Skyline Beast...774...turns like a pig
- Thread starter -Batman-
- 31 comments
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- 409
Use a negative toe in at the front and a positive toe in at the rear. The more negative you have at the front, and the more positive you have at the rear, easier will be to turn your car.
The Skylines are heavy so you'll need downforce... increase your front wing.
Use lower and softer front suspension and if the car isn't oversteering yet you can also use an harder and higher rear suspension. If then the car starts to oversteer too much, increase the rear stabilizer and rear wing.
The camber also helps, but i don't know what values are you using... you might have it too high or too low... usually in most cars/setups i use lower values than the default ones... like 0.4 front/ 0.2 rear (default is 2.0 front/1.0 rear).
The Skylines are heavy so you'll need downforce... increase your front wing.
Use lower and softer front suspension and if the car isn't oversteering yet you can also use an harder and higher rear suspension. If then the car starts to oversteer too much, increase the rear stabilizer and rear wing.
The camber also helps, but i don't know what values are you using... you might have it too high or too low... usually in most cars/setups i use lower values than the default ones... like 0.4 front/ 0.2 rear (default is 2.0 front/1.0 rear).
- 10,557
- Columbia, MD.
- Parnelli_Bones
How much power are you working with? I'll assume it's the max...you shouldn't have problems turning a Skyline if it's wimpy!
Here's what I would do. Keep in mind that suspension tuning is often a very personalized method. Ground clearance up front should be lower than in the rear. I would start by making the front 10 mm lower than the back. It's been months since I raced my 685 hp '95 GT-R, so i'm not sure how much ground clearance I used at Laguna, but it was probly in the 90 to 110 mm range.
I tend to have the rear bound dampers set higher than the front--this way when the car in accelerating thru those longer sweeping turns, it's still trying to keep weight forward. If all your weight is going to the rear in a turn, you're losing traction up front. My bound dampers would look something like 4/6 or 4/7.
Next, the rebound dampers. These basically throw weight around, pitching it forwards and backwards. If your rear R. dampers are set high, extra weight will be thrown forward, giving your front end more traction under braking. Problem is: the higher your rear rebounds are, the more squirrly the back of the car will get under braking.
Again, stabilizers up front should be lower than the rear: mine would look like 3/5 or 3/6 at Laguna.
As MacR said: some negative toe up front is good. Use as much as you need. It's hard to see the difference it makes at first (the effect is rather subtle) but basically the more -toe you have, the faster your steering reacts. In MR cars, you actually want positive toe sometimes to keep them stable. I wouldn't use any rear toe at all, but that's just me.
More downforce up front (max it if you have to) and try using 75% of rear downforce.
I'm a camber lover. The more ground clearance you have, the more camber you can use..especially up front. At Laguna Seca in a fully-powered Skyline, I'd probly be using about 2.5 to 3.5° of front camber. If my car was 4WD and I was having understeer issues, I would use less (probly 2.0° up front) but INCREASE the rear to 3 or 3.5°...which keeps the front end pulling out of corners and the rear becomes less dominant...kinda like a FWD with RWD assist.
Finally, you can try putting super soft tires up front but regular soft in the rear. HTH
Here's what I would do. Keep in mind that suspension tuning is often a very personalized method. Ground clearance up front should be lower than in the rear. I would start by making the front 10 mm lower than the back. It's been months since I raced my 685 hp '95 GT-R, so i'm not sure how much ground clearance I used at Laguna, but it was probly in the 90 to 110 mm range.
I tend to have the rear bound dampers set higher than the front--this way when the car in accelerating thru those longer sweeping turns, it's still trying to keep weight forward. If all your weight is going to the rear in a turn, you're losing traction up front. My bound dampers would look something like 4/6 or 4/7.
Next, the rebound dampers. These basically throw weight around, pitching it forwards and backwards. If your rear R. dampers are set high, extra weight will be thrown forward, giving your front end more traction under braking. Problem is: the higher your rear rebounds are, the more squirrly the back of the car will get under braking.
Again, stabilizers up front should be lower than the rear: mine would look like 3/5 or 3/6 at Laguna.
As MacR said: some negative toe up front is good. Use as much as you need. It's hard to see the difference it makes at first (the effect is rather subtle) but basically the more -toe you have, the faster your steering reacts. In MR cars, you actually want positive toe sometimes to keep them stable. I wouldn't use any rear toe at all, but that's just me.
More downforce up front (max it if you have to) and try using 75% of rear downforce.
I'm a camber lover. The more ground clearance you have, the more camber you can use..especially up front. At Laguna Seca in a fully-powered Skyline, I'd probly be using about 2.5 to 3.5° of front camber. If my car was 4WD and I was having understeer issues, I would use less (probly 2.0° up front) but INCREASE the rear to 3 or 3.5°...which keeps the front end pulling out of corners and the rear becomes less dominant...kinda like a FWD with RWD assist.
Finally, you can try putting super soft tires up front but regular soft in the rear. HTH
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- 10,557
- Columbia, MD.
- Parnelli_Bones
Yeah, we know our stuff, man! 
Just don't ask anyone here how to finish the arcade disc. 
Just don't ask anyone here how to finish the arcade disc. - 409
lolParnelli BoneYeah, we know our stuff, man!
the arcade disc is a strange world to us... hmm... thinking of that... i could take my MR2 there... 💡
So Batman, does your Skyline is turning ok now?
- 10,557
- Columbia, MD.
- Parnelli_Bones
Cool, -Batman-, glad we could help. What it all comes down to is how you drive and how you attack corners. Settings are nothing but ways to assist yourself...they make it easier for you to do what you want while racing, but if you can't drive, it doesn't matter much how your car is set up.
- 441
Just to add a suggestion, make sure your Brake Bias (brake controller settings) isn't toward the front. To much braking power in the front could flat-spot the front tires, giving you a massive amount of understeer.
Just a tip from me, but it looks like you got the Skyline under control.
Just a tip from me, but it looks like you got the Skyline under control.
Like you i have the same car same HP and i have recently discovered this thing called um, let me see here um (he mumbles as he blows dust off of a driving manual that says "How to Drive Stick") Ah here it is its called driving stick..... LOL 
I used to use autmoatic for laguna Seca. I Started using stick instead a year ago and boy does it mmake going around turns on Laguna Seca so much Easier i originally thought it would be easier to use Automatic because i wouldnt have as many distractions but boy was i wrong so this is how i take a turn
I come up on the outtside and just as im starting to cut inside for the turn i downshift to second if im in third and 3rd if im in fourth and then as im just starting to straighten out i totally hammer the gas and bump upinto the next gear and using that next gear really brings the frot end through because since its a 4 wheel drive you get the benefits of a front and rear wheel car
So i hope my little guide helps
I used to use autmoatic for laguna Seca. I Started using stick instead a year ago and boy does it mmake going around turns on Laguna Seca so much Easier i originally thought it would be easier to use Automatic because i wouldnt have as many distractions but boy was i wrong so this is how i take a turn I come up on the outtside and just as im starting to cut inside for the turn i downshift to second if im in third and 3rd if im in fourth and then as im just starting to straighten out i totally hammer the gas and bump upinto the next gear and using that next gear really brings the frot end through because since its a 4 wheel drive you get the benefits of a front and rear wheel car
So i hope my little guide helps
- 10,557
- Columbia, MD.
- Parnelli_Bones
You're right Smoke_U, the brake bias helps a lot of maneuverability. I tend to have my brake bias dialed in more towards the rear for most cars at Laguna. It helps if you can get some controlled powerslides going. I've beat plenty of cars in Turn 1 of Laguna purely by getting myself slightly sideways and then hammering the throttle out of that turn.
Definitely manual is much better than automatic, especially when you know your car's power band. Little 4-banger engines tend to want you to keep their revs high while you're cornering. When you've got a larger V8 with good low-range torque, you'll can keep your revs lower and get that awesome torque to push you out of turns. Automatic comes in handy (I use it maybe 20% of the time) at certain times when you want to pretend the car you're driving is being piloted by a yuppy. ha haa.
Definitely manual is much better than automatic, especially when you know your car's power band. Little 4-banger engines tend to want you to keep their revs high while you're cornering. When you've got a larger V8 with good low-range torque, you'll can keep your revs lower and get that awesome torque to push you out of turns. Automatic comes in handy (I use it maybe 20% of the time) at certain times when you want to pretend the car you're driving is being piloted by a yuppy.
ha haa.
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- 10,557
- Columbia, MD.
- Parnelli_Bones
Well now that you got some tips from us, I almost forgot to tell you about LSD. No, not THAT LSD--the one that's in your car. No, not the LSD in the glove compartment you forgot about 3 months ago, the LSD...limited slip differentials under your Skyline. *phew*
Anyways, what this does is attempts to control the speed of your wheels. When you turn, the inside wheels go slower than the outside, however, when weight is being transferred from side to side, the inside wheels tend to have less grip than usual, and they'll spin a bit, which results in a loss of power-to-pavement. Usually in a Skyline, you won't even have to worry about this. I only use LSD during rally races and when my 4WD skyline is at it's most powerful. Basically:
Accel: works only when you are accelerating. The higher the number, the more the LSD device attempts to keep your wheels rotating at the same speed. At Laguna in a high-powered skyline, I'd have this pretty soft all around. I'd maybe try 10 up front to start with. This will make your front tires have a lot of leeway out of corners. Not sure what I'd do in the back.
Decel: Works only when braking. The higher your number, the more the device attempts to keep you from spinning. A higher decel in the rear would be a good idea...maybe try about 25 or so. I wouldn't use it at all up front...it'll just give you more understeer.
Initial: This is sort of an overall setting that controls both accel & decel. Try keeping these on the soft side at first ..maybe slightly more on in the rear {i would try something like 10/20 to start with}
This concludes GT2 lesson #43. Any questions?
Anyways, what this does is attempts to control the speed of your wheels. When you turn, the inside wheels go slower than the outside, however, when weight is being transferred from side to side, the inside wheels tend to have less grip than usual, and they'll spin a bit, which results in a loss of power-to-pavement. Usually in a Skyline, you won't even have to worry about this. I only use LSD during rally races and when my 4WD skyline is at it's most powerful. Basically:
Accel: works only when you are accelerating. The higher the number, the more the LSD device attempts to keep your wheels rotating at the same speed. At Laguna in a high-powered skyline, I'd have this pretty soft all around. I'd maybe try 10 up front to start with. This will make your front tires have a lot of leeway out of corners. Not sure what I'd do in the back.
Decel: Works only when braking. The higher your number, the more the device attempts to keep you from spinning. A higher decel in the rear would be a good idea...maybe try about 25 or so. I wouldn't use it at all up front...it'll just give you more understeer.
Initial: This is sort of an overall setting that controls both accel & decel. Try keeping these on the soft side at first ..maybe slightly more on in the rear {i would try something like 10/20 to start with}
This concludes GT2 lesson #43. Any questions?
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- 409
I use the LSD all the time and almost always at hardest setting, but it depends on the type of car...
FF cars
Since usually FF cars have low power and like to understeer i use:
Initial - hardest
Accel - hardest (to have a quicker response)
Decel - softest (to not have understeer when decel)
4WD
On 4WD cars with these settings many times i have some oversteer when decelerating/braking, and the car keeps the same level of oversteer when i start to accelerate, giving a nice cornering ability. Sure, your suspension settings are important too, but the LSD helps to do it.
Initial - softest at front, hardest at rear
Accel - softest at front, hardest at rear (to have oversteer when accelerating)
Decel - softest at front, hardest at rear (to have oversteer when decelerating)
FR and MR cars
Here it depends alot on each car and it's power. Alot of power in a car with traction problems and i'll use soft settings (Supra RZ, Speed12, etc...) to minize oversteer and help to put power down.
In cars with less power and/or good traction i use hard settings (MR2, R390, Supra SZ-R, etc...).
As you can see i use the LSD to have more or less oversteer, and also to have less understeer on 4WD cars. I like to have some oversteer when entering a corner and keep it when accelerating to the exit. For this i usually do trail braking with gear locking, and sometimes with some cars (like the Evo) also use the feint motion technique, when entering corners. The LSD is very useful to help have more control over this, especially in 4WD cars.
FF cars
Since usually FF cars have low power and like to understeer i use:
Initial - hardest
Accel - hardest (to have a quicker response)
Decel - softest (to not have understeer when decel)
4WD
On 4WD cars with these settings many times i have some oversteer when decelerating/braking, and the car keeps the same level of oversteer when i start to accelerate, giving a nice cornering ability. Sure, your suspension settings are important too, but the LSD helps to do it.
Initial - softest at front, hardest at rear
Accel - softest at front, hardest at rear (to have oversteer when accelerating)
Decel - softest at front, hardest at rear (to have oversteer when decelerating)
FR and MR cars
Here it depends alot on each car and it's power. Alot of power in a car with traction problems and i'll use soft settings (Supra RZ, Speed12, etc...) to minize oversteer and help to put power down.
In cars with less power and/or good traction i use hard settings (MR2, R390, Supra SZ-R, etc...).
As you can see i use the LSD to have more or less oversteer, and also to have less understeer on 4WD cars. I like to have some oversteer when entering a corner and keep it when accelerating to the exit. For this i usually do trail braking with gear locking, and sometimes with some cars (like the Evo) also use the feint motion technique, when entering corners. The LSD is very useful to help have more control over this, especially in 4WD cars.
- 10,557
- Columbia, MD.
- Parnelli_Bones
see how different we are? that's cool, man.
- 409
Yeah... now Batman should be thinking... "so what should i use? soft or hard? soft or hard? soft or hard?..."... lol
- 409
True... that's why i like to mix some understeer with the oversteer. When the car oversteers too much, i like it to have some understeer, that way i avoid a spin.
That Oreca with some tweaking is great at Laguna, problem is that we can't change the setup on license tests...
That Oreca with some tweaking is great at Laguna, problem is that we can't change the setup on license tests...
- 10,557
- Columbia, MD.
- Parnelli_Bones
My all time fastest lap at Laguna Seca for a long time was in a Vector M12 LM...somewhere in the 1:13.xxx range. I recently topped this during a race in a Jaguar XJ220...so doing that S7 test @ Laguna in the Viper seemed like it would be possible EXCEPT (as Mac said) you can't mess with the settings. It took me maybe 10 tries to get gold there but I definitely coulda done better if I coulda tweaked the suspension on that thing (which has absolutely no camber, more than likely, or very little camber...no toe in, dampers all set at 7...).
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- 10,557
- Columbia, MD.
- Parnelli_Bones
-Batman-
It helps to keep a spec sheet so you remember your settings from track to track. I took several trips to Kinko's to print off a whole book on 5 1/2 x 8 1/2" pages coil bound. It has settings for suspension, downforce, brakes, tires, aspiration (air/exhaust), what stage of power I used...etc.
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- 409
I also do that but only in games like GP4 and GTR...
In GT2 and also in NFSU2, since they're games easy to beat, i don't feel the need of doing it. I go to Seattle Circuit and make a general setup for every track (cos that track has many differents corners, chincanes, bumps and straights). I just need to adjust gearbox and front dumpers/springs when i go to Test Course and Red Rock with some cars (usually small MR cars), since those 2 tracks are quite different from all the others (banked curves and high speed).
In GT2 and also in NFSU2, since they're games easy to beat, i don't feel the need of doing it. I go to Seattle Circuit and make a general setup for every track (cos that track has many differents corners, chincanes, bumps and straights). I just need to adjust gearbox and front dumpers/springs when i go to Test Course and Red Rock with some cars (usually small MR cars), since those 2 tracks are quite different from all the others (banked curves and high speed).
- 10,557
- Columbia, MD.
- Parnelli_Bones
I neverr understood how a guy just uses one setting for a car at every track. I mean, in GT2 I guess it's possible since PD didn't program the car bottoms correctly. In GT1 if you didn't have enough ground clearance, or if your springs & dampers were too tight, your car would bounce too much and actually lose speed. In GT2, this doesn't matter so much since Poly messed up. If I'm going from Apricot Hill to Midfield, I'll pretty much use the same setup, but my settings at Trail Mountain, Deep Forest, Laguna, Autumn Ring will typically be much different from each other.
It also cracks me up when some newb gets all excited and posts his settings to a website HERES MY SKYLNIE SETTINGS EVERYBUDDY!!!
Bound Dampers 7/7
rebound dampers 7/7
Camber: 2.0° / 1.0°
Toe: 0.0 / 0.0
Brakes 12/12
LSD: 6/36/16...
In other words, everything is still the same as when he bought & installed it!
It also cracks me up when some newb gets all excited and posts his settings to a website HERES MY SKYLNIE SETTINGS EVERYBUDDY!!!
Bound Dampers 7/7
rebound dampers 7/7
Camber: 2.0° / 1.0°
Toe: 0.0 / 0.0
Brakes 12/12
LSD: 6/36/16...
In other words, everything is still the same as when he bought & installed it!
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- 409
You just can't take it to the extreme... if you make a balanced setup, one not too low, not too high, not too soft and not too hard, etc... you can get a good all around setup. Sure, you don't get the perfect setup for each track and it also depends on the car, but usually in GT2 you can have a good all around setup with almost any car.Parnelli Bone
I guess it also depends on the driver... some people can adapt better at different car handlings, while others really need to have the car matching their driving style...
Yeah... that's funny... at least they're happy for reinventing the wheelParnelli Bone
- 380
MacRoadsterUse a negative toe in at the front and a positive toe in at the rear. The more negative you have at the front, and the more positive you have at the rear, easier will be to turn your car.
QUOTE]
aha!! i didnt know this, thanx Mac. i always thought it was only for getting better traction out of my drag racer muscle cars
- 10,557
- Columbia, MD.
- Parnelli_Bones
I'll only use positive rear toe sometimes for rallies, and usually only for front-wheel drive cars. It really helps at Tahiti Maze and Pikes Peak getting thhru those 180° hairpins. I like using negative toe on some rear-wheel drive cars on tarmac or dirt, it helps keep them stable. And then at other times, I'll just use no toe at all on RWD cars (seems to create more drifting/tire smoke for those times I feel like careening off-balance a bit!)
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- 409
KorndawgNo problemMacRoadsterUse a negative toe in at the front and a positive toe in at the rear. The more negative you have at the front, and the more positive you have at the rear, easier will be to turn your car.
QUOTE]
aha!! i didnt know this, thanx Mac. i always thought it was only for getting better traction out of my drag racer muscle cars
Looking to your car from a top view (like if you were on a helicopter), with a negative toe your car wheels look like this / \ , and with a positive toe they look like this \ / , so if you have negative at front and positive at rear, all of your car wheels will be like this:
/ \
\ /
Since when cornering the cars weight is transfered to the cars side corresponding to the outside of the corner, it's easy to understand why cornering is improved this way.
The drawback is that you'll be loosing top speed on straights.
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