (hopefully he doesn't mind me posting it) that GT5 automatically changes the spring rate when you adjusting ride height. I thought it was crazy talk, but it actually worked when I tested it. For every 10mm of ride height reduction, the game seems to increase the spring rate 1.0. If you compensate for this, your balance will become very similar to before the ride height change.

This frankly doesn't seem like a testable hypothesis. The handling changed when you lowered it, ergo the spring rate increased? I think we can safely attribute that to the lower center of gravity. It just doesn't make sense on any level.

 

[nomis3613]

So have you tried it, or are you just shooting it down because it sounds silly? Hmmm??

I too was sceptical and I dunno what led to this hypothesis (but IIRC the in-game text can be read in a way that implies it works that way- although it could just be due to the engrish).

Anyway whether or not you believe the hypothesis doesn't really matter, the method itself seems to work: adjusting the spring rate brought the balance back to what it was before the rake was introduced.

This frankly doesn't seem like a testable hypothesis. The handling changed when you lowered it, ergo the spring rate increased? I think we can safely attribute that to the lower center of gravity. It just doesn't make sense on any level.

 

[oppositelock]

So have you tried it, or are you just shooting it down because it sounds silly? Hmmm??

There's nothing to test. It's like claiming your TV remote functions not with infrared light but with invisible unicorns. The fact that the channel changes when you press the button doesn't prove the existence of said unicorns.

Anyway whether or not you believe the hypothesis doesn't really matter, the method itself seems to work: adjusting the spring rate brought the balance back to what it was before the rake was introduced.

That's not at all unusual, you can use various settings to counteract each other. The question is, why would you? The rake messed up the handling, then you used another setting to fix what you just broke. Net benefit: zero. So why do anything at all?

 

[nomis3613]

Well I believe there are sometimes good reasons to use rake, but this isn't the place to debate that (no offence but your replies come across as stubborn, condescending and inflammatory. Just letting you know because I hope you don't mean to sound that way. Peace)

Samareye, sorry I didn't mean to take your thread on a different tangent. I'm just saying it's something to try that might work for you.

 

[D-Max]

Also if lowerin the car, raise the spring rate to reduce the amount of spin in the back wheels

where did you get that from? spring rate adjusts handling not wheelspin. the LSD tunes out wheelspin!!

 

[Mac K]

I find most cars I tune handle well with a lowered ride height, but that's just me.

 

[shmogt]

100% of the time lowering it will improve performance, but you must improve everything else to go along with it. So set the ride height first than do everything else. Lowering it also makes it stiffer and the stiffness gives it less roll meaning greater chance of skidding or losing control easier. this is a problem with you as a drive from driving to aggressive, being too hard on brake when entering a corner and too hard on gas when exiting.