Simple to use suspension setup guide

[jskrible]

I'm not sure if I'm %100 on this... So, correct me if I'm wrong or if I'm using the wrong terms or exaggerating... I'm sure there are errors, I'm not even gonna front

Looks good in notepad under standard font.... I tried to make it as pretty as possible and down to the point that actually helps. Oh, and the forums delete the spaces I used.. Oh well, still pretty nice... I'll post a .txt with it nice and all after the info is correct 👍

Link to the .TXT where everything's pretty

I made it to kind of help myself when I'm tuning, but since I wrote it I haven't had time to play GT4 (I have a friend over who decided to live here for the last week and he plays my PS2 all day every day)

GT4 - Lamens Terms

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Suspension
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BRAKE BALANCE__________________________________________


"How quickly the brakes engage"

Understeer - Set front brakes stronger
Oversteer - Set rear brakes stronger



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SPRING RATE____________________________________________


"How stiff the compression and decompression is"

Quickly compress and decompress Set < 13
Good for bumpy or uneven terrain

Slowly compress and decompress Set > 13
Good for smooth flat terrain

Be wary though, you need to soften the Damper's
Bound side if you have stiff springs to
counteract the stiffness and instability



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RIDE HEIGHT___________________________________________



Always set it as low as the track will allow

Oversteer - Set rear a few notches higher
Works during braking



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DAMPERS_______________________________________________


"Counteract the force of the suspension"

Bound is the compression side and it
should be set low for stiff springs

Rebound returns stability to the car and
should be set stronger than bound



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CAMBER ANGLE__________________________________________


"Angle at which the wheels sit, up and down"

Measured in 0-10 degrees
Up to 4 degrees usually has no negative effects

3.5 front and back is usually good

Oversteer - Rear higher than front
Understeer - Rear lower than front



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TOE ANGLE_____________________________________________


"Angle at which the wheels sit, pointing out"

Front | Rear
Oversteer - In | Out Cornering ability
Understeer - Out | In Stability



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Stabilisers___________________________________________


"Anti-roll bars"


If you have stiff springs
Lower stabilisers for stability
Raise stabilisers for cornering
Raising can cause very unstable
conditions under uneven terrain

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DOWNFORCE_____________________________________________




Usually it's best to increase this front and back




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Limited Slip Differential
____________________________________________________________

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Initial Torque_________________________________________



Enables greater traction for straightaways

Setting high can make car hard to turn
Setting low makes car easier to turn


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Acceleration__________________________________________




Increasing this will counteract wheelspin
While you are accelerating

Too high will limit cornering ability

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Deceleration__________________________________________




Increasing this counteracts wheelspin
And allow you to brake more easily

Too strong will cause very difficult turning



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Maintaining a balance of Oversteer and Understeer
____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________
______________Oversteer_____________________

- Set rear brakes strong
- Set rear springs strong
- Front toe-in Rear toe-out
- Set ASM Understeer to Zero
- Set rear a few mm higher than front
- Set rear camber angle higher than front
- Set rear stabiliser strong, front weaker
- Set ballast in front on weight distribution

____________________________________________
______________Understeer____________________

- Set front brakes strong
- Set ASM Oversteer higher
- Set front springs strong
- Front toe-out Rear toe-in
- Set front stabiliser strong
- Set front camber angle higher than rear
- Set ballast in rear on weight distribution


____________________________________________
______________Miscellaneous_________________

- Set car height higher for better tire life

_____________________________________________________________
__________________2005 James Garrin__________________________
__________________james@garrin.net___________________________
_____Contact me if you find an error, I'd like to fix it_____
_____________________________________________________________

 

[sejtur]

Not bad, not bad at all.

Oh yeah, if you want your tires to last longer, put your ride height up.

 

[jskrible]

Not bad, not bad at all.

Oh yeah, if you want your tires to last longer, put your ride height up.

Heh, cool.

Bump for refreshness and I forgot I made this thread

 

[nhizzat]

spring rates set > 13 for slower compress/decompress? i thought higher rates make the springs stiffer therefore more responsive

 

[Duke]

Actually, while I appreciate the efforts to simplify this subject for casual users, this guide is really full of inaccuracies and bad advice, such as:

Be wary though, you need to soften the Damper's
Bound side if you have stiff springs to
counteract the stiffness and instability

Actually, you want your dampers stiff with stiff springs to control their motion; plus, no one but PD knows exactly how the dampers are scaled; and

How quickly the brakes engage"

Understeer - Set front brakes stronger
Oversteer - Set rear brakes stronger

Viceversa on FWD cars

There's no reason to reverse brake bias settings on FWD cars; rear brake bias generates entry oversteer no matter what layout, and too much brake bias can lengthen your braking distances; and

RIDE HEIGHT

Always set it as low as possible

This is a great way to create a highly unstable car on anything but a smooth flat track. Bottoming out the suspension makes the spring rates go toward infinity, and severly reduces the ability of the chassis to absorb bumps, rumble strips, etc.

 

[jskrible]

Actually, while I appreciate the efforts to simplify this subject for casual users, this guide is really full of inaccuracies and bad advice, such as:

That was a bit harsh, but I did ask for corrections. Just point out what's wrong and correct me, like I said in the original post, I know there are probably plenty of things wrong.

 

[rk]

That was a bit harsh

I think you should consider that Duke was being frank and honest. If you have read M_Spec's guide, Scaff's stickied brakes thread, Greyouts threads and some of the more informative threads like the is suspension tuning backwards one, you could use the edit feature to modify your original post to reflect some of the things you learned reading there. Not because anybody who reads that stuff ends up looking like they know what they are talking about, but more out of respect for all the people who have been here already and have written all those pages of paragraphs about the very same subject you are claiming to "simplify".

 

[jskrible]

I think you should consider that Duke was being frank and honest. If you have read M_Spec's guide, Scaff's stickied brakes thread, Greyouts threads and some of the more informative threads like the is suspension tuning backwards one, you could use the edit feature to modify your original post to reflect some of the things you learned reading there. Not because anybody who reads that stuff ends up looking like they know what they are talking about, but more out of respect for all the people who have been here already and have written all those pages of paragraphs about the very same subject you are claiming to "simplify".

Well, I'm not exactly the Maharaja of tuning. But when I first made this I drew most of it from a guide that I did read, and I have edited it with his suggestions and the others who said anything about it already.

I just made this for people like me, who want the nitty-gritty and not the paragraphs.

 

[pmgolf]

Many thanks for all your efforts, jskrible. I want the nitty-gritty and not the paragraphs! Several of the senior members and Administrators here speak harshly. Their excuse is that their patience has worn thin from having people ask and/or do things incorrectly according to the rules of the site, and they take it out on each new person that transgresses. They don't realize how irritating it is to be on the receiving end of their chastisement. I wish someone they respect would tell them to "just be nice"!

But I'm drifting off the topic, and I certainly apologise to the owner of the thread. The following are some tips I have come across, fwiw:

Understeer Corrections:

Soften front shocks.
Stiffen rear shocks
Lower front end
Raise rear end
Soften front sway bar
Stiffen rear sway bar
More front toe out
Reduce rear toe in slightly
Increase front negative camber
Soften front springs
Stiffen rear springs
May need more front suspension travel (decrease damper bound)
Use softer front compound if possible
Use harder rear compound if possible
Drive a different line
Use weight transfer to your advantage
High speed, increase front wing downforce
Too much front brake

Pete

 

[Duke]

Many thanks for all your efforts, jskrible. I want the nitty-gritty and not the paragraphs! Several of the senior members and Administrators here speak harshly. Their excuse is that their patience has worn thin from having people ask and/or do things incorrectly according to the rules of the site, and they take it out on each new person that transgresses. They don't realize how irritating it is to be on the receiving end of their chastisement. I wish someone they respect would tell them to "just be nice"!

It's not that I'm impatient or rude.

It's that bad information is bad, and repeating it is worse. Something oversimplified and incorrect will frequently get parrotted around by those who don't understand it and don't know what they're broadcasting incorrectly.

I respectfully submit that if jskrible does not consider himself the 'Maharajah of tuning', that he should not be the one to try simplifying a complex subject.

Understand: I really dislike bad information being repeated as truth. So much so that I wrote a large, accurate, and double-checked FAQ at another site I administer. It was worth several years of my spare time to create and update this document rather than rebut the same bad information many many times.

I started out by mentioning that I appreciated his effort. However, it is misguided effort that he should spend learning his subject. Once he does understand it, I'll appreciate it if he shares it with the forum.

But not until then.

 

[DarkKni9hT]

I respectfully submit that if jskrible does not consider himself the 'Maharajah of tuning', that he should not be the one to try simplifying a complex subject.

Hear, hear!!
I read your original post and thought to myself "What a waste of space!" Not only has this topic been covered exhaustively and easy to be found, but this overly simple, and even more overly spacious scribble isn't worth the time it took to read it let alone write it. There is no respect given to the fact that each car will behave differently under different suspension adjustments, not uniformly as a group, nor to the fact that different drive systems (FF,MR,FR,AWD) wil require different styles of tuning. Vehicle weight and distribution of same will radically alter which settings need adjustment per vehicle have been ignored.... ad nauseum. I won't even get into the fact that each and every driver has their own style and comfortr zone to which they tune. You have effectively condensed Gray's Anatomy into a brochure for the lazy. (If you don't get the reference, read a book.)
As a result, apart from generally being misinformed yourself, youo have now created a means by which others may become misinformed, leading to a thousand panic posts about why their cars won't work. This is why Duke gets short with you. Not because your heart is not in the right place, but because your research is limited and flawed.
I have been racing GT since literally the first day that the first game was available in Canada, and my best friend whose father was a NASCAR, sprintcar and Indy car mechanic has taught me a great deal about tuning suspensions and transmissions. I still would not presume to post a "simple to use guide to suspension setup" here..... mainly because there is no quick way to tune your car. You fiddle with it till it's right for you.

 

[DarkKni9hT]

Several of the senior members and Administrators here speak harshly. Their excuse is that their patience has worn thin from having people ask and/or do things incorrectly according to the rules of the site, and they take it out on each new person that transgresses. They don't realize how irritating it is to be on the receiving end of their chastisement. I wish someone they respect would tell them to "just be nice"!

Truth told, their patience may also be wearing thin by reading crap like this where they get to listen to little punks tear them down on the site they maintain for those very punks.

Early on in my forays here, I noticed the rathere blunt attitude of some of the answers given here. I even went so far as to post my opinion in this thread.

https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?t=64090

After further trying to sift through the masses of repeat and sometimes just plain stupid posts that end up here trying to find some real information to further my own enjoyment of the game, I find myself more and more siding with Duke and the others who are sick of people who won't use the search function, post questions three lines on top of the answers and generally just make an unholy mess of the boards. Case in point, this thread. Given the comprehensive and well researched threads already available to the laziest of searches, this thread is redundant on top of being poorly thought out and executed.
Then some punk comes along and deems himself cool enough to spank the administrators on their own turf for what really was quite a polite and gentle reply and correction. Yeah, I'd be pissed off too. And, not being an administrator, I don't mind telling you... if you don't like it here, take yer f@%kin' sorry butt to another site.

 

[pmgolf]

You've got some mouth on you, Mr DarkKni9hT, calling a 59 year old man a punk, when all he did was agree with the thread starter that some senior members and staff here speak harshly. Wow! They speak harshly. That makes me someone who thinks I'm cool enough to spank them [verbally]? Einstein you're not! You've gotten w-a-y to carried away with yourself, eh?. Take a chill pill, little boy!

I don't understand the contribution of Mr DarkKni9hT's last post either to this thread or to GT4 Car Tuning and Settings. It seems he just wants to do some name calling.

Anyway, back to the forum topic. I came across the following tips for beginning the tuning process on FWD cars, which are the ones I have the most trouble with. Do the following suggestions make sense?

"Here are some basic moves you can make to increase the handling of most FWD cars:
1 Increase front camber to 3.0
2 Decrease rear camber to zero
3 Increase rear stabilizer setting 1 or 2 clicks
4 Set rear toe out (negative toe) 1 click at a time"

Pete

 

[Duke]

I'll explain why I posted those tips:

1 Increase front camber to 3.0: When a car corners, the outside front wheel takes most of the load. This causes stress on the contact patch of the tire, deforming it inwards. Also, body roll tends to tip the whole car toward the outside of the turn, making the bottom of the front tire tuck under even farther. Lots of negative camber (it is negative, PD has it wrong in the game) tips the tops of the front tires inward. This biases the front outside tire against tucking under and improves the shape of the contact patch, improving traction on the most heavily loaded tire on the car, and decreasing understeer.

2 Decrease rear camber to zero: If negative camber adds traction at the outside wheels, and we have a poor balance of front traction to rear traction (understeer), it stands to reason you want to decrease traction at the rear of the car to help it rotate - so you remove or reduce the rear camber.

3 Increase rear stabilizer setting 1 or 2 clicks: For complicated reasons, increasing roll stiffness can actually decrease traction (to a point). This has to do with a variety of factors, including the concept of wedge, which has to do with differing roll geometries between front and rear. For our purposes we can say that increasing stabilizer value will shift the balance of traction away from that end of the car. This effect is muted in GT4 but quite prominent in real life.

4 Set rear toe out (negative toe) 1 click at a time": This has to do with the position of the outside rear tire on the ground during a turn. Toe out in the rear biases the rear tires towards rolling away from the centerline slightly, or toward the outside of a turn when loaded. Imagine pushing a shopping cart from the wrong end - it's mighty quick to rotate around the turns. However, adding toe adds straight line drag, slowing your top speed and increasing tire wear. So you want to add as little as possible to get the desired rotation (or stability in the case of rear toe in).

Read more here.