Mazda MX-5 Miata

[BayConRong]

i'm having trouble tuning my miata, of course.

it is randomly choosing to have understeer on corners and sometimes not on others and i was wondering how can you optimaly set up a miata so that it shows off it's good turning. and if you know how to set up the transmition and the limited slip too that would be great.

 

[Rotary Junkie]

PM me a parts list that you're using, the exact model, etc.

Or just give me a goal (balanced handling, slight oversteer, "safe" setup [a teeny bit of understeer], etc.) along with the model.

I'll get on it tomorrow, as it's about 1AM here...

It's hard to diagnose a problem without seeing it firsthand sometimes!

 

[AOS-]

posting your setup helps a lot... I also learned from scaff that if you brake REALLY hard, and try to turn in hopes of some oversteer, you actually get understeer becasue there's so muh grip that your car cannot take it, so it breaks traction( in the front), thus understeer.

the Commens put in when you have your curose over tranmission and the LSD tell you the answer.

I wouldn't recommend you trying to altar the LSD too much unless you know what your doing, Stock is fine... Either than that, you can simply read up on Scaff's Tuning Guide.

 

[Parnelli Bone]

i'm having trouble tuning my miata, of course.

it is randomly choosing to have understeer on corners and sometimes not on others and i was wondering how can you optimaly set up a miata so that it shows off it's good turning. and if you know how to set up the transmition and the limited slip too that would be great.

Yeah, you need to post your suspension, brakes, and limited-slip setup. What tires are you using? What race are you trying to accomplish? How much power are you using?

You may not need a limited-slip at all, but this depends on how much power your car has. If you have your driving aids turned on (ASM and TCS) i suggest you turn them off.

Also, you're asking for a transmission setup. Again, what track and how much power are you using? Personally, i wouldn't use a racing transmission in most races...it's just an extra step i haven't found necessary for a Miata yet. I would just keep the tranny stock or put a close-ratio unit in there but this depends on whether or not a full-custom tranny is needed.

 

[Perfect Balance]

i'm having trouble tuning my miata, of course.

it is randomly choosing to have understeer on corners and sometimes not on others and i was wondering how can you optimaly set up a miata so that it shows off it's good turning. and if you know how to set up the transmition and the limited slip too that would be great.

If the car is "randomly" oversteering or understeer, you might want to look at the driving aspect, not the car itself. See what you are doing that is keeping it from being consistent.

 

[Parnelli Bone]

If the car is "randomly" oversteering or understeer, you might want to look at the driving aspect, not the car itself. See what you are doing that is keeping it from being consistent.

Well, he already admitted to using a limited-slip, which half of the time (depending on how much power is up front) you don't even need. And i bet he's got driving aids, on as well. Wouldn't be the first time someone didn't know or forgot to turn them off, know what i mean?

 

[Rotary Junkie]

I wouldn't recommend you trying to altar the LSD too much unless you know what your doing, Stock is fine... Either than that, you can simply read up on Scaff's Tuning Guide.

Ehh, I respectfully disagree. I know you were speaking of the default FC values, but it could be misinterpreted as the stock diff > badly tuned FC. The anwer to that is a no, case in point: Every single street car in RWD from the 70's and earlier has an open diff (And some newer), and that, my friend, simply loses every drop of power you have, as all the power takes the easy way out (inside tire) and said easy way out stays the easy way out (100-110 mph one-wheel burnouts in Cougars come to mind)

 

[Gil]

I agree with all the above.
If you have a full race LSD you might consider the 1.5:1 unit. It is a good all-round unit and the Miata really doesn't make all that much power, even if fully tuned.
And if you have the driver aids on and the LSD you will get wonky handling.

 

[Rotary Junkie]

Same with a brake balance controller. Set one to 1/24, turn on ASM. It'll only brake with the rears (mostly), as, for some strange reason, the BBC throws the ASM around.

 

[Scaff]

Ehh, I respectfully disagree. I know you were speaking of the default FC values, but it could be misinterpreted as the stock diff > badly tuned FC. The anwer to that is a no, case in point: Every single street car in RWD from the 70's and earlier has an open diff (And some newer), and that, my friend, simply loses every drop of power you have, as all the power takes the easy way out (inside tire) and said easy way out stays the easy way out (100-110 mph one-wheel burnouts in Cougars come to mind)

Sorry but not strictly 100% true. With an FC LSD its possible to lock it full open (Initial 5) or closed (Initial 60) with the wrong set-up and a fully locked diff is far more of an issue than a fully open one, causing significant problems on tight corners. Even getting the initial torque right but messing up the accell or decel can also cause huge problems with high power cars, particularly with the accel figure.

You also have the case of cars such as the Skyline and Lancer Evo, in which the stock LSD is a far better choice than the FC one, no matter how the FC is set-up. GT4 also only gives us mechanical diffs to play with, if it had active diffs (as per pre 2007 WRC cars - Richard Burns Rally for a sim that features them) the sheer range of set-up would more than allow someone to mess up.

Simply put a poorly set-up FC LSD can be worse that a stock LSD, it depends on exactly how its been set, the car in question and the track being run. Blanket statements are rarely accurate or correct in tuning (in GT4 and even more so in the real world).

Same with a brake balance controller. Set one to 1/24, turn on ASM. It'll only brake with the rears (mostly), as, for some strange reason, the BBC throws the ASM around.

Now this I would agree with, what is happening is that the ASM is trying to compensate for the massive rear brake bias (a set-up that in the real world would see a car spinning almost as soon as you hit the brakes). Its one of the reasons why I personally never use the driving aids.


Regards

Scaff

 

[Rotary Junkie]

n00bs traditionally think "more traction, better", which means they'll lock out the LSD. In my personal experience, a locked LSD in any car that came stock (or now has) with any amount of power will perform better than the stock, open diff. The loss in corner speed is made up for by better exit acceleration. (It just seems a little wasteful to spin the tires to 80+mph on a 40mph corner exit.) A wide-open LSD would be the same as the stock open diff, so there's no real loss. On cars with stock LSDs it's a different story.

 

[Greycap]

Then there are the cases in which there are not enough power to spin the wheels. Applying a locked differential will kill the cornering speeds and not make anything up in the exits.

 

[Rotary Junkie]

Correct.

OMG, I NEED TEH POWA!!!11one mentalities tend to cure that.

 

[Scaff]

In my personal experience, a locked LSD in any car that came stock (or now has) with any amount of power will perform better than the stock, open diff. The loss in corner speed is made up for by better exit acceleration.

In an open corner maybe (and its a big maybe), but in anything getting tight a locked diff will kill corner speed and run the car massively wide, particularly in hairpins. Full lock a diff and take it around Citta D Aria and a car with an open diff will murder it, fully locked diffs have one place and that off-road work.

However my main point was that great care should be taken with blanket statements in tuning, they are very, very rarely correct.

Regards

Scaff

 

[Parnelli Bone]

Yeah i agree. Fully-locked=more understeer. And that's a no-no for street racing in GT4. Now in earlier GT games, you could fully-lock a diff and it would still be useful (if a bit cumbersome in my opinion).

Me and some others used to do setup vs. setup threads over in GT2 a couple years ago. I remember one guy used a fully-locked diff on a rear-drive car...i'm forgetting what model sorry. Although i personally wouldn't lock a diff and then go racing, i found that when i "drove" his car, it was an eye-opener. We were at Grand Valley and i could get almost fully-sideways in cornering drifts, and when i went to drive for grip, the car was a bit too stiff but i could still drive it reliably.

This is of course unlike GT4 where you'd just get understeer. I felt very safe pushing this fellow's car (whatever it was) to the limit without a spin.

 

[Scaff]

Yeah i agree. Fully-locked=more understeer. And that's a no-no for street racing in GT4. Now in earlier GT games, you could fully-lock a diff and it would still be useful (if a bit cumbersome in my opinion).

Me and some others used to do setup vs. setup threads over in GT2 a couple years ago. I remember one guy used a fully-locked diff on a rear-drive car...i'm forgetting what model sorry. Although i personally wouldn't lock a diff and then go racing, i found that when i "drove" his car, it was an eye-opener. We were at Grand Valley and i could get almost fully-sideways in cornering drifts, and when i went to drive for grip, the car was a bit too stiff but i could still drive it reliably.

This is of course unlike GT4 where you'd just get understeer. I felt very safe pushing this fellow's car (whatever it was) to the limit without a spin.

Spot on PB, earlier GT games really did tone-down the physics and tuning elements of things (don't get me wrong they were amazing for the time and limits of the PS1), GT4 is still a way away from 'correct', but its a lot closer to what should happen.

Rotary Junkie seems to be forgetting what the principal reason we need a differential is, and that is first and foremost to allow the wheels to turn at different speeds (aside from the rather obvious function of helping to get the power to the wheels in the first place), rather a large requirement to allow a car to turn even a moderately tight corner.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/differential.htm

The above is an simple and straight forward , but excellent, guide to this, however even the simple diagram below illustrates just how much difference occurs in wheel rotation when cornering.

As can be seen the wheel furthest from the corner has to travel much further than the one nearest the corner, to do so it has to move faster in order to cover the greater distance in the same amount of time. Fully locking a differential would force both wheels to rotate at the same speed, making cornering much, much more difficult as the outside tyre would have to be forced beyond its grip limit to make the turn.

Now differentials only effect driving wheels (so the fronts on a FWD car, the rears on a RWD car and all on a 4WD car), as the un-driven wheels are not connected. So the exact effect of a lock diff on a car will depend on the corner radius, the car and the speed, but in all situations a fully locked diff is far from ideal.

Regards

Scaff

 

[Rotary Junkie]

And now I'm off to drive a pro-street RX-7 with a spool.

Actually, there's something I need to test: The Audi Quattro. My GUESS is that GT4 cannot model the action of a Torsen differential, but there is a possibility. If someone could verify whether or not the game is accurate, I'd be grateful.

I now step down from the differential disagreement.

 

[Scaff]

And now I'm off to drive a pro-street RX-7 with a spool.

Actually, there's something I need to test: The Audi Quattro. My GUESS is that GT4 cannot model the action of a Torsen differential, but there is a possibility. If someone could verify whether or not the game is accurate, I'd be grateful.

I now step down from the differential disagreement.

Checking exactly how well Torsen diffs are modelled in GT4 would be quite difficult indeed, as in most common circumstances the differences are subtle. Yes they do transfer torque before a loss of traction occurs. The easiest way is not open to us, and that would be sticking one wheel off the ground, as Torsen would not be able to transfer any power to the other wheel, but that is not going to happen in GT4 (getting the wheel off the ground).

I would suspect that PD have at least attempted to model the difference, as they have done with active diff systems (as fitted to the R34, Evo and all the modern rally cars), we just do not get to tune them correctly.


Regards

Scaff

 

[Parnelli Bone]

And now I'm off to drive a pro-street RX-7 with a spool.

Actually, there's something I need to test: The Audi Quattro. My GUESS is that GT4 cannot model the action of a Torsen differential, but there is a possibility. If someone could verify whether or not the game is accurate, I'd be grateful.

I now step down from the differential disagreement.

I havne't driven any Torsen-diff models in GT4 yet that i know of, but i clearly remember in GT2 driving a Lancia Delta which is supposed to have a Torsen that kicks in and out. Here's what i wrote in my notes about it a couple years back.

Real-life Integrales have a Torsen (torque sensing) rear differential similar to those developed for McLaren Formula 1 cars. This LSD system will never provide more than 70% lockup under hard cornering, meaning that you'll always have a bit leeway. In my races at Seattle and Rome, i definitely noticed that the back-end of the HF Integrale had plenty of grip under power. The tires back there would smoke for a second, and then they'd be tamed by the Torsen system; almost as if the car is designed to give just the right amount of oversteer necessary for positioning before you exit most any tight corner.

Of course, i dont' know if PD somehow programmed this system accurately, (we're talkin GT2, after all! ) but i'm sure whoever programmed the Deltas at least took the Torsen system into consideration. It's like AWD GTR Skylines--if i installed a FC differential, it would mess up the all-too-predictable cornering....same goes with the Lancia Delta. 👍

...

 

[Open Addict]

Apologies for digging up the past. But I figured it better than starting a new thread.

I have a question regarding the Miata.
I am trying to find a set-up for Roadster 4hour around Tsukuba. Using either the 1600 NR-A '04 with 114BHP or the MX-5 '89 with 108BHP.
(because it's the last race for me for max points, I require the full 200 here.)
So Front N1 tyres must be used to start the race. I would then change to N3's all round, I guess.

Am I correct in assuming that a Full LSD will hurt me more, than a stock or 1.5 LSD?
Also what suspension settings would you recomend for either car?

BTW. I use a DS2 and Automatic (yeah I know I am a wuss).


Cheers 👍 for anyone who responds.

 

[shoman]

Apologies for digging up the past. But I figured it better than starting a new thread.

I have a question regarding the Miata.
I am trying to find a set-up for Roadster 4hour around Tsukuba. Using either the 1600 NR-A '04 with 114BHP or the MX-5 '89 with 108BHP.
(because it's the last race for me for max points, I require the full 200 here.)
So Front N1 tyres must be used to start the race. I would then change to N3's all round, I guess.

Am I correct in assuming that a Full LSD will hurt me more, than a stock or 1.5 LSD?
Also what suspension settings would you recomend for either car?

BTW. I use a DS2 and Automatic (yeah I know I am a wuss).


Cheers 👍 for anyone who responds.

on a miata I would put a 1 way. If you have big power than a fc lsd works

 

[Scaff]

Apologies for digging up the past. But I figured it better than starting a new thread.

I have a question regarding the Miata.
I am trying to find a set-up for Roadster 4hour around Tsukuba. Using either the 1600 NR-A '04 with 114BHP or the MX-5 '89 with 108BHP.
(because it's the last race for me for max points, I require the full 200 here.)
So Front N1 tyres must be used to start the race. I would then change to N3's all round, I guess.

Am I correct in assuming that a Full LSD will hurt me more, than a stock or 1.5 LSD?
Also what suspension settings would you recomend for either car?

BTW. I use a DS2 and Automatic (yeah I know I am a wuss).


Cheers 👍 for anyone who responds.

It depends entirely on what you want to use the LSD to do; for example if you are finding that you struggle with stability under braking when you turn in, then a 1-way will not help you one bit (as it only has an effect under throttle). If you can get to grips with them, a FC LSD can help out massively (and are not just for big HP cars).

Take a look at my signature and follow the links for the GT4 & GT5 tuning guides, download both (part one will help with your suspension issues and part two with the LSD issues - they are 42 and 33 pages long respectively and cover all aspects of GT4 tuning).

Apart from that, without knowing what your specific issues are, and how you prefer to drive its difficult to offer any more help.


Regards

Scaff