Okay, so I'm FINALLY getting to this.
For the
Integra (O.o's Integra), I first drove a bunch of laps without the wing kit, then I went with the wings.
Tsukuba Best Lap (no wings): 1:03.759
Tsukuba Best Lap (wings): 1:02.938.
First, just want to mention up front that I often use all these "secondary" sort of parts for GT sim racing. I'm talking about hte 1-way diff, close tranny, sport clutch, etc. I feel that fully tuning a car to race the typical GT4 opponent is mad overkill. But, if the goal is to really tune a car to its best, you'd have to start using all the fully-modifyable parts. This Integra could certainly be improved in many ways.
Brakes:
There's no brake balancer, which is fine. If this car had been entered in the Tuner Challenge Ver. 5, i woulda docked points and stuff, but the bottom line is: most front-drive Honda products in GT4 have good brakes, so the braking ability of this Integra isn't something I'm gonna harp on for this car, which isn't in a contest. I could brake extremely late at times, and
trail-brake inwards while doing so. 👍
There were also times I could easily drop some E-brake action if needed, especially in all 3 of Tsukuba's hairpins. But I frequently used the E-brake here and there in every single curve & hairpin here at Tsukuba, if I needed to. Sometimes you just NEED to use it, ya know? To tighten up the car's cornering. 💡
Traction:
2nd gear is horribly touchy with lots of wheelspin if more than 75% throttle is used anywhere from 4,000 to about 7,000 rpms. This could easily be improved with a full-custom tranny/taller 2nd gear, as well as a full-custom limited slip & careful Initial/Accel settings. 1.8 degrees of front camber and that semi-light flywheel are also allowing some torque to get away from pavement,, although the camber and flywheel are much of a lesser concern than the lack of full-custom parts. The camber & flywheel have some beneficial effects for grip & acceleration, so I wouldn't just toss them.
On the other hand, the camber feels GREAT during those longer curves...the car leans sideways, and those tires are catching fuller grip. In slower turns (basically any turn except the final righty) the front-end immediately locks in, assuming you've braked and/or aren't carrying too much speed. .
Often I would try using 3rd out of the tight corners of Tsukuba instead of 2nd. 3rd locks in with full-throttle--no sweat, and only very minimal wheelspin if you manage to find it. The prob with 3rd is obviously now the engine bogs way below its proper torque curve.
The funny thing about this car with its close-ratio tranny: at Tsukuba, I tried using 2nd for some turns, and 3rd for others. I would mix & match throughout the track. Didn't matter...my lap times remained pretty much the same. Interesting.
But I finally found this odd combination which helped me during some of the fastest laps. I would employ some (or all) of these steps at times, depending on what I needed to do at that moment.
1. Brake in.
2. Downshift all the way to 2nd...basically using 2nd as an engine brake. Or use 2nd to accelerate out.
3. Give a dab of E-brake if necessary.
3. If using 2nd as an engine-brake only, quicky upshift into 3rd at some point while the Integra is coasting mid-corner.
4. Introduce throttle in 2nd or 3rd.
When doing License Test B5 (the one with the Mini around Tsukuba) we learn it's better not to downshift all the way for those hairpins. This goes when driving the Integra here, as well. Actually....
Gearing:
At Tsukuba, I simply found gears 2 thru 4 were best. I could upshift into 5th during Tsukuba's 2 longest straights (before and after the final curve) but this was unnecessary.
Da Bumps:
Turns 1, 4, 5, 7, and 8 at Tsukuba have rumble strips which
physically lift cars from the inside! The rest of the turns (all the milder ones) have rumblies which are flush with the actual track. You can pretty much drive over these guys with little drama in the Integra. At worst, these milder rumblies can make the car shake a bit, so that it loses jsut a
little bit of traction, and gets a
little off from your intended racing line.
The other rumblies (the ones which lift the car) sometimes present a problem for this suspension, which is extremely stiff up front, and lowered quite a bit. Sometimes they present a problem, sometimes not...all depending on the angle of attack. This Integra has several bad habits over these strips. It loses its front-end traction (meaning gas needs to be tamed back or understeer will result), it lifts up to the point that racing lines can be destroyed if you're not careful, and if you find yourself needing to brake while passing over a rumbly with an inside tire, the car can get "pulled" inwards.
Obviously, hte best medicine is to avoid those rumblies altogether, and nail a gold-license type of run. It's certainly possible in this car. But I'm not always that good of a driver. Usually, I'm tapping over a rumbly somewhere.
Balance & Manuverability:
During those longer curves (the final right sweeper, especially) I noticed how this car kept needing moments to get balanced into a groove. I'd enter the turn. The front-end might start to grab if I braked early or it might understeer if I braked too late. If it's grabbing, the obvious reaction would be to introduce throttle. The front-end EASILY starts to push, unfortunately (full-custom limited slip coulda helped here, if we had a mild/middleish Accel tune). So you let off the gas. The car takes a moment to grab in again....it doesn't immediatly grab, in other words....you're constantly needing to
balance the car between pushing & grabbing.
I'm looking at those shock absorbers, which haven't been tuned at all, and don't allow faster front-end movents (diving and rolling). The stiff front coils also limit the our ability to immediately lock-in to a quicker groove. On the other hand, these stiffer coils also keep the Integra's front from leaning too much, but they coulda been weakened just a tad.
Wings/ No wings:
At Tsukuba, the main area (really the ONLY area) where those wings made a difference was in the final turn, which is that long right hand curve. I could carry lots more speed with wings in place, and knocked an entire half-a-second 'cause of this. The Integra also locked into a groove alot easier in this area, with less moments of "balancing" needed, although it still would get a little lost sometimes.
I wanna continue further with El Cappy and the NSX, but I'm being interrupted for the evening.
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Anyways, that should give you some idea of a review, ey?
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