Observations on suspension settings

[chuyler1]

Rear grip online can be an issue, especially with the LSD. I think it comes down to tire temps again though. If your LSD is locking for a sweeping turn like Rainey Curve at Laguna or the uphill loop at Cape ring periphery, the tail will step out as you build up too much heat in the outside tire. You don't notice it offline because the tires have greater resistance to heat. Lower the LSD settings until the car can take the loop at full throttle.

 

[Lambob]

After having driven many different favorably tuned posted by awesome tuners in this subforum, I have taken the plunge to do something different for a change, and that is, to start tuning my own cars from scratch.

I like discovering different handling properties offered from tuning adjustments, in hopes, I can "catch a tune" that will best my driving style, that is to have a stable car for fast driving around the ring.

I have only so far started to tune , or alter a tune, on the Seasonal Events, but quickly now realizing that tuning on the Seasonals has a far lesser effect than tuning in practice mode, or especially online. (don't tune much there, as I either drive Shuffle, or F1 only)

to make a point on suspension, I decided to start with an extreme setting, that is, to start with the spring rates completely soft, with really soft dampers (2/2), to test the effects on steering, and handling as I begin to tune the Lexus ISF racing concept (and oldie favorite early in career) for the Ring.

I also started with a ride height of +4/+5 and a medium IT LSD 30/30/30 , Toe -.01 / +.05

well with this first setup, the car handled beautifully on the track, except that it tended to stretch itself a little wide to the outside if came in contact with a rumble strip. (stiffened ARB to counter this)

So, is the car bottoming out on these springs? My tires never went red, unless turning at high speeds, and this is where I need to educate myself, is to tune for stability at high speed on the high speed portions of this track.

I firmly believe there is not one single best tune for most cars, for I think many radical tunes can co-exist to deliver that satisfactory tune for the said driver on his chosen track and car. It also helps to understand the relationship between tuned settings and parts, when picturing in your mind, what do you want your car to do, at that point in time.

 

[CSLACR]

+1 I use the same principals to solve handling issues both online and offline. I find that with online I need to settle the car down a little and add rear grip. Most cars need an LSD adjustment and some other suspension adjustments listed in order in my tuning guide.

Well I pretty much run the same LSD settings for both, but in online the focus often becomes finding more rear wheel grip without sacrificing cornering ability, whereas offline grip usually isn't an issue.

Wholeheartedly disagree. Once I found a good baseline tune for my car, it works and feels better (for me) than the default setup on all tracks.
Given your examples, I use the same setup for both Grand Valley and Indianapolis Road Course (and even Autumn ring or Nordschleife).

Multiple setups per car would be a nice addition though to address extreme tracks like High Speed Ring.

Well it's certainly possible to make a "one size fits all" tune online, but it will under-steer severely on some tracks compared to others. So it will be far from optimal in some scenarios.

After having driven many different favorably tuned posted by awesome tuners in this subforum, I have taken the plunge to do something different for a change, and that is, to start tuning my own cars from scratch.

I like discovering different handling properties offered from tuning adjustments, in hopes, I can "catch a tune" that will best my driving style, that is to have a stable car for fast driving around the ring.

I have only so far started to tune , or alter a tune, on the Seasonal Events, but quickly now realizing that tuning on the Seasonals has a far lesser effect than tuning in practice mode, or especially online. (don't tune much there, as I either drive Shuffle, or F1 only)

to make a point on suspension, I decided to start with an extreme setting, that is, to start with the spring rates completely soft, with really soft dampers (2/2), to test the effects on steering, and handling as I begin to tune the Lexus ISF racing concept (and oldie favorite early in career) for the Ring.

I also started with a ride height of +4/+5 and a medium IT LSD 30/30/30 , Toe -.01 / +.05

well with this first setup, the car handled beautifully on the track, except that it tended to stretch itself a little wide to the outside if came in contact with a rumble strip. (stiffened ARB to counter this)

So, is the car bottoming out on these springs? My tires never went red, unless turning at high speeds, and this is where I need to educate myself, is to tune for stability at high speed on the high speed portions of this track.

I firmly believe there is not one single best tune for most cars, for I think many radical tunes can co-exist to deliver that satisfactory tune for the said driver on his chosen track and car. It also helps to understand the relationship between tuned settings and parts, when picturing in your mind, what do you want your car to do, at that point in time.

I wouldn't expect it to bottom out with a raised ride height, but the setup you post I would expect to be sloppy.
At the very least with very soft springs increase the dampers a bit, though I'd probably raise the springs over minimum at least 1.0-2.0.

 

[chuyler1]

Every track requires slight changes to a baseline tune, whether its gearing, brake balance, or suspension.

At Fuji for example, I run slightly higher rear brakes (5/5 or 6/5 instead of 5/4 or 6/4). It causes the car to rotate under braking in the esses. I almost don't have to turn the wheel. The rest of the brake zones are straight so I don't have to worry about instability. Take that tune to laguna seca or Nurburgring and the rear end will start stepping out if you so much as think about touching the brakes while turning.

At Nurburgring, I usually run much softer dampers so I can plow two wheels across the raised bricks without upsetting the car.

But anyway, I think we are getting a bit off topic. The point of this thread is to encourage tuners to try ride height differences. It can remove mid-corner understeer or oversteer in a ton of cars.

 

[Dr_Watson]

I wouldn't expect it to bottom out with a raised ride height, but the setup you post I would expect to be sloppy.
At the very least with very soft springs increase the dampers a bit, though I'd probably raise the springs over minimum at least 1.0-2.0.

Could be using a DS3 controller. The problem with soft springs is response. Soft cars are lazy at changing direction. This is significantly less noticeable using a DS3 where you can turn lock to lock in 1/2 a second.

 

[CSLACR]

Every track requires slight changes to a baseline tune, whether its gearing, brake balance, or suspension.

At Fuji for example, I run slightly higher rear brakes (5/5 or 6/5 instead of 5/4 or 6/4). It causes the car to rotate under braking in the esses. I almost don't have to turn the wheel. The rest of the brake zones are straight so I don't have to worry about instability. Take that tune to laguna seca or Nurburgring and the rear end will start stepping out if you so much as think about touching the brakes while turning.

At Nurburgring, I usually run much softer dampers so I can plow two wheels across the raised bricks without upsetting the car.

But anyway, I think we are getting a bit off topic. The point of this thread is to encourage tuners to try ride height differences. It can remove mid-corner understeer or oversteer in a ton of cars.

Actually I think it was for the "left side" in general, but I could be wrong.

Could be using a DS3 controller. The problem with soft springs is response. Soft cars are lazy at changing direction. This is significantly less noticeable using a DS3 where you can turn lock to lock in 1/2 a second.

True, but it also seems to have less grip most of the time.

 

[adeadsnipermatt]

Wanted to see if the the spring and ride height are still reversed after the update.

 

[chuyler1]

I haven't logged in yet. I'll know if I get into my favorite cars and they handle like garbage.

 

[OwensRacing]

Just read in a Spec 2.0 thread they haven't corrected this. Which is ok beings my set ups are built around the reversed effects.

If they do fix it. I hope they tell us so we can swap these settings before attempting a tune.

 

[Motor City Hami]

My opinion remains... there is still no need for me to tune for backward settings. Happily playing with LSD settings to make my cars handle.

 

[chuyler1]

I've only used it for the occasional FF or 4WD car. All my RR/FR/MR cars have never needed it.

The LSD pisses me off in this game. Ideally you'd need it for tires with less grip...but it almost always sends too much power to the outside tire...enough to break it loose. Most of my cars have insanely low LSD settings because if I go to high I might as well be racing with a controller because I can't turn the wheel more than 5 degrees without the tail whipping out. The ride height issues I can deal with...but the LSD just seems to get in the way.

 

[Motor City Hami]

I've only used it for the occasional FF or 4WD car. All my RR/FR/MR cars have never needed it.

The LSD pisses me off in this game. Ideally you'd need it for tires with less grip...but it almost always sends too much power to the outside tire...enough to break it loose. Most of my cars have insanely low LSD settings because if I go to high I might as well be racing with a controller because I can't turn the wheel more than 5 degrees without the tail whipping out. The ride height issues I can deal with...but the LSD just seems to get in the way.

Agree that the LSD has too much power in GT5. I think I need to post the LSD settings for all of the cars I've tuned. Over the summer I have tuned another 30 cars or so but haven't had time to post them. Might just post all of the LSD settings side by side in one post in my garage. Would be interesting to see people take those settings as starting points for the rest of their tunes.

I have been playing alot with the relationship between LSD Accel and LSD Initial. Can easliy eliminate that outside wheel spin (or inside for that matter).

 

[MTLclllutch]

Agree that the LSD has too much power in GT5. I think I need to post the LSD settings for all of the cars I've tuned. Over the summer I have tuned another 30 cars or so but haven't had time to post them. Might just post all of the LSD settings side by side in one post in my garage. Would be interesting to see people take those settings as starting points for the rest of their tunes.

I have been playing alot with the relationship between LSD Accel and LSD Initial. Can easliy eliminate that outside wheel spin (or inside for that matter).

my general way to tune the lsd is using a lower accel than would be required, example having the inside tire spinning first, then using the it to retard the process so that the outside tire actually will help the car rotate then will quickly lock as soon as it kick out. I find this the only way to really put the power down out of corners. decel is usually left at 5.

 

[VinceOne]

I dont know if it was mentioned before but ....

if i tune my suspension and then look up the settings sheet, some settings changed.
for example:

toe -0.06 in suspension menu is -0.05 in the settings sheet
there are also random changes i cant explain myself.

maybe its an hint from pd to adjust old settings to the new physics.

anyone else an idea??

 

[nomis3613]

^ I'd guess it was a bug, rather than a clue. Could be similar to the thing where "driving settings" (like traction control) were affected by loading settings sheets. Seems even PD's bug fixes have bugs themselves!

...anyway...HOLY THREAD REVIVAL!

For offline tuning, the more I mess around with nose-up, the more I am convinced it is related to downforce. I've had a few cars recently where without aero there is no benefit to nose-up. But then whack on a rear wing, and suddenly nose-up improves top speed, cornering and braking.

 

[nomis3613]

More testing:
Dunno if this was useful, but I was playing around with the "bottoming out" icon on the tyre load indicators. Testing offline, I started off with the car slammed and marshmallow suspension.

All 4 wheels were bottoming out over a certain section of grass.
Raise the rear: only the front bottoms out
Raise the front: only the rear bottoms out

Seems to me that the "bottoming out" stuff isn't backwards. Hopefully this is another piece in the puzzle.

 

[shirakawaa]

Not totally related with your observation, but keep in mind that the lowest spring settings, at least on stock cars, are equivalent to stock values. You can't make a street car softer than stock in GT5.

 

[Dr_Watson]

sounds like it gives more credence to the idea that the oversteer provided by lower rear ride heights comes from bump-steer.

 

[Johnnypenso]

No, because the same oversteer effect is seen whether you are running slammed +10/slammed, -10/-20 or +40/+30. You don't need the rear end to bottom out to create oversteer. And if it was the case that bottoming out in the back end was causing oversteer, it would only occur on those sections of track in which the car bottomed out, not the every corner it actually works on.

 

[Master_gamer438]

Controversial subject. I dont believe their backwards, in past GT games lowering ride height made you faster. In GT5 lowering ride height lowers your center of gravity, very fast on tracks with many corners. On Daytona a higher ride height makes you have a higher top speed. I tried this on Nurburg and at it's highest and lowest ride height setting the car reached the same top speed.

 

[nomis3613]

No, because the same oversteer effect is seen whether you are running slammed +10/slammed, -10/-20 or +40/+30. You don't need the rear end to bottom out to create oversteer. And if it was the case that bottoming out in the back end was causing oversteer, it would only occur on those sections of track in which the car bottomed out, not the every corner it actually works on.

Yeah, this has been my experience too.

 

[CSLACR]

It's because it's not "backwards" by definition, we know this, also because when you lower the front, the front is visually lower, and vice verse.

It's the effects of handling and grip that are totally bass-ackwards.
FTW, I've increased acceleration G's in the RX-7 TC by .04 by raising the ride height to maximum, because it has that much more grip.

 

[Z1-AV69]

I don't know anything about real life tuning, so I cannot tell if this would be the same in the real world. But would the effect of less grip with a lower car make sense if lowering the car would reduce the suspension travel?

My observation is you can cancel out any change of the balance of the car induced by a change of right height at one axle by changing the spring rate for this axle. If you lower a car by 1 tick, decreasing the spring rate by 1 tick (roughly) gives you the same balance again.

There seem to be two reasons why you can encounter -say- oversteer. It's either not enough grip (can happen if ride height is too low) or too much body roll (can happen if the ride height is too high). The sweet spot of good balance is in between.

Currently most of my cars with low downforce have a nose down setting and it works great. All I have to do is balance it out by stronger rear springs and lower rear rollbar. The traction of such a tune is awesome while low nose with soft springs and very hard rollbars at the front give me the desired sharp turn-in (at least off the brake).

I'm still firmly in the camp of those saying the effect of nose up is all about the flawed aerodynamics.

 

[Will27]

Don’t know how relevant, but I thought it was interesting to compare.

The last time I raced my 1/10th scale rc electric touring car (a few years ago now) it was on a very low grip surface. Setup was basically no swaybars, and the softest springs I could find. I was running 4mm front height, 6mm rear. Still understeering a lot. I then raised the front ride height to match the rear and the car was much better. Not only mid corner (as I would expect if the front was bottoming out before) but also at the corner entry.

Unfortunately I don’t have much time to drive it anymore or I’d test more extreme settings.

 

[nomis3613]

would the effect of less grip with a lower car make sense if lowering the car would reduce the suspension travel?

I don't believe so, as long as you're not bottoming out, the amount of travel doesn't matter. The exception is if you are not operating in a range where suspension geometry is worse (stuff like camber gain / roll centres), but this worsening is just ask likely when raising, so I personally doubt it's an explanation for why lower = less cornering grip on that axle.

My observation is you can cancel out any change of the balance of the car induced by a change of right height at one axle by changing the spring rate for this axle. If you lower a car by 1 tick, decreasing the spring rate by 1 tick (roughly) gives you the same balance again.

+1. This works well, if others would like to try it out.

Currently most of my cars with low downforce have a nose down setting and it works great. All I have to do is balance it out by stronger rear springs and lower rear rollbar. The traction of such a tune is awesome while low nose with soft springs and very hard rollbars at the front give me the desired sharp turn-in (at least off the brake).

Very interesting, thanks for sharing.

EDIT:

It's because it's not "backwards" by definition, we know this, also because when you lower the front, the front is visually lower, and vice verse.

It's the effects of handling and grip that are totally bass-ackwards.

Yes, I'm aware of the "bumper cam barrier height testing", but that isn't necessarily proof about the physics, because the physics programming could be totally independent to the graphics stuff.

Or are you saying "we know this" because I've missed a similar test someone else has done? (so my testing is redundant...d'oh!) If so, could you please post a link, I'd really like to see it.

...on a very low grip surface. Setup was basically no swaybars, and the softest springs I could find. I was running 4mm front height, 6mm rear. Still understeering a lot. I then raised the front ride height to match the rear and the car was much better. Not only mid corner (as I would expect if the front was bottoming out before) but also at the corner entry.

Low grip surfaces are a different kettle of fish. In real life, things can actually work the opposite of tarmac tuning, because more weight transfer is actually better in this case. I suspect raising the front increased the front weight transfer, thus improving front grip in this case.

 

[Dr_Watson]

I don't believe so, as long as you're not bottoming out, the amount of travel doesn't matter. The exception is if you are not operating in a range where suspension geometry is worse (stuff like camber gain / roll centres), but this worsening is just ask likely when raising, so I personally doubt it's an explanation for why lower = less cornering grip on that axle.

The amount of travel in a suspension DOES matter if you're not bottoming out. The lower car with the same springs has more compression at neutral and therefore tighter springing since springs are non-linear. (If I remember my Hooke's law and elasticity mechanics correctly)

In short, when you lower the ride height and reduce travel you're increasing the effective spring rate. Whether it bottoms out or not, lowering the car without changing the springs will increase the force required to compress the springs farther, thus, effectively stiffer springs.

 

[Johnnypenso]

The amount of travel in a suspension DOES matter if you're not bottoming out. The lower car with the same springs has more compression at neutral and therefore tighter springing since springs are non-linear. (If I remember my Hooke's law and elasticity mechanics correctly)

In short, when you lower the ride height and reduce travel you're increasing the effective spring rate. Whether it bottoms out or not, lowering the car without changing the springs will increase the force required to compress the springs farther, thus, effectively stiffer springs.

Very interesting but what does this have to do with GT5? All that matters is what works in the game and how making adjustments in the game affect the handling of cars in the game. It's fine to take real life principles and apply them to the game but if they don't work you throw them away and do what works in the game, not what should work. Do you really believe they used some Hookers law in figuring out how to program suspension? They used the simplest possible model they thought they could get away with.

It's been suggested a thousand times but I'll say it again. Take any car that's well tuned by you or someone else online, neutral in character preferably to accentuate the effect, and raise the front end 5-10 points, change nothing else, and what happens? Turn in is sharper, more front grip. Sometime so much extra front grip a car can become undrivable with a 10 point rise in the front end. I don't know of any other adjustmentso small in scale that can be done on the car that has the same effect. Remember we're talking 1/5-2/5 of an inch in ride height. There may be some cars this doesn't work with, but I don't think I've found one yet. Works for -30/-20, 10/0, 40/30 you name it.

To me that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, independent of all other factors and adjustments, raising front ride height raises front grip and turn in. I don't honestly see how anyone can disagree with that...lol..

 

[chuyler1]

I'm with you Johnny. I try my best to tune cars with equal front/rear ride height, but some cars just won't turn in until you start raising the front and/or lowering the rear. We've run spec races in FF cars and drivers that don't do this are at a disadvantage.

As for Watson's comment that "when you lower the ride height and reduce travel you're increasing the effective spring rate", that isn't necessarily true IRL and certainly not true in the game. Some springs IRL are progressive (what Watson was referring to) and other springs are linear. There are advantages and disadvantages to both on the track and on the road.

I'm pretty sure this game has implemented linear springs. Lowering the car pretty much lowers the center of gravity and lowers the travel of the suspension. Spring rates stay the same so with less travel and a soft rate, the car is more prone to bottoming out. The lower you go, the higher your spring rates need to be.

 

[Rotary Junkie]

It's the effects of handling and grip that are totally bass-ackwards.
FTW, I've increased acceleration G's in the RX-7 TC by .04 by raising the ride height to maximum, because it has that much more grip.

LOL ROFL LOLOLOLOLOLOL OMG.

Surely you can't be serious.

 

[CSLACR]

I'll make a post soley to ask why I guess.

Here goes, "Why?"