Step by step tuning Alpine A310

[eg6_dude]

I completly agree with you on that. To many people on this site are only concerned with modern uber hp cars that are stuck to the ground and not enough into actual vintage or affordable realistic cars.

Personally, I like both!

On topic however, your guide is dead on in real life terms. In contrast though GT4 isn't real life so a couple of things on there don't apply so well. Some things I have found on GT4 seem to almost be reversed.

 

[Leonidae]

I completly agree with you on that. To many people on this site are only concerned with modern uber hp cars that are stuck to the ground and not enough into actual vintage or affordable realistic cars.

Personally, I like both!

On topic however, your guide is dead on in real life terms. In contrast though GT4 isn't real life so a couple of things on there don't apply so well. Some things I have found on GT4 seem to almost be reversed.

I have noticed that too.. for example, in real life, camber angles, that are positive in this game, are show as negative readings in real life, accoding to out teacher. then, dampers are quite limited in terms of adjustability etc etc.. we can only hope that GT5 fixes these annoying little flaws.

 

[Scaff]

why waste time tuning the A310?Its not a good car.

How wonderfully constructive!!!

The A310 is a great challenge to both drive and tune well, just because it may not suit you personally does not automatically make it a bad car.

If yu dislike it so much why not actually add something constructive to the discussion and at least say why you believe that. I can assure you I have a lot more time and respect for someone who can actually articulate an opinion, rather than simply state it as if it were fact.

I have noticed that too.. for example, in real life, camber angles, that are positive in this game, are show as negative readings in real life, accoding to out teacher. then, dampers are quite limited in terms of adjustability etc etc.. we can only hope that GT5 fixes these annoying little flaws.

The camber issue is simply because the GT series has only ever allowed negative camber to be set (not a bad thing as positive camber is worthless on the track), so the values are simply just camber.

Dampers I agree with you on, the range of adjustment is a real pain in its limitations; the lack of scope (all in the mid to stiffish range), no real values and lack of separate high and low speed adjustment is frustrating to say the least (but its not the only game to suffer in this way).

Mind a number of values in GT suffer in this way, the range of spring rates needs to be greater, all values need to be real world (so camber in degrees, etc), caster needs to be included, etc, etc. I could go on for a long time.

Its also about time we were able to see exactly what the suspension type fitted was and be able to use that for roll centre calculations, etc. NFS gets close in this, but I still want more.

On topic however, your guide is dead on in real life terms. In contrast though GT4 isn't real life so a couple of things on there don't apply so well. Some things I have found on GT4 seem to almost be reversed.

Ah but the real world can be just as confusing, for example a number of reasons exist that will see softer spring rates at the front of a car actually result in more understeer (which is counter to 'normal' wisdom), for example the softer spring could see the bump stops hit, or the additional body roll could reduce the contact patch size if camber can't compensate.

Now I don't think that GT4 does accurately model all of this (no sim currently does), but it does allow for it to a degree; what limits GT4 is the flawed tyre physics and the limited range of set-up values (truly soft dampers are just not possible).

The great thing about tuning is that is not straightforward and it does force you to look at a whole series of potentially conflicting values and work with them to reach the best compromise. That's the one thing tuning is all about is compromise, you never get anything for free, so the best balance for driver, car and track has to be found and even then the combo will be great at some parts of the track and worse on other parts, so you even have to judge what parts of the track are the most important.



Regards

Scaff

 

[eg6_dude]

I agree, such adjustments are vital to constructing a good handling car. Also it would be nice if you were able to something so basic like choosing your own wheel and tire sizes.

 

[Leonidae]

and that would bring the possibility of wrong ET in the game. tricky, but doable. I'll keep my thumbs up for GT5.

 

[sucahyo]

Why do you only observe the cars behaviour when the tyres are not spinning? If I exit a corner with a bit too much throttle and spin the rear tyres do you not think this should be considered in the tuning?

Not touching that area of tuning yet. If you see my GT4 tuning competition score, you would see that I get poor point for that.

I did not ask if you used the damper to reduce wheelspin, I asked if you found any change to the wheelspin after you tuned the dampers.

I can't notice.

It for this reason that I don't say that tuning in a set manner will always have a set effect, the dynamics of what is occurring is simply too interlinked to say that setting X must always be used.

I see.

For example you have again changed approach in how you use dampers, saying that you no longer use them to control the cars ride, "I don't use it to cure bouncy and unstable behaviour anymore", well I have to ask why? Dampers are one of the main tools to use in this area and now you have done a complete reverse and say that you don't think they need to be used?

It is not effective for curing bouncing, the tuning range is too small. I see that even using extreme value damper do not cure bouncing as effecient as what spring rate can do. Just like in Subaru 360 case, noticing the bouncing difference caused by different damper need an effort, where noticing the bouncing difference caused by different spring rate can be seen easily.

And I consider that car problem related to understeer and oversteer problem more important than bouncing. Besides, it usually end up the same, the setting I use for curing understeer can end up the same with the setting for curing bouncing.

Did you actually read (and fully understand) that thread?

No fully understand.

You have taken the swapping comment out of all context, Sukerkin quite clearly says ion the thread that damper values are not reversed and that while some cars will exhibit unusual behaviour in controlling lift off under and over steer, this normally only occurs when the other suspension settings have not been looked at.

I am not trying to use it as proof that damper is reversed. It's just that his experiment seem the same as my experiment in regard of lower front damper value make more understeer on braking/release throttle.

The reason I don't relate this to "lower damper value is stiffer" is because I got confused with how real life description about understeer/oversteer behaviour related to damper setting. Notice that I only post link about this from gaming / car simulation website, which I think will be the same as GT4 implementation. I don't know how to describe the relation between damper effects on lift off understeer and "lower damper value is stiffer" using Neil W Robert description of damper effects when doing cornering.

As I have always maintained the settings need to be looked at as a whole, and its exactly this conclusion that Sukerkin's thread reaches.

In my tuning project, damper effect on lift off throttle behaviour appear to be consistent in about 6 car till now.

You describe the transfer of load during cornering when a car is decelerating and accelerating, now one small correction first, this is not simply dive and squat occuring here, its also roll. As such in addition to the dampers having an effect in the balance and dynamics of the car, spring rates and stabilisers (why do you think they are called anti-roll bars) have a major part to play.

Ok.

I simply fail to see how you can say that they are not a factor in this, when you have just described the load transfer and it quite clearly indicates that they are a factor. In the real world its common (and I've used it in GT4) to use a soft front stabiliser and stiff rear stabiliser to increase a cars tendency towards lift off oversteer. Its common in FWD race cars, if you have LFS take a look at the default track set-up for the FWD cars, they all run a soft front and stiff rear anti-roll bar.

Ok. I will check stabilizer again and see. But I don't think using FF car LFS default track set-up as reference is relevant, because it is possible that they created it for different reason, like reducing general understeer or something.

Besides, even if stabilizer has effect on lift off understeer, I don't think I will use it to cure "when load transfer happen" behaviour. Since it will has influence on both lift off throttle and apply throttle behaviour, where I usually tune it differently. Like when I tune MR2, I notice this car has lift off spin oversteer and apply throttle understeer, where I use my damper solution to cure it


I thought you ask it in relation to my statement about "use front damper bound and rear damper rebound, this should not interfere with apply throttle handling".

In regard to your last point I would like you to explain exactly why you believe that "use front damper bound and rear damper rebound, this should not interfere with apply throttle handling", don't mess around and try and pass the question back, simply answer the question.

No further comment about how I use damper for this?

All three of these were tuned using a combination of springs, dampers and stabilisers to deliberately have a balance towards lift-off oversteer, so please stop implying that I have not worked on or tested in this area.

Those link do not explain enough. Please explain the tuning process step by step. Please explain the progress little by little how your damper tuning would help make balance towards lift-off oversteer.

I can't make conclusion from them. It's like you are saying:"Just look at my setting, it really work! using damper like that is the correct way". The problem is:
- How can I know how your damper setting influence overall handling, wether it really has effect or not.
- How can I know that the problem is solved by damper not by other part.
- How can I know that the problem is really solved.
- How can I know that the car actually have that problem originally, not caused by your other part setting.
- How can I apply those kind of information to other car.


Also explain why you do not differentiate dive and squat behaviour in your damper tuning guide. Because I am thinking that you never do experiment with separate damper value for bound and rebound.

The two points already exist, my car and your car. To make my car handle the same as your I would have to set it up as yours is.

Ok. But are you saying that it is not possible to achieve the same thing using different setting?

I don't plan out tuning any more than that before driving the car (in point of fact had I not already driven the car I would not have even given you that), how can I get this through to you. I do not tune in this way, you may like deciding exactly how to tune a car in advance and then sticking to that plan, I do not. Nor will I, I find it a flawed approach to take, it limits the tuner and for me tuning is a process that evolves when you carry it out.

Ok. But I still really want to know how you create your setting, step by step (part by part?), from knowing how the car handle, how decision is made, and how you apply it.

I hope you are not telling me to read your book again. Use other car please, maybe car that you know it is a bit hard to tune.

And also, I want to know:
- how you detect the car problem.
- how do you decide what part to change.
- how do you decide that it's time to stop increasing and decreasing
- how do you decide that it's problem is not tuneable

My method:
- I detect problem by driving the car in a conditioned way.
- for spesific problem I use spesific cure.
- I will stop changing value if it create other big problem or when it reaches max or min value.
- when tuning it anmore will create more problem or no more attempt can be done because of tuning limitation.

But I think it all can be answered by explaining how you do your tuning in step by step.

This is my teachers suspension tuning guide, that he has created on multiple racetracs while adjusting Super2000-class Integra Type R, and he also says that these principles work for any car with any layout, with minor adjustments.

Very very good 👍. I think I will use this as reference .

Bump dampers
prevents the wheel from moving upwards during bump.

Softening the rear =
Understeers on uneven corners.
More grip on uneven surfaces.
Rear tyre wear decreases.

...

Rebound dampers
prevents the wheel from moving downwards during bump.

Stiffening the rear =
Oversteers at the entrance and exit of the corner.
Less grip at the entrance and exit of the corner.

This part is what makes me afraid to related "lift off throtle behaviour" with "lower damper value is stiffer".

why waste time tuning the A310?Its not a good car.

If it's about hard to tune, it would be the other way around. Why wasting time tuning an already good to drive car .

I have noticed that too.. for example, in real life, camber angles, that are positive in this game, are show as negative readings in real life, accoding to out teacher. then, dampers are quite limited in terms of adjustability etc etc.. we can only hope that GT5 fixes these annoying little flaws.

Yes. I hope they can hear us.

[quoote=Scaff;2504539]Mind a number of values in GT suffer in this way, the range of spring rates needs to be greater, all values need to be real world (so camber in degrees, etc), caster needs to be included, etc, etc. I could go on for a long time.[/quote]About spring rate, you want it more softer range or stiffer range?

 

[Mt. Lynx]

I can´t be bothered to quote every sentence in Sucahyos post above, so I´ll keep it short;
@ Sucahyo: I feel that you are in a steep learningcurve in the suspension tuning area. You go on about this will cure that and such, but what you fail too see, is that all parts of the suspension is equally important. One single part has to cooperate with all the other parts to perform at it´s optimum.

Even the simplified suspensiontuning in GT4 works like that.

It is not effective for curing bouncing, the tuning range is too small. I see that even using extreme value damper do not cure bouncing as effecient as what spring rate can do. Just like in Subaru 360 case, noticing the bouncing difference caused by different damper need an effort, where noticing the bouncing difference caused by different spring rate can be seen easily.

And I consider that car problem related to understeer and oversteer problem more important than bouncing. Besides, it usually end up the same, the setting I use for curing understeer can end up the same with the setting for curing bouncing.

You are somewhat right about the tuning range, but you fail to see that the springs and dampers work best by being optimized towards eachother, IE this means that if you go for soft springs, you can´t use too hard dampers, for the sake of the springs usefulness. In such a case, you also have to consider stabilizers, rideheight and also camber and toe, although toe is the least important factor in this case. But remember, using toe, means you have to look at your springs and dampers all the more carefully, since toe not only affects braking, acceleration and highspeed stability, but also turning radious, and under/oversteer.
All parts of a suspension has the power to change a cars behaviour, and you can´t just look at one of them and sacrifice the rest. The way to go is compromise, like Scaff has pointed out.

 

[topgeardude]

Well it is a cute little car,good handling too.

 

[eg6_dude]

Well it is a cute little car,good handling too.

You just said a couple of posts before this that it was a bad car!


I also agree with Team666 on the fact that suspension tuning needs to be thought of as a whole and not individual areas, because at the end of the day all the areas have to work together. I also agree that the range of adjustments are incapable of delivering a unbumpy ride in lightweight cars. In some heavier cars however, you can almost acheive a unbumpy ride with soft rates.

 

[Scaff]

Not touching that area of tuning yet. If you see my GT4 tuning competition score, you would see that I get poor point for that.

Yet you are making definitive statements regarding how dampers operate in relation to power on and power off situations.

I can't notice.

That's rather strange as you say later in your posts that you tune by observing how the car reacts, yet you fail to notice if tuning has any effect on how the car manages a loss of traction!

It is not effective for curing bouncing, the tuning range is too small. I see that even using extreme value damper do not cure bouncing as effecient as what spring rate can do. Just like in Subaru 360 case, noticing the bouncing difference caused by different damper need an effort, where noticing the bouncing difference caused by different spring rate can be seen easily.

And I consider that car problem related to understeer and oversteer problem more important than bouncing. Besides, it usually end up the same, the setting I use for curing understeer can end up the same with the setting for curing bouncing.

Hold on you spent countless hours telling anyone who listen that you could definitively prove that damper values were reversed by observing this, lets not be shy about this you stated quite categorically time and time again that this could be observed. Are you now retracting that, because it certainly seems you are.

Just for the record, your wrong damper values are a great tool for matching the cars ride to the track and its surface. Something that a good number of people (myself included) demonstrated in test after test in the dampers thread.

I am not trying to use it as proof that damper is reversed. It's just that his experiment seem the same as my experiment in regard of lower front damper value make more understeer on braking/release throttle.

Would you care to explain exactly how that was meant to be taken then, you quite clearly implied that the quoted piece was saying that damper values were swapped.

In my tuning project, damper effect on lift off throttle behaviour appear to be consistent in about 6 car till now.

Yes your combined set-ups of very stiff front stabilisers and dampers result in cars that will display understeer as a dominant trait. That's a bit like saying that a pet that is ill is now OK because its died, your not solving the problem, rather masking it with another.

Ok. I will check stabilizer again and see. But I don't think using FF car LFS default track set-up as reference is relevant, because it is possible that they created it for different reason, like reducing general understeer or something.

Have you driven the car in question in LFS? Have you tested its set-up? Do you know how real world FWD cars are set-up for track work?

This is a commonly used set-up technique to help develop lift-off oversteer, and quite frankly your arguments here are getting very weak.

I thought you ask it in relation to my statement about "use front damper bound and rear damper rebound, this should not interfere with apply throttle handling".
No further comment about how I use damper for this?

I didn't say what I wanted to know it for, I simply wanted a better description (in your own words) of what was occurring, normally you take half a dozen posts to answer a question in a straightforward manner. Its something I'm quite frankly fed-up with doing, at least this time it got an answer out of you.

Those link do not explain enough. Please explain the tuning process step by step. Please explain the progress little by little how your damper tuning would help make balance towards lift-off oversteer.

How many times do I have to say this???????

I DON'T USE A SINGLE METHOD TO GET THIS RESULT.

I quite clearly said that I used a combination of setting to get the desired result, and its slightly different for each of the cars in question.

I can't make conclusion from them. It's like you are saying:"Just look at my setting, it really work! using damper like that is the correct way". The problem is:
- How can I know how your damper setting influence overall handling, wether it really has effect or not.
- How can I know that the problem is solved by damper not by other part.
- How can I know that the problem is really solved.
- How can I know that the car actually have that problem originally, not caused by your other part setting.
- How can I apply those kind of information to other car.

Try buying the cars and driving them stock and then applying the set-up stage by stage.

I have to say that you are beginning to try my patience in a huge way now, I've posted link after link, set-up after set-up, description after description, for crying out loud I've written a general guide on the bloody subject of set-up and what do you do. I tell you, you simply dismiss it all and demand that anyone who does not accept what you say jump through hoops to satisfy your own demands. Demands that are often unclear and constantly changing.

Also explain why you do not differentiate dive and squat behaviour in your damper tuning guide. Because I am thinking that you never do experiment with separate damper value for bound and rebound.

You can think what you damn well like (and yes you are starting to annoy me a lot with this), I've just posted set-ups that clearly show that I've used this an experimented with it, would you like some more? Quite frankly you are the one here with the track record of posting untested opinion as fact (how many examples do you want from the damper threads when you did just that), I've tested every car and set-up that you have put up here bar one (the Monaro) how many of mine have you tested? You dismiss the last three I posted up, but have you tested them?

As far as the guide goes, an entire section of it is dedicated to load transfer and how it effects teh car in basic terms, but I tell you what I'm going to write a follow up that looks at the area of load transfer and it effect on car behaviour in far more detail.

By the way, as you are so critical of what I have written in the guides so far and happy to accuse me of not testing what I have written, can I ask exactly when we will see your guide?

Ok. But are you saying that it is not possible to achieve the same thing using different setting?

I have no idea and to be honest I see no point in the exercise, I don't what a car to handle exactly like yours. As I've also said I test your set-ups almost without exception, yet you are way behind here.

Ok. But I still really want to know how you create your setting, step by step (part by part?), from knowing how the car handle, how decision is made, and how you apply it.

I hope you are not telling me to read your book again. Use other car please, maybe car that you know it is a bit hard to tune.

And also, I want to know:
- how you detect the car problem.
- how do you decide what part to change.
- how do you decide that it's time to stop increasing and decreasing
- how do you decide that it's problem is not tuneable

My method:
- I detect problem by driving the car in a conditioned way.
- for spesific problem I use spesific cure.
- I will stop changing value if it create other big problem or when it reaches max or min value.
- when tuning it anmore will create more problem or no more attempt can be done because of tuning limitation.

But I think it all can be answered by explaining how you do your tuning in step by step.

I will refer you to the guide, and the reason why is quite simple. Over the two guides I wrote a full and detailed step by step explanation of exactly how I approach tuning. Have you tried to follow through the BMW example or not? My exact tuning methodology is open for all to see (not that I would ever try and force a set method on anyone), however I'm yet to see anything of the same level of detail and scope from yourself, when can we expect to see that?

Just to save you the time, here it is again in full.

Example of a tune

This final section is an example of how I go about creating a set-up, it is not meant to be a step by step guide, more to prove an idea of how tuning can be achieved.

I am more than aware that many people reading have their own method, and this is not meant to replace or critique those methods. More to provide those who have no idea how to start with an example of how tuning can be approached.

The car in question is a BMW M3 CSL, and apart from the fitting of Fully Customisable Suspension and a Brake Balance Controller, the car is totally ‘stock’. It will be running on S2 tyres, as supplied with the car, and the track for this set-up will be the Grand Valley Speedway.

Grand Valley Speedway is an excellent track for practising set-up work as it is smooth, with low curbs but an excellent mixture of corners. Also thrown in are some very challenging braking sections, particularly at the end of the start/finish straight.

The initial run on default settings indicates a car that is well balanced, with fair turn-in, an understeer bias in both corner entry and constant radius corners. Corner exit is biased towards oversteer and the car does feel a little stiff.

The Brakes
I almost always start with the brakes, and a number of runs down the straight with some braking from around 130mph allowing me to set the front bias higher (from 3 to 5). I also raise the rear bias (from 3 to 4), as the CSL has good control of weight transfer under braking, mainly due to the ‘intelligent weight reduction’ that BMW carried out when designing this car. The fitting of a carbon fibre roof was inspired in this regard, significantly lowering the centre of gravity.

Once happy with the brakes (for now – I almost always end up changing then as I go along) I move onto the second stage.

The Track
The track is the next area for my attention, and dampers always my starting point here. As I discussed in the Damper section, in my opinion GT4’s default damper settings are normally too high, in this case I started with a drop to 6 (from 8) both front and rear, and bound and rebound.

Testing this resulted in a much better feel, the rebound felt very good, the car was however still a little harsh over the rubble-strips. A quick tweak of the bound to 5 improved things a little. Another ‘click’ softer to 4 and I was happy, with the CSL running well over the curbs and rumble-strips.

Given the flat nature of the circuit and the low curbs and rumble-strips I then played with the Ride Height, dropping it in stages and testing until I got to 79 (from 84). This helped with the weight transfer and still allowed the car to make use of the curbs when needed without bottoming out.

On testing this did however reveal that the brakes had started to become a little snatchy, possibly a result of the ride height drop playing with the weight transfer. Lowering the brake bias to 4/3 (from 5/4) solved this one.

The springs also felt a little to hard, the CSL’s default settings are hard to start with, and while the car can handle a high spring rate, they were a little much for my liking. Again in stages I softened them to 13.4/11.6 (from 14.4/12.6)

Moving On
It may have come to your attention by now that I have not attempted to resolve any of the car’s issues with understeer, oversteer, turn-in, etc. Out of habit I always tune the cars brakes and set it up for the track first, I find that this allows me to totally concentrate on tuning the handling, only needing to tweak for the track surface and brakes from this point on. This is the reason I have, to this point, changed front and rear settings by the same amount.

I also do not discuss lap times, as I believe that a good set-up is best developed by consistent lap times. This allows me to know what has worked and what has not from how the car handles each corner. A good setting could be lost in a rushed lap filled with mistakes, in my mind its better to get the set-up right and I find the speed will come from this.

Tuning for Handling
Happy, for now, with the brake and track settings, I now moved on to look at the handling. The changes made during the track set-up had already slightly reduced the corner entry understeer and corner exit oversteer, again a reason why I tune for the track first.

The front end still felt stiff and a little reluctant to turn-in, I started with the stiff feel and softened the front Anti-Roll Bar from 5 to 3, on testing this helped on the corner entry, but the now much stiffer rear was kicking the back end out. Softening the rear Anti-Roll Bar to 4 (from 5) helped bring this back in check.

This had also helped with the initial turn-in a little, but grip was still lacking a little, so I popped on a +1 front toe setting. The toe-out here did just the job, helping with the grip on the turn-in.

I still felt that the car has a little too much understeer on corner entry, so I softened the front springs, first to 13 and then to 12.5 (from 13.4). Again testing each setting to get a feel for what was needed.

While this had helped it still retained a touch too much understeer, mainly under weight transfer, so the dampers seemed to be the place to look. I was reluctant to soften the rear anymore, so I tried the front with a setting of 5/7 (from 4/6), which seemed to do the trick. Now this last step may seem a little strange as I have stiffened the front to reduce understeer! Fear not; remember that in corner entry the weight of the car has moved forward, so the front may need to be a little stiffer anyway.

I have not touched the camber settings, as the default values seemed idea for me, remember you don’t have to change a setting from default just because you can. If it works leave it as it is.


The table below shows how the car started and the final settings from the above tune.

Example of a Tune Part 2
This example of a tune follows on from the one outlined in ‘Making Progress’ and uses a BMW M3 CSL at the Grand Valley Speedway, I would strongly recommend reading that example first as I will be using it as the starting point for this.

As a reminder here are the final settings I ended up with

***snip see above***

Once again the car will be running stock as far as power modifications are concerned and on the standard S2 tyres. In addition to the Fully Customisable Suspension used last time I will be adding a wing, Fully Customisable Gearbox and Fully Customisable Limited Slip Differential.

I start with my settings from above and with the wing fitted I’m going to start with downforce (the FC gearbox and LSD I have not yet fitted).

I conduct a base run with the downforce set to zero front and rear to see what the car runs like and allow me to see the effect of my changes. Following this I put in a run with the front and rear set to 15, the result is a good increase in the grip of the car. Particularly in corners 9 and 11, but this aero balance is causing understeer on the limit at speed, which is very evident in the corner 2 section.

The front end of the car desperately needs more grip at speed, so I tweak the front end, raising it by a few clicks at a time until I get a balance of F20:R15. This seems to work a treat, so now to see how much downforce the car can take. I take a quick gamble and go straight to a F30:R25 setting and it works perfectly, the car now has gained a massive amount of grip at speed and has a nice neutral balance that leans towards understeer right on the limit. Its also made taking the all important turn 11 much easier, with the car remaining planted right around and out of it, making for very consistent runs.

I now slap on the Fully Customisable Gearbox and take the car for a run with the default Auto 13 setting. Its not too bad, but the acceleration could be better and the cars not making full use of fifth gear on the main straight. I step the auto down to 10 and give it a try, straight away the acceleration is much better, quite happy with that. However were now running into sixth gear at the end on the main straight, so it’s either keep the un-needed gear-change, bounce the engine of the rev limiter or fix the problem. I opt for the latter and tweak the final drive down to 3.4, which now lets the engine just hit the red-line in fifth as I reach the braking zone at the end of the main straight and keep the maximum speed here to around 150mph.

At this point its worth looking at the reason why I decided not to use sixth gear and tune to hit top speed at the red-line in sixth. It would seem like a sensible thing to do, and an auto slider setting of 7 will allow just that.

It does give slightly better acceleration in the lower gears and will still hit around 150mph at he end of the main straight. However its only just hitting the 150mph and the number of gear changes required around the lap has increased dramatically, so in very annoying places. The end result, for me, was that the car required more time changing gear, during which time you are not accelerating and overall was slower by approximately 1.5 seconds.


Right the final part, the Limited Slip Differential.

A quick test run after fitting the LSD immediately showed that it improved the cars stability under braking a great deal, actually too much. Also the car felt a little reluctant to turn under acceleration out of the two hairpin corners.

I first tweaked the Accel and Decel Values down to 35 and 15 respectively, the test drive revealed that this was a move in the right direction with the car happier to turn under both acceleration and braking.

However it still felt as if the differential was locking up a little early out of the two very tight hairpin and the final chicane (corners 1, 3 and 10), as these are all high ranking corners this was worth a further tweak to try and resolve. Back into the pits to set the Accel and Decel values to 30 and 10 respectively and back out to test.

This resulted in a big improvement in the required corners, with the car far more stable under braking and a lot more willing to change direction under acceleration. The trade off was a slight increase in instability into corner 1, but nothing to bad and well worth the gains in the other three corners for me.

The end result of all of the testing and tuning carried out to the M3 CSL over these two guides is that I now have a car that is more stable and more responsive. It’s better able to put power down out of corners, and is able to carry more speed through faster corners. Perhaps most importantly it’s also a car that has been built up around my driving style and requirements and as such feels tailored to my needs.

So what do the final settings look like:

These changes have also given significant gains in lap times, all without a single power upgrade, weight reduction or change to a softer tyre compound. Obviously these changes would make the M3 CSL even quicker, but I hope that the example covered in these two guides has given you an idea of what you can do without changing the weight or power of the car. Now imagine what you will be able to achieve when all those upgrades are factored in.

Once again I hope that the last thirty odd pages have been worth your time and effort and I thank you for taking the time to read what I have to offer. And I just hope that it will be of use to you.

I look forward to reading yours

About spring rate, you want it more softer range or stiffer range?

Stiffer, I've said this a number of times before.


Regards

Scaff

 

[sucahyo]

@ Sucahyo: I feel that you are in a steep learningcurve in the suspension tuning area. You go on about this will cure that and such, but what you fail too see, is that all parts of the suspension is equally important. One single part has to cooperate with all the other parts to perform at it's optimum.

I see each part as different since I think different part has different kind of influence, different kind of effect. I think each part has it's own benefit and it's own drawback. For me changing different suspension part feel's like creating different slip vs grip behaviour for the car.

So for me it is more about matching the ingredient to make the result tastes better. Less sugar if it feel too sweet, more water if the taste too strong, etc. To be able to know what I have to do, I have to know what the taste of sugar, and what the effects of adding water, etc. We can still make a good one even when we left behind some of the usually used ingredient.

What do you mean by simplified? the opposite of complicated tuning?

About toe, I think GT4 toe behave the same way as GT2, Viper Racing and GPL.

I also agree with Team666 on the fact that suspension tuning needs to be thought of as a whole and not individual areas, because at the end of the day all the areas have to work together. I also agree that the range of adjustments are incapable of delivering a unbumpy ride in lightweight cars. In some heavier cars however, you can almost acheive a unbumpy ride with soft rates.

Even if we thought it as a whole, we still need to change it one by one.

Yet you are making definitive statements regarding how dampers operate in relation to power on and power off situations.

I don't relate wheelspin with damper behaviour during power on and power off.

That's rather strange as you say later in your posts that you tune by observing how the car reacts, yet you fail to notice if tuning has any effect on how the car manages a loss of traction!

I can't use throttle control, and I still don't know how much power is approriate for people who can do throttle control in DS2 or in wheel.

Hold on you spent countless hours telling anyone who listen that you could definitively prove that damper values were reversed by observing this, lets not be shy about this you stated quite categorically time and time again that this could be observed. Are you now retracting that, because it certainly seems you are.

I mean that using damper behaviour during lift off throttle and apply throttle is weak argument to proof that damper is reversed.

My current damper opinion:
- my bike with leaked damper oil feel very harsh compared to when I fitted new damper.
- my dad's car with the original damper is bouncy and very stiff compared to when it fitted with new stiffer damper
- Viper racing car with low damper value will bouncing around compared to when using high damper value
- GT1 car bouncing around more at lowest damper value
- My own test in GT4 show that bouncing reduced when the damper value decreased
- When I hack GT4 car to have 255 damper value, it will bouncing around, and I firmly believe damper hack value work in linier way. just like ride height:

Buick with 1 meter ride height game save

Would you care to explain exactly how that was meant to be taken then, you quite clearly implied that the quoted piece was saying that damper values were swapped.

Only as indication. Who know maybe you argue that that is not the result of reversed damper. If you do, I don't have any good explanation. Even Neil W Robert link would be useless.

Yes your combined set-ups of very stiff front stabilisers and dampers result in cars that will display understeer as a dominant trait. That's a bit like saying that a pet that is ill is now OK because its died, your not solving the problem, rather masking it with another.

My defend is it all from wrong diagnostic, I never thought wheel user can easily control A310.

This is a commonly used set-up technique to help develop lift-off oversteer, and quite frankly your arguments here are getting very weak.

I just think that it used to make the car turn better, not just when lift off.

I DON'T USE A SINGLE METHOD TO GET THIS RESULT.

I quite clearly said that I used a combination of setting to get the desired result, and its slightly different for each of the cars in question.

I want your opinion on damper effect at lift off throttle and apply throtle behaviour. Not the entire party. one by one.

Try buying the cars and driving them stock and then applying the set-up stage by stage.

So it would be useles until I try it my self then.

I have to say that you are beginning to try my patience in a huge way now, I've posted link after link, set-up after set-up, description after description, for crying out loud I've written a general guide on the bloody subject of set-up and what do you do. I tell you, you simply dismiss it all and demand that anyone who does not accept what you say jump through hoops to satisfy your own demands. Demands that are often unclear and constantly changing.

Ok. where is your test? You keep saying that you already has experience in this but can exactly retelling what happen in your previous experiment.

I demand you to do experiment on damper behaviour on lift off throttle and apply throttle. Don't just give some word without showing me exactly what you experiment result is.

You can think what you damn well like (and yes you are starting to annoy me a lot with this), I've just posted set-ups that clearly show that I've used this an experimented with it, would you like some more? Quite frankly you are the one here with the track record of posting untested opinion as fact (how many examples do you want from the damper threads when you did just that), I've tested every car and set-up that you have put up here bar one (the Monaro) how many of mine have you tested? You dismiss the last three I posted up, but have you tested them?

Yes, it clearly demonstrated your tuning skill. But you want me to learn something from just comparing stock and tuned version? And you expect if I apply it to different car it will work magically?

Like:
"Here, I gave you this really finely tuned car, compare it to the stock car next to her, and I expect you to get the same result in our brand new car".

Do you realize that even the same car brand can have different problem? What if the car still exibit some problem? What do I have to change? DO I have to ask you everytime I change car?

Can't you just describe how you manage to overcome the lift off / apply throttle problem without using example?

As far as the guide goes, an entire section of it is dedicated to load transfer and how it effects teh car in basic terms, but I tell you what I'm going to write a follow up that looks at the area of load transfer and it effect on car behaviour in far more detail.

Thanks.

By the way, as you are so critical of what I have written in the guides so far and happy to accuse me of not testing what I have written, can I ask exactly when we will see your guide?

You won't. I already done plenty of GT4 guide writing, but it's not my own, since it is this site guide.

I will refer you to the guide, and the reason why is quite simple. Over the two guides I wrote a full and detailed step by step explanation of exactly how I approach tuning. Have you tried to follow through the BMW example or not? My exact tuning methodology is open for all to see (not that I would ever try and force a set method on anyone), however I'm yet to see anything of the same level of detail and scope from yourself, when can we expect to see that?

Still developing skill. I only explain it in some area that I already know.

Just to save you the time, here it is again in full.

Thank you, some question:
- How do you decide when it's time to use this part, and next would be other part? Will it be different for different car, or will it be in the same order. Or you do it in any order because it make no different for you since you do a whole tuning and not per part tuning like mine?
- Related to the above, how do you decide the order of tuning to cure spesific problem.
- If you throw in another upgrade like tire, wing and LSD do you recommend to restart from scratch or use the current value?

 

[Scaff]

I don't relate wheelspin with damper behaviour during power on and power off.

I can't use throttle control, and I still don't know how much power is approriate for people who can do throttle control in DS2 or in wheel.

So you can't take throttle control or wheelspin into account when tuning, do you not think that's a problem.

I mean that using damper behaviour during lift off throttle and apply throttle is weak argument to proof that damper is reversed.

My current damper opinion:
- my bike with leaked damper oil feel very harsh compared to when I fitted new damper.
- my dad's car with the original damper is bouncy and very stiff compared to when it fitted with new stiffer damper
- Viper racing car with low damper value will bouncing around compared to when using high damper value
- GT1 car bouncing around more at lowest damper value
- My own test in GT4 show that bouncing reduced when the damper value decreased
- When I hack GT4 car to have 255 damper value, it will bouncing around, and I firmly believe damper hack value work in linier way. just like ride height:

Buick with 1 meter ride height game save

Not a single one of the tests you have shown has demonstrated that bouncing increases with an increase in damper value, yet numerous test has shown that higher damper values do result in a car with a harsher ride, more likely to loose contact with the track after curbs, etc.

In regard to the Mazda with the silly ride height, have you driven it and did it fall over the first time you went around a corner?

Only as indication. Who know maybe you argue that that is not the result of reversed damper. If you do, I don't have any good explanation. Even Neil W Robert link would be useless.

What has the above got to do with you trying to use the linked article to say that it indicated that damper values were ‘swapped’, you clearly tried to make the link, a link that does not exists.

My defend is it all from wrong diagnostic, I never thought wheel user can easily control A310.

Then what was your incorrect diagnostic (wheel or DS2 is not a major issue here – I’ve driven the car with both).

I just think that it used to make the car turn better, not just when lift off.

I ask again have you driven the car? Have you driven any of the three cars with a similar set-up that I linked to?

If not then how can you pass comment in this manner. Once again I get the feeling that you are clutching at straws here.

I want your opinion on damper effect at lift off throttle and apply throtle behaviour. Not the entire party. one by one.

I’m currently putting together a set-up on an ’86 MR2 G-Limited SC, a car with a nice lift off oversteer habit, you will get a full write up on exactly how I use the suspension as a whole to resolve the problem.

Ok. where is your test? You keep saying that you already has experience in this but can exactly retelling what happen in your previous experiment.

I demand you to do experiment on damper behaviour on lift off throttle and apply throttle. Don't just give some word without showing me exactly what you experiment result is.

You want the results of my tests? Well you have already seen the results (as in the end product or results) in the three cars above, and the A310 set-up of mine and the guide.

I would also strongly recommend that you think carefully about demanding anything from people, for that majority of the last week I have been away from home and as such unable to look at my paper notes or test anything on my PS2/GT4, yet despite this you demand that I do something!

I will carry out more tests in this area if I want to or if I am asked to (and I see value in it), but not if you (or anyone) demands it.

Yes, it clearly demonstrated your tuning skill. But you want me to learn something from just comparing stock and tuned version? And you expect if I apply it to different car it will work magically?

Yes you can learn a lot from comparing stock and tuned cars and settings, simply by looking at settings you can try and mentally visualise what may occur, testing will then allow you to see the difference between the two. Does it show you every single step? No it doesn’t (but I’ve never seen a detailed write-up from yourself that does that either), but to imply that you can’t learn anything from it is narrow minded. Answer me this, have you tried any of the three set-ups I posted?

I also don’t expect that it will work exactly the same on differing cars, that’s something you have maintained is possible not me.

Do you realize that even the same car brand can have different problem?

I’m the one who have always maintained that different cars require different solutions, you have maintained that a set formula can be applied to differing cars. Why are you telling me something I have always maintained and you have always denied as if its news to me?

What if the car still exibit some problem? What do I have to change? DO I have to ask you everytime I change car?

Can't you just describe how you manage to overcome the lift off / apply throttle problem without using example?

I’m sorry suchayo are you incapable of thinking for yourself, do you need to be told what to do in every possible situation and every single car?

No I don’t expect you to ask every time, I’d much rather you thought about the information and tools you have to use and apply them in a practical manner.

You won't. I already done plenty of GT4 guide writing, but it's not my own, since it is this site guide.

That’s a shame given that you seem to find so much wrong with my methods and guides, I was rather looking forward to yours.

Thank you, some question:
- How do you decide when it's time to use this part, and next would be other part? Will it be different for different car, or will it be in the same order. Or you do it in any order because it make no different for you since you do a whole tuning and not per part tuning like mine?
- Related to the above, how do you decide the order of tuning to cure spesific problem.
- If you throw in another upgrade like tire, wing and LSD do you recommend to restart from scratch or use the current value?

You didn’t read it at all did you.

Every single one of those points is clearly addressed in the example of a tune and my guides, you are passing comment and being openly critical of material you clearly have not read and/or understood.

How can you ask (and expect to retain any credibility) “If you throw in another upgrade like tire, wing and LSD do you recommend to restart from scratch or use the current value?” when the piece I wrote and quoted clearly says…

Once again the car will be running stock as far as power modifications are concerned and on the standard S2 tyres. In addition to the Fully Customisable Suspension used last time I will be adding a wing, Fully Customisable Gearbox and Fully Customisable Limited Slip Differential.

And

I conduct a base run with the downforce set to zero front and rear to see what the car runs like and allow me to see the effect of my changes. Following this I put in a run with the front and rear set to 15, the result is a good increase in the grip of the car. Particularly in corners 9 and 11, but this aero balance is causing understeer on the limit at speed, which is very evident in the corner 2 section.

And

I now slap on the Fully Customisable Gearbox and take the car for a run with the default Auto 13 setting

And

Right the final part, the Limited Slip Differential.

A quick test run after fitting the LSD immediately showed that it improved the cars stability under braking a great deal, actually too much. Also the car felt a little reluctant to turn under acceleration out of the two hairpin corners.

I have no problem with anyone offering constructive feedback or critique after reading my guides, posts and/or trying my set-ups, but you have quite clearly not read the example of a tune at all. It’s going to be rather interesting to see how you try and back-pedal out of this one, the questions you have asked are covered in that single post, yet you ask them again. The only conclusion that can lead me to is that you simple did not read it, in which case how the hell can you comment on it.

I’m sorry but both your credibility and my respect for you have now hit zero.

Scaff

 

[sucahyo]

So you can't take throttle control or wheelspin into account when tuning, do you not think that's a problem.

Yes, still learning.

Not a single one of the tests you have shown has demonstrated that bouncing increases with an increase in damper value, yet numerous test has shown that higher damper values do result in a car with a harsher ride, more likely to loose contact with the track after curbs, etc.

Even after reading your disagreement I still believe thatI feel more wallow, bounce when using higher damper value in my test.


s

In regard to the Mazda with the silly ride height, have you driven it and did it fall over the first time you went around a corner?

You know that GT prevent car from roll over. There is possibility that if the roll limit is removed, car may sunk.

What has the above got to do with you trying to use the linked article to say that it indicated that damper values were 'swapped', you clearly tried to make the link, a link that does not exists.

It need to be tested more.

Then what was your incorrect diagnostic (wheel or DS2 is not a major issue here - I've driven the car with both).

I use button, where all button act as on off trigger. When I drive stock car, I have trouble timing and feathering the counter steer. So I decide to remove the need to do countersteering.

I ask again have you driven the car? Have you driven any of the three cars with a similar set-up that I linked to?

I want to know how you tune your damper, not the result of your tuning.

Once again I get the feeling that you are clutching at straws here.

You previously said: "again I believe that your dogmatic refusal to look at dampers correctly is part of the problem here". So I start to find out what is your way of correct damper tuning. It is hard to find out how you tune damper. The closest thing about your way of tuning damper is in your guide which read like an unimportant note:
"The final thing would be then, if required/desired, to adjust the front or rear settings for under or oversteer."

This is where our damper tuning different. Starting from Ford GT '05, I see damper as an important part for tuning understeer/oversteer behaviour. Always, not just if.

I'm currently putting together a set-up on an '86 MR2 G-Limited SC, a car with a nice lift off oversteer habit, you will get a full write up on exactly how I use the suspension as a whole to resolve the problem.

Ok. I hope you resolve apply throttle understeer too, if exist.

You want the results of my tesYou want the results of my tests? Well you have already seen the results (as in the end product or results) in the three cars above, and the A310 set-up of mine and the guide.

I think Leonidae post is a good way to put together experiment result.

This is my experiment result in GT4, Leonade teacher's way, with ride height removed because I still don't explore it much, damper bonly explain understeer or oversteer behaviour.


Springs:

Stiffening front end =
increase front end grip in constant radius corner
increase possibility of front tire slip during lift off throttle or apply throttle or zigzaging

Stiffening rear end=
increase rear end grip in constant radius corner
increase possibility of rear tire slip during lift off throttle or apply throttle or zigzaging

Stiffening both =
increase overall grip in constant radius corner
increase possibility of drifting during lift off throttle or apply throttle or zigzaging
less roll, better agility, increased bouncing or faster bouncing, more sensitive.

Softening the front =
reduce front end grip in constant radius corner
reduce possibility of front tire slip during lift off throttle or apply throttle or zigzaging

Softening the rear =
reduce rear end grip in constant radius corner
reduce possibility of rear tire slip during lift off throttle or apply throttle or zigzaging

Softening both =
reduce overall grip in constant radius corner
reduce possibility of drifting during lift off throttle or apply throttle or zigzaging
more roll, less agility, less bouncing or slower bouncing, less sensitive


Anti-Rollbar/Stabilizer:

Stiffer front stabilizer =
reduce rear end grip in constant radius corner

Stiffer rear stabilizer =
reduce rear end grip in constant radius corner

Stiffening both stabilizers =
reduced roll, increased stability when zigzaging, more direct feel, more sensitive, more predictive.

Softer front stabilizer =
increase rear end grip in constant radius corner

Softer rear stabilizer =
increase rear end grip in constant radius corner

Softening both =
increased roll, reduced stability when zigzaging, less direct feel, less sensitive, less predictive.


Bump dampers:
prevents the wheel from moving upwards during bump.

Increase the front =
more oversteer during lift off throttle

Increase the rear =
more understeer during apply throttle

Increase both =
more understeer during apply throttle
more oversteer during lift off throttle

Reduce the front =
more understeer during lift off throttle

Reduce the rear =
more oversteer during apply throttle

Reduce both =
more understeer during lift off throttle
more oversteer during apply throttle


Rebound dampers
prevents the wheel from moving downwards during bump.

Increase the front =
more oversteer during apply throttle

Increase the rear =
more understeer during lift off throttle

Increase both =
more oversteer during apply throttle
more understeer during lift off throttle

Reduce the front =
more understeer during apply throttle

Reduce the rear =
more oversteer during lift off throttle

Reduce both =
more understeer during apply throttle
more oversteer during lift off throttle



I am sure you will have no problem creating tune up hint like this. If you tell me to read your book again this is what I can extract from your book.
My extract from Scaff Book, only the damper oversteer and understeer part.

Bump dampers:
prevents the wheel from moving upwards during bump.

Increase the front =
more understeer on corner entry or corner exit

Increase the rear =
more oversteer on corner entry or corner exit

Increase both =
don't know

Reduce the front =
less understeer on corner entry or corner exit

Reduce the rear =
less oversteer on corner entry or corner exit

Reduce both =
don't know

Rebound dampers
prevents the wheel from moving downwards during bump.

Increase the front =
more understeer on corner entry or corner exit

Increase the rear =
more oversteer on corner entry or corner exit

Increase both =
don't know

Reduce the front =
less understeer on corner entry or corner exit

Reduce the rear =
less oversteer on corner entry or corner exit

Reduce both =
don't know


FYI, this treat apply throttle and lift off throttle as the same. And I think this tuning hint is wrong for GT4 tuning.

I would also strongly recommend that you think carefully about demanding anything from people, for that majority of the last week I have been away from home and as such unable to look at my paper notes or test anything on my PS2/GT4, yet despite this you demand that I do something!

If you haven't test it yet, don't talk like you already know the result. If you already know or can predict what the result is, write it down.

I know you busy, but if you don't have a chance to do it yet, don't talk like you already did it. If you already have a good knowledge about it, write it down in a follow through, step by step way. Not just showing instant result.

You didn't read it at all did you.

The question exist because I read it. Part that raised the question:

"The front end still felt stiff and a little reluctant to turn-in, I started with the stiff feel and softened the front Anti-Roll Bar from 5 to 3, on testing this helped on the corner entry, but the now much stiffer rear was kicking the back end out. Softening the rear Anti-Roll Bar to 4 (from 5) helped bring this back in check.

This had also helped with the initial turn-in a little, but grip was still lacking a little, so I popped on a +1 front toe setting. The toe-out here did just the job, helping with the grip on the turn-in.

I still felt that the car has a little too much understeer on corner entry, so I softened the front springs, first to 13 and then to 12.5 (from 13.4). Again testing each setting to get a feel for what was needed. While this had helped it still"

The reason for you to use anti roll bar first, and then toe and then spring is not clear. Do you always use this same sequence when you tune or you just randomly choose what the next suspension that will be tweaked? Out of those three part you think that for solving corner entry understeer stabilizer is best, and then toe and then spring?

I ask because if you go through it only once, the order of tuning can change the final result.


To repeat:
- How do you decide when it's time to use this part, and next would be other part? Will it be different for different car, or will it be in the same order. Or you do it in any order because it make no different for you since you do a whole tuning and not per part tuning like mine?
- Related to the above, how do you decide the order of tuning to cure spesific problem.

How can you ask (and expect to retain any credibility) "If you throw in another upgrade like tire, wing and LSD do you recommend to restart from scratch or use the current value?" when the piece I wrote and quoted clearly says…

Previously you say:
"The great thing about tuning is that is not straightforward and it does force you to look at a whole series of potentially conflicting values and work with them to reach the best compromise.". "As I have always maintained the settings need to be looked at as a whole, and its exactly this conclusion that Sukerkin's thread reaches." and recently "I'm currently putting together a set-up on an '86 MR2 G-Limited SC, a car with a nice lift off oversteer habit, you will get a full write up on exactly how I use the suspension as a whole to resolve the problem."

And it looks to me you did't change spring rate, ride height, damper, camber, toe or stabilizer when you add new upgrade. So I ask to make sure that you really intent not to change any other suspension part when you add new part. Remember that I add tire as an upgrade, and from this answer it look like you don't change anything even when changing tire.

From you answer I conclude that when you say to look at it as a whole, you don't include tire, wing, and lsd. It seem the "whole" for you means Fully Custom suspension part only.

Ok. So that is your way of tuning. Though I still wonder what tuning as a whole mean. I hope it do not mean as trial and error tuning after changing random part.

 

[Mt. Lynx]

Though I still wonder what tuning as a whole mean. I hope it do not mean as trial and error tuning after changing random part.

Actually, that is pretty much exactly what it means. If you don´t know what a part will do to the car, you simply have to experiment with the settings and their new possibilities.

If you have done alot of tuning, you pretty much know on beforehand, what this or that part will do to your car, and so you can tune it from it´s new perspective at once, without having to look for different problems and solutions.

For example, If you fit a wing, you know that you need a little harder springs and dampers (mostly springs, they are more important in this case), so you don´t have to look at the entire suspension.
If you fit softer tyres, look at the brakes, camber and toe, and maybe ease up the LSD.

These are tiny little tricks that I use, instead of going over everything one more time. But you do need to know how everthing correlates to one another. I may not be an engineer, or have anything to do with racing IRL, but I do know what will happen if I set up a car (in GT4 that is) in a certain manor, simply because I´ve done it so many times.

I´ve learned that there is no simple "cure" to any particular problem (say lift-off oversteer), but rather the best way is to optimize the cars settings as a whole.

 

[Scaff]

Even after reading your disagreement I still believe thatI feel more wallow, bounce when using higher damper value in my test.

And in that very post you say that you have trouble feeling what is occurring through the controller and still appear to be basing it on purely visual information only.

What you are describing as ‘bounce’ is not the same as I would call bounce from a soft suspension set-up, the Caterham test around Deep Forest is a classic example. On high damper values it does not bounce it skips and jumps when it loses contact, with almost no suspension movement and a very harsh and stiff feel to the car. In addition high values have far more of an issue laying down traction; all of these are characteristics of stiff dampers, not soft ones.

sYou know that GT prevent car from roll over. There is possibility that if the roll limit is removed, car may sunk.

So you acknowledge that using these extreme values causes GT to intervene in an unrealistic manner, so these extreme values are not catered for in the physics engine.

I use button, where all button act as on off trigger. When I drive stock car, I have trouble timing and feathering the counter steer. So I decide to remove the need to do countersteering.

And that biases you tuning in a major way, one that forces you down a set route and I’m sure you have to admit also your ability to read a cars behaviour.

I want to know how you tune your damper, not the result of your tuning.

That’s rather strange as you just asked me…

I demand you to do experiment on damper behaviour on lift off throttle and apply throttle. Don't just give some word without showing me exactly what you experiment result is.

…rather rudely (well actually you demanded) as well if I may say. Sounds like you wanted results to me.

Here is the upshot you wanted to know how I tune dampers, and I’ve told you how I principally use dampers. Now just because it does not match your defined use of dampers you seem to be getting angry?

You previously said: "again I believe that your dogmatic refusal to look at dampers correctly is part of the problem here". So I start to find out what is your way of correct damper tuning. It is hard to find out how you tune damper. The closest thing about your way of tuning damper is in your guide which read like an unimportant note:
"The final thing would be then, if required/desired, to adjust the front or rear settings for under or oversteer."

A number of tables describing how (in general terms) a car balance can be affected by damper settings are unimportant? To try and state that I only cover this in a single line is quite clearly not true, what I don’t attempt to do is force people down a set path, as from my own experience differing cars and driving styles can react very differently in this regard, nor do I believe (and more importantly try and force others to believe) that dampers are the only way of dealing with the problem at hand here.

This is where our damper tuning different. Starting from Ford GT '05, I see damper as an important part for tuning understeer/oversteer behaviour. Always, not just if.

And that’s exactly my point, you have picked up this and run with it to the exclusion of everything else, you will use it without regard to the overall balance of the car and its set-up. Ignoring any and all other methods of solving the problem, when a combination of settings are almost always a better approach that a single extreme setting.

I just wonder what setting you are going to do this to next and more importantly when you will start to look at how the whole range of settings work together.

I think Leonidae post is a good way to put together experiment result.

This is my experiment result in GT4, Leonade teacher's way, with ride height removed because I still don't explore it much, damper bonly explain understeer or oversteer behaviour.

And how exactly can you ‘remove’ ride height from this? You can’t just take a fundamental part of vehicle dynamics and ignore it. What was the ride height set to? What were the other setting at? What car and course was involved here?

All of these things need to be addressed if the results are to have any meaning at all.

Lets take a look at a couple of examples here:

Springs:

Stiffening front end =
increase front end grip in constant radius corner
increase possibility of front tire slip during lift off throttle or apply throttle or zigzagging

So you are saying that during load transfer a stiff front end will result in less grip (as a result of more slip), but in a constant cornering situation (after the load has transferred) it results in less grip. Why exactly would it be behaving in this manner? Would it do this for all cars? Would it be dependent on drive-train?

Anti-Rollbar/Stabilizer:

Stiffer front stabilizer =
reduce rear end grip in constant radius corner

And what about the front end, what’s happening to make the rear lose grip when the front end is stiffened?

FYI, this treat apply throttle and lift off throttle as the same. And I think this tuning hint is wrong for GT4 tuning.

No, it gives general relationships, it does not say always or must, as you as so fond of doing. You can think its wrong for GT4 if you wish, but as the vast majority who have commented have found it of use, I would have to disagree with you.

If you haven't test it yet, don't talk like you already know the result. If you already know or can predict what the result is, write it down.

I know you busy, but if you don't have a chance to do it yet, don't talk like you already did it. If you already have a good knowledge about it, write it down in a follow through, step by step way. Not just showing instant result.

Suchayo you are the one with the proven history of commenting on tests that you have not carried out, and I can quote you admitting to as much. For almost the entire damper thread conversation you spoke as if you had carried out every test and it was only when pushed that you admitted you had not.

I have no intention of digging out the old notebooks I used to put the guide together and all my test results just because you chose to be rude. I have tested this, had I not I would say as much, I have never done anything different. Don’t get upset just because I don’t believe that its worth damaging a cars balance to use a single setting to solve a problem that can be solved with a range of settings and retain the balance.

I have offered to re-test this for you, but for some reason you seem to want to use this as an issue to launch a personal attack on me, what exactly have I done to warrant that?

Despite the lack of access to my own notes and PS2 I have done my best to reply as you have asked and provided analysis, feedback and example set-ups; not only that but in the past I have found the time to run every set-up (bar one) that you have asked about and provided details feedback. Your response it would seem is to imply that I an acting dishonestly and providing fake info!

Now in that past a number of your comments and digs have come close, but none have bothered me that much, most I have put down to language issues, but that I must say I do find insulting. Given the level of detail I put into testing and the results I post up, any implication that I would fake results or make claims that I had not tested (without acknowledging so) I do take personally.

The question exist because I read it. Part that raised the question:

To repeat:
- How do you decide when it's time to use this part, and next would be other part? Will it be different for different car, or will it be in the same order. Or you do it in any order because it make no different for you since you do a whole tuning and not per part tuning like mine?
- Related to the above, how do you decide the order of tuning to cure spesific problem.

I take it by part you are referring to area of suspension tuning and not upgrade or modification?

If that’s the case then no I do not have a set route that I follow at all, the guide does clearly describe which settings values are at work in each stage of a corner, this I will use as an indicator. From that I will base what setting or value to use based on feel, experience and to a degree trial and error; as Team 666 has said it is a case of experience helping here and often a ‘gut’ feeling about what to try, somethings will work and some will not.

Previously you say:
"The great thing about tuning is that is not straightforward and it does force you to look at a whole series of potentially conflicting values and work with them to reach the best compromise.". "As I have always maintained the settings need to be looked at as a whole, and its exactly this conclusion that Sukerkin's thread reaches." and recently "I'm currently putting together a set-up on an '86 MR2 G-Limited SC, a car with a nice lift off oversteer habit, you will get a full write up on exactly how I use the suspension as a whole to resolve the problem."

And it looks to me you did't change spring rate, ride height, damper, camber, toe or stabilizer when you add new upgrade. So I ask to make sure that you really intent not to change any other suspension part when you add new part. Remember that I add tire as an upgrade, and from this answer it look like you don't change anything even when changing tire.

In the example of a tune I did not find it was needed to change the rest of the set-up after fitting the LSD or wing, however that’s not always the case, I do quite clearly say in the guides that certain parts may make it a requirement to revisit some areas of tuning.

This is clearly discussed in the Brake Balance Controller section (in regard to tyres specifically), fitting a wing (in regard to suspension stiffness and that the need to run stiffer values if required). As far as tyre tuning goes I have to ask if you are serious, as first of all why would it be mentioned in the example (I did not change the tyres at all) and the guides cover tyre selection, tuning and the effects they bring in more detail that most people would ever need.

You seem to want a guide that tells you what to do under any and every single situation that could ever occur for any car, track and driver; and that’s simply not possible.

From you answer I conclude that when you say to look at it as a whole, you don't include tire, wing, and lsd. It seem the "whole" for you means Fully Custom suspension part only.

Ok. So that is your way of tuning. Though I still wonder what tuning as a whole mean. I hope it do not mean as trial and error tuning after changing random part.

Then you conclude wrongly and have either not fully read my posts and guides or you have not understood them, I can only assume you missed this bit

These tweaks and changes to the set-up may be constantly evolving, as you change for each track, modify the car or adapt to a slightly different driving style.

In regard to the final part, well Team 666 has already covered this quite well, and yes it is a combination of trial & error and experience. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve said I do not believe that a quick formula can be effectively applied to GT4 tuning and that appears to be what you are looking for. I find it can take upwards of 2 – 3 hours to put together a good base set-up for a single car, of course then adapting and tweaking it when upgrades are fitted or its used on a very different track will take less time, but I do however take comfort in the very, very positive feedback my set-up have almost always received, from my work in BESTuners to the use of the A310 set-up by a number of people for 200pt races.

I'm nearly done with the Toyota MR2 set-up and the cars running quite nicely at the moment, on N2 tyres its quite playful on the throttle and does require good control, but if you know what you are doing its fun.




Regards

Scaff

 

[sucahyo]

These are tiny little tricks that I use, instead of going over everything one more time. But you do need to know how everthing correlates to one another. I may not be an engineer, or have anything to do with racing IRL, but I do know what will happen if I set up a car (in GT4 that is) in a certain manor, simply because I´ve done it so many times.

I´ve learned that there is no simple "cure" to any particular problem (say lift-off oversteer), but rather the best way is to optimize the cars settings as a whole.

I see. I just think that if we write down all of our little trick, we can tune faster.

About simple cure, even when using the best option, it still possible that we reach tuning limit before we can cure it completely.

And in that very post you say that you have trouble feeling what is occurring through the controller and still appear to be basing it on purely visual information only.

What you are describing as ‘bounce’ is not the same as I would call bounce from a soft suspension set-up, the Caterham test around Deep Forest is a classic example. On high damper values it does not bounce it skips and jumps when it loses contact, with almost no suspension movement and a very harsh and stiff feel to the car. In addition high values have far more of an issue laying down traction; all of these are characteristics of stiff dampers, not soft ones.

My dad's car previously do skip and jump in road irregularity, a bit like Lotus Elise in Deep Forest, and I call it bouncing. For rear passenger it feels very harsh and stiff on road irregularity. My dad even set the rear spring rate to very soft up to point where the tire will hit the car body on every big bump. And he still call it too stiff and want it softer. What funny is, after fitting stiffer damper, everyone riding it mention the car to be feel a lot softer, especially on bumpy road.

Since I have to drive my dad's car out of town often, I know how much improvement fitting stiffer damper do. Either alone or along with other 7 people, I can feel the different in tire traction on road irregularity. On the same road where I have problem with the tire feel detached from the road before, I can drive more safely and faster. The car feel less harsh and more stable.

After fitting my bike with new rear suspension, I feels like my bike hitting my backbone hard on every road bump when I drive alone, but the bike itself is stable on slow or fast bumpy corner taking. Unlike previously, when my bike still have the leaked damper, the bike is very unstable even on slow bumpy corner, but I don't feel so much hit to my backbone. When two people ride it, I can clearly feel the bike oscilating slowly when still using leaked damper. Using new suspension, the bike do not oscilate.

There is no flat smooth road here, so I see car showing it's rear bouncing everyday. It will bounce like GT4 car with stiff spring rate and high damper value.

Wether my judging for GT4 visual is wrong or not, I am really glad it help improve my father car handling. My thinking process:
- In GT 2 and GT 4, to reduce bouncing I will reduce damper value.
- My dad's car show the same behaviour.
- reduce damper = stiffer damper.
- My dad's car will be more stable on bump using stiffer damper
- Force him to change it.
- It works, my dad satisfied.

So, if I don't care to what you say, sorry, but my real life experience feel more convincing than your explanation.

So you acknowledge that using these extreme values causes GT to intervene in an unrealistic manner, so these extreme values are not catered for in the physics engine.

The value is not something related to tuning, even stock car can experience it. It show that in 3D coordinate, PD do not use an algorithm that can cope with the car turn up side down.

And that biases you tuning in a major way, one that forces you down a set route and I’m sure you have to admit also your ability to read a cars behaviour.

Maybe, but I get miracle sometime. My goal to use a set of route is to be able to tune my car under 1 hour.

A number of tables describing how (in general terms) a car balance can be affected by damper settings are unimportant? To try and state that I only cover this in a single line is quite clearly not true, what I don’t attempt to do is force people down a set path, as from my own experience differing cars and driving styles can react very differently in this regard, nor do I believe (and more importantly try and force others to believe) that dampers are the only way of dealing with the problem at hand here.

That is the way I use it. I don't force you to use it. It's ok if you don't want to use it. But I will still defending my own tuning as the right one for me even when you keep insisting that my tuning is flawed, from flawed thinking or something.

I start questioning how you tune your damper because it is really hard to know how exactly you use damper to solve understeer / oversteer. Which should be more than what's currently written in your guide.

I just wonder what setting you are going to do this to next and more importantly when you will start to look at how the whole range of settings work together.

My experiment is to know what the characteristic of spesific part is. I see the whole tuning as a collection of individual part, where each part has different characteristic. If one is wrongly tuned, all can feel bad. If one is better, all can improve. For spesific problem, if the one with the most influence is what we tune, it will improve all better.

And how exactly can you ‘remove’ ride height from this? You can’t just take a fundamental part of vehicle dynamics and ignore it. What was the ride height set to? What were the other setting at? What car and course was involved here?

I remove ride height because I still not certain enough what it will do. I still use it, but only to reduce roll.

I aply those tuning to any drivetrain and track.

So you are saying that during load transfer a stiff front end will result in less grip (as a result of more slip), but in a constant cornering situation (after the load has transferred) it results in less grip. Why exactly would it be behaving in this manner? Would it do this for all cars? Would it be dependent on drive-train?

I think my previous graph explain what I mean better.


I believe that stiffer spring rate have higher overall grip and lower breakaway slip ratio.

Your response it would seem is to imply that I an acting dishonestly and providing fake info!

Do you already do damper testing like what sukerkin do? yes or no.

I don't say you provide fake info, but I am saying you provide unclear info. What I mean is, if you can't write it in detail because you don't explore it in detail previously, don't use a half sure knowledge to judge the way I use damper.

I already done it, and have conclusion that I write above in Leonade's teacher way.

So, if you already done it please you write your experience in Leonade's teacher way. If you don't do it yet, do the experiment at you free time.

I take it by part you are referring to area of suspension tuning and not upgrade or modification?

If that’s the case then no I do not have a set route that I follow at all, the guide does clearly describe which settings values are at work in each stage of a corner, this I will use as an indicator. From that I will base what setting or value to use based on feel, experience and to a degree trial and error; as Team 666 has said it is a case of experience helping here and often a ‘gut’ feeling about what to try, somethings will work and some will not.

Ok.

In the example of a tune I did not find it was needed to change the rest of the set-up after fitting the LSD or wing, however that’s not always the case, I do quite clearly say in the guides that certain parts may make it a requirement to revisit some areas of tuning.

Ok, this answer my question: "If you throw in another upgrade like tire, wing and LSD do you recommend to restart from scratch or use the current value?"

I'm nearly done with the Toyota MR2 set-up and the cars running quite nicely at the moment, on N2 tyres its quite playful on the throttle and does require good control, but if you know what you are doing its fun.

Ok.

I am sorry, I can't play the video. What it's content?

 

[Mt. Lynx]

I see. I just think that if we write down all of our little trick, we can tune faster.

About simple cure, even when using the best option, it still possible that we reach tuning limit before we can cure it completely.

Exactly! That is why you have to look at the entire setup, instead of just one part of it! Sure dampers are important, but they are pretty useless unless you look at springs, rideheight, weight transfer, unsprung mass etc, etc. All things work together to get the best ride possible. To only use dampers to cure over/understeer is not the best way, since other parts of the driving will be highly effected by that, such as straightline braking and/or acceleration. Highspeed stability will also be effected. Don´t tune for just one corner, tune for an entire track! I highly recommend you to do the week 17 tuning competition, with the 2000 Ford Falcon XR8@Nürburgring. That should teach you the value of a good compromise!

Maybe, but I get miracle sometime. My goal to use a set of route is to be able to tune my car under 1 hour.

For what purpose? The only way to achieve that goal is tune a greater variety of cars. I can do a pretty general setup in five minutes, but that will not be perfect by a long way! But it will still be a decent setup. There are a few things I have learned when tuning, like FR = harder suspension in front than rear, FF/MR/RR = the opposite. There are of course exceptions, as always. The track conditions are always important, just like the cars weight. These two in combination determins the range of the suspension.

My experiment is to know what the characteristic of spesific part is. I see the whole tuning as a collection of individual part, where each part has different characteristic. If one is wrongly tuned, all can feel bad. If one is better, all can improve. For spesific problem, if the one with the most influence is what we tune, it will improve all better.

You do realize that you are in the first part saying exactly what we have been pointing out? All parts correlates to eachother!! The part i´ve made bold contradicts what you are saying in first part. I´m not saying that it can´t happen, but there is usually no part more important than another.

 

[Leonidae]

you two really love this conversation, don't you? it started with Alpine suspension, and ended up into this, extremely detailed comparison about GT4's suspension modeling etc.

 

[Scaff]

My dad's car previously do skip and jump in road irregularity, a bit like Lotus Elise in Deep Forest, and I call it bouncing. For rear passenger it feels very harsh and stiff on road irregularity. My dad even set the rear spring rate to very soft up to point where the tire will hit the car body on every big bump. And he still call it too stiff and want it softer. What funny is, after fitting stiffer damper, everyone riding it mention the car to be feel a lot softer, especially on bumpy road.

So your fathers can had a suspension set-up so soft that it resulted in the tyre hitting the car body, almost certainly the suspension itself was bottoming out in a situation such as this as well. As soon as the suspension does this is goes from being very soft to almost rock solid (only the bump stop rubber and tyre sidewall will now be providing any kind of spring rate and damping), so by fitting firmer (and that’s the key here – firmer not stiff and certainly not track stiff) dampers and avoiding suspension bottoming and tyre contact with the car body you are allowing the suspension to do its correct job.

I’d would however be very interested to know exactly how your father changed the spring rate on the car itself and also exactly what the car is.

There is no flat smooth road here, so I see car showing it's rear bouncing everyday. It will bounce like GT4 car with stiff spring rate and high damper value.

So, if I don't care to what you say, sorry, but my real life experience feel more convincing than your explanation.

Just for the record its not just my explanations you are dismissing, it’s the collected work of every source I have used, given that they include the likes of Allan Staniforth and Skip Barber that’s rather bold.

I’m sure you would also admit that you own real world experience is very limited, yes you are able to relate to rough roads (as am I), but do you have direct experience of driving cars set-up for smooth circuits on tracks?

The value is not something related to tuning, even stock car can experience it. It show that in 3D coordinate, PD do not use an algorithm that can cope with the car turn up side down.

How its works is not the point I am making, I used it as an example of how a hacked value (in this case ride height) does not work in the same way as the real world. A car with a ride height that high would fall over on even the most gentle of turns at even low speeds, yet GT4 will stop that happening. Simple point, we know that even with the ‘allowed’ values GT4 is far from perfect, so extreme hacked values certainly can’t be taken at face value.

I start questioning how you tune your damper because it is really hard to know how exactly you use damper to solve understeer / oversteer. Which should be more than what's currently written in your guide.

I’m sorry you feel that way, and when I get the time to revise the guides I may well revisit that area. However that does not change the fact that I do cover it currently (just not to your satisfaction), nor that I personally believe that dampers alone are not a suitable tool to resolve these issues.

My experiment is to know what the characteristic of spesific part is. I see the whole tuning as a collection of individual part, where each part has different characteristic. If one is wrongly tuned, all can feel bad. If one is better, all can improve. For spesific problem, if the one with the most influence is what we tune, it will improve all better.

As Team666 has already pointed out, you are to a degree contradicting yourself here, yes settings are related and yes parts do have different characteristics. That does not mean that one tool alone can be used to solve a problem, nor does it mean that you will not cause problems in other areas. I’ve never refuted that your ‘solution’ solves lift off oversteer, just that I don’t agree that it’s a good method to do it. Your resolved the problem by creating (for me) another one, that of almost terminal understeer. Yes this does get rid of the Alpine’s lift off oversteer, but at the cost of the cars very dynamic balance and driveability. That for me is not a price worth paying, as I far prefer my settings, which use a range of tool to control (rather than eradicate) the problem and result in a car which I still enjoy driving.

I remove ride height because I still not certain enough what it will do. I still use it, but only to reduce roll.

You can’t just remove ride height! It’s a critical factor is how much load its transferred under all dynamic conditions, it a critical factor in what is occurring here.

I think my previous graph explain what I mean better.

I believe that stiffer spring rate have higher overall grip and lower breakaway slip ratio.

This we have already discussed and overall firmer or softer set-ups do not have a huge influence on this, the relationship between the front and rear settings are the principal factor at play here.
Tyres maximum potential tractive force is determined by two things, its coefficient of friction and the load placed on it. Overall spring rate has no effect on this, but the relationship of the front and rear rates does. How much of that its able to use (as determined by the level of slip (percentage and angle) is determined by the application of throttle, brakes and steering. Large amounts of a single one of these factors (or a combination of them) will push the tyre beyond its limit.

Do you already do damper testing like what sukerkin do? yes or no.

Yes, as part of my original testing in GT4 for the guides and after you posted similar info to this in the damper thread (the Neil Roberts info - http://g-speed.com/pbh/dampers.html). The info itself and its application in GT4 (in general terms) I have never disputed at all, what I have and do dispute is that it can be used as a stand alone cure. Its also not without problems as using to resolve one issue can cause other problems, the info in question actually states as much.

As you can see, none of the available adjustments affect only one
cornering phase. This is where the balancing act begins. Notice that the
same adjustments that increase phase 2 entry understeer also increase
phase 4 exit oversteer. Compromise is necessary even in the case of a
constant speed slalom.

I don't say you provide fake info, but I am saying you provide unclear info. What I mean is, if you can't write it in detail because you don't explore it in detail previously, don't use a half sure knowledge to judge the way I use damper.

I already done it, and have conclusion that I write above in Leonade's teacher way.

Suchayo I don’t believe I have been unclear in this at all, I have not disputed that dampers can be used in this manner to tune lift off oversteer, rather I have disputed the use of such extreme values to do so and the use of dampers alone to do it.

So, if you already done it please you write your experience in Leonade's teacher way. If you don't do it yet, do the experiment at you free time. I will wait until end of January (my original intention before you start critisizing my damper). And don't critisize the way I use damper until then.

Until you can provide damper tuning using hint like Leonade's teacher way, don't ever critisize the way I use damper.

So not content with being rude and aggressive on this manner you are now setting time limits on me and telling me what I can and can’t comment on!

I want this to be very, very, very clear to you. You will not tell people what they can and can’t comment on, nor the conditions under which they comment on a subject. That is a job for the staff here at GT Planet and we will only do it under circumstances where a member is posting outside the AUP and/or off-topic (which is covered by the AUP).

You will not tell me or any other member that we can’t criticise your set-ups or applications, nor will you set conditions or terms under which feedback is given. To do so would allow me to forbid you from commenting on areas you had not tested to my satisfaction, and would allow you to refuse to accept feedback from the Tuning competition because they had not carried out prior testing to your criteria. This will not continue and I draw your attention to the following section of the AUP.

You will not behave in an abusive and/or hateful manner, and will not harrass, threaten, nor attack anyone or any group. There will be no racially, sexually or physically abusive or inciteful language tolerated. Any abusive comments made by members will be removed by the Moderating staff and the user issued with a warning or banned, as deemed appropriate by the Moderating staff. No personal attacks on other members will be tolerated. If you question someone, it must be done in a reasonable and semi-friendly manner. Violating this rule will be grounds for suspension and/or permanent removal from the board.

If you continue to post in this manner I will ask another member of the staff to review your posts and act as they see fit (I will not do it personally as I do not wish to appear biased in this matter).

The point here is quite simple, if you post a setting here at GT Planet you are putting it in the public domain, the same applies to opinion you post here. If you don’t want to know what people think then don’t post, it is really that simple. How would you feel if I refused to allow anyone to comment on the tuning guides because they had not written any themselves? Quite simply it’s ludicrous to try and attach conditions such as these, so please stop. I’ve already said I will (as soon as time allows) re-test this info and post it up, but I will not work to an enforced deadline from you. That said as I have already said its not the actual application of this theory that I have an issue with, simply the manner in which you use it and to be blunt if you can’t accept feedback of that nature then the problem does not lie with me.

I am sorry, I can't play the video. What it's content?

Simply a run around Deep Forest with the MR2 as its currently tuned.


Regards

Gideon

 

[sucahyo]

Don´t tune for just one corner, tune for an entire track! I highly recommend you to do the week 17 tuning competition, with the 2000 Ford Falcon XR8@Nürburgring. That should teach you the value of a good compromise!

Agree. Too bad, it seem I don't have a chance to tune Ford Falcon this month.

For what purpose?

My chance to tune for tuning competition usually under 1.5 hours, so I try to do it effeciently.

You do realize that you are in the first part saying exactly what we have been pointing out? All parts correlates to eachother!! The part i´ve made bold contradicts what you are saying in first part. I´m not saying that it can´t happen, but there is usually no part more important than another.

It's not more important, but more effecient. For spesific problem, although more than one part can be use to solve it, some part are better than the other.

So your fathers can had a suspension set-up so soft that it resulted in the tyre hitting the car body, almost certainly the suspension itself was bottoming out in a situation such as this as well. As soon as the suspension does this is goes from being very soft to almost rock solid (only the bump stop rubber and tyre sidewall will now be providing any kind of spring rate and damping), so by fitting firmer (and that’s the key here – firmer not stiff and certainly not track stiff) dampers and avoiding suspension bottoming and tyre contact with the car body you are allowing the suspension to do its correct job.

I’d would however be very interested to know exactly how your father changed the spring rate on the car itself and also exactly what the car is.

No, the tire still hit the body, although less. You do not read carefull enough to notice that the reason my father soften the rear spring rate is because the car bouncing around too much. Without softening the rear spring, the car will violently bounce. By softening the rear spring, the car bouncing is reduced, but still feel too much.

The car is Toyota Kijang (South East Asian model), mcperson strut front and leaf spring rear. And If you start arguing it's the leaf spring fault. Many people here prefer car with leaf spring like Isuzu Panther or Suzuki Carry 1000cc model than car with coil spring like Daihatsu Taruna or even Toyota Kijang coil spring version, for it's comfort. In here coil spring do not always equal to comfort.

Changing the spring stiffness of leaf spring type would be relatively easy. Just add or remove some metal. And please remember that my dad make the rear spring softer because it bouncing madly when stiff.

The way I see your explanation, you seem to have no clue why everyone riding it call it softer. Let me help you with that. Using the old damper, the car react violently on bump, even when rear spring rate softened. Passenger feel a very harsh ride when passing bump or road irregularity, they get shaken up and down by the car bouncing. Using new damper, the car ride feel a lot more comfortable, almost no bouncing, and because it is more comfortable they call it softer.

Just for the record its not just my explanations you are dismissing, it’s the collected work of every source I have used, given that they include the likes of Allan Staniforth and Skip Barber that’s rather bold.

Just yours. Like you can't differentiate the different between damper GT1 and GT4. I bet that if you try Viper Racing too, you will say that GT4 damper behave the same as Viper Racing one. (viper racing can be downloaded legally at www.vrgt.com, additional car can be downloaded from http://forum.rscnet.org/forumdisplay.php?f=276).

I’m sure you would also admit that you own real world experience is very limited, yes you are able to relate to rough roads (as am I), but do you have direct experience of driving cars set-up for smooth circuits on tracks?

I don't.

How its works is not the point I am making, I used it as an example of how a hacked value (in this case ride height) does not work in the same way as the real world. A car with a ride height that high would fall over on even the most gentle of turns at 8even low speeds, yet GT4 will stop that happening. Simple point, we know that even with the ‘allowed’ values GT4 is far from perfect, so extreme hacked values certainly can’t be taken at face value.

Car with normal ride height will experience the same thing. Hacked or extreme or not, all will not roll over. I even never see motorbike turn up side down in PD's Touring Trophy. This has nothing to do with extreme value or not.

You can’t just remove ride height! It’s a critical factor is how much load its transferred under all dynamic conditions, it a critical factor in what is occurring here.

Hey, I don't remove it from my tuning, I just don't post it because I am not confident with it yet.

Tyres maximum potential tractive force is determined by two things, its coefficient of friction and the load placed on it. Overall spring rate has no effect on this, but the relationship of the front and rear rates does. How much of that its able to use (as determined by the level of slip (percentage and angle) is determined by the application of throttle, brakes and steering. Large amounts of a single one of these factors (or a combination of them) will push the tyre beyond its limit.

That is the way I see it in GT4. I use spring rate to balance car when in sideways condition too. If I make the front a lot stiffer, when doing sideways, I expect the front will brake the sideways more than rear, and it usually do.

You will not tell me or any other member that we can’t criticise your set-ups or applications, nor will you set conditions or terms under which feedback is given. To do so would allow me to forbid you from commenting on areas you had not tested to my satisfaction, and would allow you to refuse to accept feedback from the Tuning competition because they had not carried out prior testing to your criteria. This will not continue and I draw your attention to the following section of the AUP.

Ok. I withdraw that statement. I won't stop you from commenting my way of tuning..

When time limit is pass, I will only assume that you don't care, nothing more, and I won't be using it to threaten you or anything.

I accuse you of posting incomplete material, and I want more complete information from you. If you incapable of posting your experiment in Leonade's teacher way, just say so, and I stop asking.

 

[Scaff]

No, the tire still hit the body, although less. You do not read carefull enough to notice that the reason my father soften the rear spring rate is because the car bouncing around too much. Without softening the rear spring, the car will violently bounce. By softening the rear spring, the car bouncing is reduced, but still feel too much.

I read it more than careful, and have not misunderstood it at all. If the tyre is hitting the car body in any way it will be affecting the behaviour of the suspension.

The car is Toyota Kijang (South East Asian model), mcperson strut front and leaf spring rear. And If you start arguing it's the leaf spring fault. Many people here prefer car with leaf spring like Isuzu Panther or Suzuki Carry 1000cc model than car with coil spring like Daihatsu Taruna or even Toyota Kijang coil spring version, for it's comfort. In here coil spring do not always equal to comfort.

So you have been using a car with rear leaf spring as a direct comparison to the majority of cars in GT2 and GT4 with bothering to mention it. Yes leaf springs have a place, I even occasionally drive a vehicle with full leaf springs, but to try and dismiss that they may have a part to play in all this is wrong. May I quote the suspension bible on leaf springs.

Solid-axle, leaf-spring
This system was favoured by the Americans for years because it was dead simple and cheap to build. The ride quality is decidedly questionable though. The drive axle is clamped to the leaf springs and the shock absorbers normally bolt directly to the axle. The ends of the leaf springs are attached directly to the chassis, as are the tops of the shock absorbers. Simple, not particularly elegant, but cheap. The main drawback with this arrangement is the lack of lateral location for the axle, meaning it has a lot of side-to-side slop in it.

Source - http://www.carbibles.com/suspension_bible.html

So I’m afraid that the leaf springs do have a part to play.

Changing the spring stiffness of leaf spring type would be relatively easy. Just add or remove some metal. And please remember that my dad make the rear spring softer because it bouncing madly when stiff.

So is that adding to or removing the metal ? And to what part of the leaf spring? How was this then checked to ensure that the end result was an increase or decrease in stiffness? How did he ensure that the change was exactly the same on both sides?

As this is the real world we are discussing here any uncontrolled oscillation of the springs may well be the result of an issue with the dampers, which would explain why replacing the damper resolved the issue.

The way I see your explanation, you seem to have no clue why everyone riding it call it softer. Let me help you with that. Using the old damper, the car react violently on bump, even when rear spring rate softened. Passenger feel a very harsh ride when passing bump or road irregularity, they get shaken up and down by the car bouncing. Using new damper, the car ride feel a lot more comfortable, almost no bouncing, and because it is more comfortable they call it softer.

And if the old dampers were faulty or too soft then the ride would be compromised (please remember I have always said that damper need to be ‘right’; too soft or too hard for the conditions of use, the cars weight and/or spring rates will all cause problems). That does not mean that you are now running with ‘stiff’ suspension, just the correct suspension for the conditions and possibly now without faulty dampers.

Just yours. Like you can't differentiate the different between damper GT1 and GT4. I bet that if you try Viper Racing too, you will say that GT4 damper behave the same as Viper Racing one. (viper racing can be downloaded legally at www.vrgt.com, additional car can be downloaded from http://forum.rscnet.org/forumdisplay.php?f=276).

Uhh my definitions are the same as the ones they use, my definitions are the norms for the motor industry. Are I'm not disagreeing or contradicting anything these sources have said (unlike yourself) I don't see how my definitions can be wrong, but not theirs?

I’m also rather confused by the reference to GT1? None the less your supposed quote is wrong I can differentiate between GT1 and GT4 dampers, I have never said anything to the contrary, what I have said is that they behave in the same fashion, in that lower values are softer and higher values are stiffer. The same is true across the entire GT series, please do keep in mind that I did back to back tests on every game in the series.

Why do you now also want me to try yet another game/sim to compare GT4 to? I’ve run comparison tests against the following while looking at this subject:

• The entire GT series
• Forza
• Enthusia
• LFS
• Rfactor
• Richard Burns Rally
• GPL

Not a single one of them supports what you say and a good number of them show no correlation at all between soft damper settings and high damper values in GT4.

Car with normal ride height will experience the same thing. Hacked or extreme or not, all will not roll over. I even never see motorbike turn up side down in PD's Touring Trophy. This has nothing to do with extreme value or not.

Yes it does a car at normal ride height will not normally fall over when cornering so the inclusion of the stop code is not a major issue, yet a car with a hacked ride height of over a metre should fall over at almost any speed over walking pace when cornering. The stop code here becomes a major factor is stopping the realistic simulation, without knowing exactly what PD covered in the coding you can’t say definitively that extreme hacked values do not have an unknown/unrealistic effect.

Hey, I don't remove it from my tuning, I just don't post it because I am not confident with it yet.

You ignore it as a factor in the results, remember it was you that said “I remove ride height because I still not certain enough what it will do. I still use it, but only to reduce roll.”.

That is the way I see it in GT4. I use spring rate to balance car when in sideways condition too. If I make the front a lot stiffer, when doing sideways, I expect the front will brake the sideways more than rear, and it usually do.

Now its far from clear exactly what you are trying to say here, but it would seem as if you are saying that if the front is stiffer (in spring rate) then the front will lose grip before the rear. If that is the case I have two observations, first that quite clearly not the same as stiffer overall, which is what you originally implied.

Stiffening both =
increase overall grip in constant radius corner
increase possibility of drifting during lift off throttle or apply throttle or zigzaging
less roll, better agility, increased bouncing or faster bouncing, more sensitive.

Nor does it match this

Stiffening front end =
increase front end grip in constant radius corner
increase possibility of front tire slip during lift off throttle or apply throttle or zigzagging

The second one is my favourite as you are now quite clearly contradicting yourself.

Ok. I withdraw that statement. I won't stop you from commenting my way of tuning..

When time limit is pass, I will only assume that you don't care, nothing more, and I won't be using it to threaten you or anything.

I accuse you of posting incomplete material, and I want more complete information from you. If you incapable of posting your experiment in Leonade's teacher way, just say so, and I stop asking.

Suchayo you can’t stop me or anyone from commenting (within the AUP) on anything posted here.

I’ve already said that I will run these test again (as the original notes are in boxes in my attic – they are well over a year old), yet you are still talking about making assumptions if I fail to make a time limit that I was not originally aware of, nor did I agree to.

You are still demanding information on a subject that I don’t strictly disagree with you on: that being the following:

+ indicates stiffer damping
- indicates softer damping.
IF is inside front
OF is outside front

PHASE, MORE MORE
DIRECTIONS UNDERSTEER OVERSTEER

Phase 1 entry
OF bump F bump + F bump -
OR rebound R rebound - R rebound +

Phase 2 entry
IF rebound F rebound + F rebound -
OR bump R bump - R bump +

Phase 3A entry
OF&OR bump F bump + F bump -
IF&IR rebound F rebound + F rebound -
R bump - R bump +
R rebound - R rebound +

Phase 3B exit
OF&OR rebound F bump - F bump +
IF&IR bump F rebound - F rebound +
R bump + R bump -
R rebound + R rebound -

Phase 4 exit
OF rebound F rebound - F rebound +
IR bump R bump + R bump -

The problem as I see it is not that I disagree that the above can be (in basic terms) applied to GT4, but rather that I disagree with it being the only method to use and your specific application of it.

Its that last point that you seem to want to avoid talking about (having drawn this thread off in numerous directions instead), you posted a set-up and I posted an alternative, yet when it has come to talking about them (which I thought was the point) you have got very, very defensive. Not quite sure I understand why.


Now I have been discussing this with a few other people and I have had an idea suggested to me. Given that we both have different approaches to set-up how about a quick challenge, if you are up for it I would like to ask a few of the WRS drivers to run our settings side by side and pass comment on them (both in regard to feel and overall lap time).

I even propose a car that we have both tested extensively on in the past, the Caterham Fireblade (or maybe a BMW 2002 Turbo if you fancy something new) and at a track we have not used much to ensure fair play, so how about Trial Mountain. The exact set of mods and spec I would suggest is left open , but going for maximum weight reduction and power mods would keep things nice and even, but choice of diff, fitting a roll-cage, etc should be left open. One thing I would insist on is a control tyre of say N3 or S1, as anything more than that can mask set-up issue to a very large degree.

What do you say? If it’s a yes I will post a thread asking for some ‘judges’ and we agree a date to have settings in by.

Regards

Scaff

 

[sucahyo]

I read it more than careful, and have not misunderstood it at all. If the tyre is hitting the car body in any way it will be affecting the behaviour of the suspension.

Not a big problem compare to comfort. The car is more uncomfortable when the spring set to stiff (to made the tire not touching the body).

So I’m afraid that the leaf springs do have a part to play.

In here car with leaf spring can be more comfortable than car with coil spring.

So is that adding to or removing the metal ? And to what part of the leaf spring? How was this then checked to ensure that the end result was an increase or decrease in stiffness? How did he ensure that the change was exactly the same on both sides?

Sorry, I thought you understand that leaf spring can have more than one stacked metal, which is common in here usually around 4 or 5. So it is easy to make suspension softer or stiffer. To make it softer we remove some, to make it stiffer me add some. If we use the same number of stacked metal in left and right part, it should be equal.

Too bad carbibles show only one bar of metal. If you google image "leaf spring" you will see more example of leaf spring with more than one metal.

As this is the real world we are discussing here any uncontrolled oscillation of the springs may well be the result of an issue with the dampers, which would explain why replacing the damper resolved the issue.

Yes. And I think what we see in GT4 is an issue with weak damper too.

And if the old dampers were faulty or too soft then the ride would be compromised (please remember I have always said that damper need to be ‘right’; too soft or too hard for the conditions of use, the cars weight and/or spring rates will all cause problems). That does not mean that you are now running with ‘stiff’ suspension, just the correct suspension for the conditions and possibly now without faulty dampers.

That is also what I use to argue. Damper too soft can make car handling uncomfortable, unstable, bouncy and has intermittent grip. So, are you agree that damper too soft can make the car bounce up and down violently?

Uhh my definitions are the same as the ones they use, my definitions are the norms for the motor industry. Are I'm not disagreeing or contradicting anything these sources have said (unlike yourself) I don't see how my definitions can be wrong, but not theirs?

Not your definition, but your assumption. You assuming that what we feel and see in GT4 is the behaviour of car with damper set too stiff, where I assume it is the behaviour of car with damper set too soft.

I’m also rather confused by the reference to GT1? None the less your supposed quote is wrong I can differentiate between GT1 and GT4 dampers, I have never said anything to the contrary, what I have said is that they behave in the same fashion, in that lower values are softer and higher values are stiffer. The same is true across the entire GT series, please do keep in mind that I did back to back tests on every game in the series.

I bold the part that I mean. You are wrong. While it's true low value in GT1 is softer, low value in GT4 is stiffer. Trying to use the same tuning method like reducing harshness in GT4:
"Testing this resulted in a much better feel, the rebound felt very good, the car was however still a little harsh over the rubble-strips. A quick tweak of the rebound to 5 improved things a little. Another ‘click’ softer to 4 and I was happy, with the CSL running well over the curbs and rumble-strips."

Wouldn't work in GT1 if the current damper value is 3 or bellow. If you reduce it you will only make it more harsh. And what you see in GT1 when you use damper value at 10 (more than enough stiffness) is not something that you will see in GT4.

Not a single one of them supports what you say and a good number of them show no correlation at all between soft damper settings and high damper values in GT4.

Recently I tune Lotus Elise in Deep Forest. When I use low damper value (all 1) the rear bouncing reduce, when I use high damper value (all 10) the bouncing increase. In Viper racing, if I want to make the car bounce the same way as GT4 Lotus Elise, I have to use low value. Making car do bouncing like that with high damper value is simply not possible. The bouncing what we usually see in GT4 is a lot like Viper Racing car with stiff spring and soft damper, than Viper Racing car with stiff spring and stiff damper.

What you call stiff (value of 10) dammper in GT4 do not behave the same way as Viper Racing stiff. In Viper Racing when the damper is stiff the car do not feel bouncy, harsh but no boeing boeing.

If we use what you said in your guide: "If the car feels soft and surface irregularities are hardly noticeable then the bound rate should be raised. If the car feels harsh and hard over surface irregularities then the bound rate should be reduced." in Viper Racing, it can lead to very different result. In the hard damper range (50 to 100) those could be used, but in soft damper range (0 to 50) it would be the reverse of that. Remember that I see high damper value in Viper Racing nothing like what happen in GT4, I see GT4 damper value is more like inverted Viper racing soft damper range.

The reason I choose Viper Racing is because it has little ripple in some of it's track (Rock Island and Ridge Valley) which I usually use to test setting.

Yes it does a car at normal ride height will not normally fall over when cornering so the inclusion of the stop code is not a major issue, yet a car with a hacked ride height of over a metre should fall over at almost any speed over walking pace when cornering. The stop code here becomes a major factor is stopping the realistic simulation, without knowing exactly what PD covered in the coding you can’t say definitively that extreme hacked values do not have an unknown/unrealistic effect.

Actually, I do know exactly what the coding do, although it is for GT2. But since I believe GT4 has the same limit, I highly suspect this code is still used.

When I try to make car flipped :


I found that GT prevent code by detecting car roll and pitch value ($200) and prevent another change for it. Unfortunately I forgot where I put my note but for anyone who can read PlayStation assembly, the flip limiter code is around:
800442a0 28620201 SLTI v0,v1,0201

What make me surprise is, there is no code that will process what happen when the car get over those limit. And when the car pass the limit and get very close to 90 degree, it will make a crazy behaviour, it move to horizontal direction, something that explain why car that have lower front is faster in GT2. When the car cross over 90 degree, it can fly. No code for that could mean that even in GT5 car wouldn't be able to flip.

The second one is my favourite as you are now quite clearly contradicting yourself.

My graph explain it better.

I even propose a car that we have both tested extensively on in the past, the Caterham Fireblade (or maybe a BMW 2002 Turbo if you fancy something new) and at a track we have not used much to ensure fair play, so how about Trial Mountain. The exact set of mods and spec I would suggest is left open , but going for maximum weight reduction and power mods would keep things nice and even, but choice of diff, fitting a roll-cage, etc should be left open. One thing I would insist on is a control tyre of say N3 or S1, as anything more than that can mask set-up issue to a very large degree.

Ok. Caterham Fireblade max weight and power mod with N3 tire in Trial Mountain will do. But I still have handicap of bad controller. So before posting any setting, I would like all judge to mention the characteristic of the car in either stock or with default value of FC suspension.

 

[Scaff]

In here car with leaf spring can be more comfortable than car with coil spring.

Please show me exactly when I said that leaf spring could not be more comfortable? I did not dispute that point, but in terms of a direct comparison to GT4 you can't compare cars with wildly differing suspension types, yet that is exactly what you have been doing.

Sorry, I thought you understand that leaf spring can have more than one stacked metal, which is common in here usually around 4 or 5. So it is easy to make suspension softer or stiffer. To make it softer we remove some, to make it stiffer me add some. If we use the same number of stacked metal in left and right part, it should be equal.

Too bad carbibles show only one bar of metal. If you google image "leaf spring" you will see more example of leaf spring with more than one metal.

I am more than aware of how leaf springs function, my father and I are in the process of restoring this:





What I am also very well aware of is the work involved in removing and refitting leaf spring systems, the problems that can and will result in removing leaves from the spring and the huge changes in rate that will result unless its done correctly. I take it the correct leaves were used, as in your original post it sounded like you were simply adding or removing 'metal' directly from the leaves, rather than changing the leaves themselves.

That is also what I use to argue. Damper too soft can make car handling uncomfortable, unstable, bouncy and has intermittent grip. So, are you agree that damper too soft can make the car bounce up and down violently?

No suchayo you used to (and as far as I know still do) argue that the only way a car could lose contact with the road was through soft damping, you even went so far as to claim that the reason why touring cars, etc jump upon contact with high curbing was down to soft damping. You argued aggressively that the bumpier the track the harder the damper/suspension must be.

Do you not remember this picture...

...and the resulting tests(located here), please don't forget that you first passed definitive comments on these tests without admitting that you had not run them. You claimed then they could be the result of soft damping on the BTCC shots.

Not your definition, but your assumption. You assuming that what we feel and see in GT4 is the behaviour of car with damper set too stiff, where I assume it is the behaviour of car with damper set too soft.

I have always maintained that dampers need to be set 'right' and that massive under-damping can cause problems, particularly with cars with a significant weight, large degree of load transfer and is dependent on the spring rates. If sufficiently under-damped and the suspension then bottoms out the problem gets even worse. However the characteristics in terms of both look and feel are very, very different to that of over-damping and the problems that causes, which are not soft bouncing, but harsh and crashy (which can also happen with bottoming out - but that when the bump stops are hit and the suspension goes from very soft to very, very hard in a matter of milliseconds). Overdamping is also far more likely to result in a loss of contact with the track surface if a bump, such as a high curb, is encountered at speed, an underdamped car in the same situation may well lose contact with the road surface, but its less likely, will feel totally different and either the result of prolonged oscillation (unlikely but possible) or the suspension bottoming out, in which case its technically now very stiff, not soft.

I have on many occasions experienced both of the situations, having driven a very wide variety of cars both on and off road, and on road conditions varying from the truly awful to smooth tracks. Have you?

I bold the part that I mean. You are wrong. While it's true low value in GT1 is softer, low value in GT4 is stiffer. Trying to use the same tuning method like reducing harshness in GT4:
"Testing this resulted in a much better feel, the rebound felt very good, the car was however still a little harsh over the rubble-strips. A quick tweak of the rebound to 5 improved things a little. Another ‘click’ softer to 4 and I was happy, with the CSL running well over the curbs and rumble-strips."

Wouldn't work in GT1 if the current damper value is 3 or bellow. If you reduce it you will only make it more harsh. And what you see in GT1 when you use damper value at 10 (more than enough stiffness) is not something that you will see in GT4.

You seem to be forgetting a lot just lately, I have owned and tuned on every version of GT since the series first came out. Having bought ever game at launch and tuned the cars since day one with each one. The same basic principals can be applied to every version of the series, the basics applied to the CSL will work on GT, GT2 and GT3. I even carried out a test on this, just to refresh you memory here's a link.

https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showpost.php?p=2080051&postcount=63

I also find it rather interesting that you are commenting that the 'feel' (as you describe the harshness) would be different in GT, can I assume from this that you are no longer using the keyboard on your PC to play GT and GT2 or is this again a purely visual opinion.

Recently I tune Lotus Elise in Deep Forest. When I use low damper value (all 1) the rear bouncing reduce, when I use high damper value (all 10) the bouncing increase. In Viper racing, if I want to make the car bounce the same way as GT4 Lotus Elise, I have to use low value. Making car do bouncing like that with high damper value is simply not possible. The bouncing what we usually see in GT4 is a lot like Viper Racing car with stiff spring and soft damper, than Viper Racing car with stiff spring and stiff damper.

And the other suspension settings were?

How many times have you been asked to stop doing this, post up the exact set-ups so that people can try them out. Also I hate to break the news to you, but Viper racing is an OK sim, but it is rather outdated. if you really want to try this comparison why not use what is recoginsed by most as one of the singel most accurate PC sims, Live for Speed, the demo is free and would allows a descent range of settings to be tried.

http://www.liveforspeed.net/

What you call stiff (value of 10) dammper in GT4 do not behave the same way as Viper Racing stiff. In Viper Racing when the damper is stiff the car do not feel bouncy, harsh but no boeing boeing.

And nor do the cars in GT4 feel 'boeing, boeing' with high damper settings, GT4's damper settings do not allow you to set truly soft values (not as represented by every other sim in the last list I posted. Truly soft dampers would see the car visibly 'wobbling' as it pulled away, cornering is not needed to see it. LFS, RBR, Rfactor all show this quite clearly; GT4 does not on any damper setting.

This also ignores the very clear fact that as you up the suspension type in 'all' the GT games the default values get 'firmer'; spring rate increases, stabiliser values increase and so do damper values.

I have mentioned this before and you have ignored it, not answering fully, so please would you mind addressing it now. Why do GT4 damper values increase along side all the other suspension settings that relate the stiffness if they are not also increasing in stiffness.

Based on your 'theory' as spring rate and stabilisers stiffen, the dampers get softer, why exactly would that be?

My original post

As we fit more 'race' orientated suspension the default Spring Rates get stiffer, so we would expect the Dampers to do the same.

Subaru 360
Sports Suspension
Spring Rate = Unknown
Damper F4 / R4

Semi-Racing Suspension
Spring Rate = F2.3 (range 1.5 - 2.7) / R2.1 (range 1.4 - 2.5)
Damper = F6 / R6

Racing Suspension
Spring Rate = F3.0 (range 1.5 - 15) / R2.8 (range 1.4 - 15)
Damper = F8 / R8


TVR Cerbera Speed Six
Sports Suspension
Spring Rate = Unknown
Damper = F4 / R4

Semi-Racing Suspension
Spring Rate = F5.3 (range 3.5 - 6.3) / R4.4 (range 2.9 - 5.2)
Damper = F6 / R6

Racing Suspension
Spring Rate = F7.0 (range 3.5 - 18) / R5.8 (range 2.9 - 18)
Damper = F8 / R8


You can do this for any car, the trend remains the same, additionally with all the suspension settings the higher the value the greater the effect. To suggest that Dampers alone are reversed is unlikely.

You never answered this last time it was raised.

If we use what you said in your guide: "If the car feels soft and surface irregularities are hardly noticeable then the bound rate should be raised. If the car feels harsh and hard over surface irregularities then the bound rate should be reduced." in Viper Racing, it can lead to very different result. In the hard damper range (50 to 100) those could be used, but in soft damper range (0 to 50) it would be the reverse of that. Remember that I see high damper value in Viper Racing nothing like what happen in GT4, I see GT4 damper value is more like inverted Viper racing soft damper range.

The reason I choose Viper Racing is because it has little ripple in some of it's track (Rock Island and Ridge Valley) which I usually use to test setting.

Are you playing Viper Racing on your PC? If so are you still using the keyboard to control cars?

Actually, I do know exactly what the coding do, although it is for GT2. But since I believe GT4 has the same limit, I highly suspect this code is still used.

No you don't know exactly what the code does in GT4 (you claim to know for GT2 but I have my personal doubts - as far as I know you don't work for PD and didn't code the entire physics engine), you believe you know.

That however is totally off-topic, the simple fact is that the entire GT series has a stop code that artificially effects how the cars behave in certain extreme conditions, and you can't say 100% beyond a doubt that this does not play any part in the use of hacked extreme values.

My graph explain it better.

I beg to differ you graph is claiming that an increase in a signle tyres spring rate will directly effect its grip level, and that simply not true. The other three spring rates will determine how load is distributed and that will effect each tyres load and that will effect the grip level and slip limits. Not the single spring rate in isolation, which is what that graph implies.

Ok. Caterham Fireblade max weight and power mod with N3 tire in Trial Mountain will do. But I still have handicap of bad controller. So before posting any setting, I would like all judge to mention the characteristic of the car in either stock or with default value of FC suspension.

I'm more that happy with the car, track, tyre and mods. However the entire idea behind this is that its blind testing, I have no intention of discussing the final set-up with the judges at all prior to submission. This is as much about our own abilities to read the car and set it up to the track conditions (after all you have called into question my ability to do just this on numerous occasions).

I intended for use to work on the cars and submit set-ups directly to the judges (or a third party) via PM, They would then run our set-ups and the default set-up, the feedback would be based on lap-time and personal impressions.

Let me know what sort of time scale would suit you, as I know access to a PS2 can be an issue for you, but I do know some of the WRS drivers are eager to get started.


Regards

Scaff

 

[sucahyo]

Please show me exactly when I said that leaf spring could not be more comfortable? I did not dispute that point, but in terms of a direct comparison to GT4 you can't compare cars with wildly differing suspension types, yet that is exactly what you have been doing.

Are you saying that the jittering in Lotus Elise or Opera 350Z do not have the same cause as violent bouncing in my dad's car? What I try to say is I believe they all have the same cause, bouncing caused by unsuffivient damping force.

I am more than aware of how leaf springs function, my father and I are in the process of restoring this

Ok. We don't change it ourself. And I don't know how to call the leave.

No sucahyo you used to (and as far as I know still do) argue that the only way a car could lose contact with the road was through soft damping

When I post (page 12 in Damper thread):
"loosing contact can happen too if you use stiff spring and very soft damper".

You answer it with:
"As I have said above, I do not dispute this, just that (as I have said many times) it is less likely to occur.".

At that time you know that I dont see damper too soft as the only way to loose traction. Although I forget in what case it is less likely to occur, are you talking about in game or real life stock car or real life race car?. If it's in real life stock car, I see many car in here showing the hint of damper too soft and don't remember seeing car showing the hint of damper too stiff.

I have always maintained that dampers need to be set 'right' and that massive under-damping can cause problems, particularly with cars with a significant weight, large degree of load transfer and is dependent on the spring rates. If sufficiently under-damped and the suspension then bottoms out the problem gets even worse. However the characteristics in terms of both look and feel are very, very different to that of over-damping and the problems that causes, which are not soft bouncing, but harsh and crashy (which can also happen with bottoming out - but that when the bump stops are hit and the suspension goes from very soft to very, very hard in a matter of milliseconds). Overdamping is also far more likely to result in a loss of contact with the track surface if a bump, such as a high curb, is encountered at speed, an underdamped car in the same situation may well lose contact with the road surface, but its less likely, will feel totally different and either the result of prolonged oscillation (unlikely but possible) or the suspension bottoming out, in which case its technically now very stiff, not soft.

Ok. What do you mean by unlikely but possible? On what condition?

I have on many occasions experienced both of the situations, having driven a very wide variety of cars both on and off road, and on road conditions varying from the truly awful to smooth tracks. Have you?

Never ride race car, never drive 4WD sedan, never drive truck or bus, never drive auto/cvt, never use engine brake when carrying passenger, never allowed to go above 80mph. I driven manual transmission FR sedan, FF sedan, FR off road, 4WD off road, FR SUV, FR MPV and FR Minibus.

I even carried out a test on this, just to refresh you memory here's a link.

I wish you testing more damper value in GT1 at that time and test more car too.

I test GT1 and GT2 TVR Grifith just now, no wonder you have wrong conclusion, it look almost the same from bumper view. And since I think you use US version of GT2 the bouncing you see is a lot less. Even if it look the same, the behaviour is different. In GT1 jump happen only on bump and no small jump following them. Too bad in GT2 the jump do not show big enough. In my recent playing of Lotus Elise, after the first jump meeting the bump, the car will countinue to do some successive small jump for litle while.

If you try Supra RZ you will see that when using damper value 10, the car jump show as jerky and sudden movement, without trailing jump after. From bumper screen the screnery look zaping around.

This is different from what you see in GT2 (and I bet in GT4 too) where from bumper view you will see scenery look bouncing around like it attached to rubber band.

I also find it rather interesting that you are commenting that the 'feel' (as you describe the harshness) would be different in GT, can I assume from this that you are no longer using the keyboard on your PC to play GT and GT2 or is this again a purely visual opinion.

Yes. But remember that I decide that my dad's car have damper problem aside from feel I use visual too. About feel, what can you feel in the game if not visual? can you really differentiate between damper overly soft and damper overly stiff without looking at screen?

And the other suspension settings were?

Later.

Also I hate to break the news to you, but Viper racing is an OK sim, but it is rather outdated. if you really want to try this comparison why not use what is recoginsed by most as one of the singel most accurate PC sims, Live for Speed, the demo is free and would allows a descent range of settings to be tried.

I don't have decent PC and I don't have wheel. If I can I would love to see how I can duplicate GT4 Lotus Elise jittering behaviour in LFS, I bet it would need stiff spring rate and very soft damper at the rear. Are there any ripple in LFS track?

And nor do the cars in GT4 feel 'boeing, boeing' with high damper settings, GT4's damper settings do not allow you to set truly soft values (not as represented by every other sim in the last list I posted. Truly soft dampers would see the car visibly 'wobbling' as it pulled away, cornering is not needed to see it. LFS, RBR, Rfactor all show this quite clearly; GT4 does not on any damper setting.

How about subaru 360? Can you explain again your comment:
"Dampers 10/10
Definate 'jump' on contact with curbs, with little wallow and/or oscilation on return to the ground.

Damper 1/1
Less 'jump' on contact with curbs, small wallow on return to the ground."

Which is is smaller, small or little?

I have mentioned this before and you have ignored it, not answering fully, so please would you mind addressing it now. Why do GT4 damper values increase along side all the other suspension settings that relate the stiffness if they are not also increasing in stiffness.

My previous answer is they do it to cover some bug. Now I think that PD just do it for no reason.

No you don't know exactly what the code does in GT4 (you claim to know for GT2 but I have my personal doubts - as far as I know you don't work for PD and didn't code the entire physics engine), you believe you know.

Ok. Since you are not programmer I won't argue further. But as info, you can't hack something if you don't know how it works.

I beg to differ you graph is claiming that an increase in a signle tyres spring rate will directly effect its grip level, and that simply not true. The other three spring rates will determine how load is distributed and that will effect each tyres load and that will effect the grip level and slip limits. Not the single spring rate in isolation, which is what that graph implies.

That apply to all tire, that is the way I think reasonable enough to use to simulate tire behaviour on different suspension setting. Change to different suspension part will create different tire grip vs slip level graph.

I'm more that happy with the car, track, tyre and mods. However the entire idea behind this is that its blind testing, I have no intention of discussing the final set-up with the judges at all prior to submission. This is as much about our own abilities to read the car and set it up to the track conditions (after all you have called into question my ability to do just this on numerous occasions).

I don't mean it like that. We don't discuss how our current setting is with the judge. But the judges post their own problem with the car to give a clue to the contestant of what they have to solve. Since problem for me is not always a problem for other, and also problem for other is not always a problem for me.

I thought you want some problem solving competition. Judge can then give point according to what problem is solved and what new problem created, aside from the normal handling and speed judging.


If it go like what you said, it would be no different than current GT4 Tuning Competition. You can just join tuning competition instead of creating new one.

Let me know what sort of time scale would suit you, as I know access to a PS2 can be an issue for you, but I do know some of the WRS drivers are eager to get started.

Monthly, but I think you can carry on without me if I don't have a chance.

Edit: I got fortunate chance to play PS2 today. And I have Caterham seven fireblade setting for trial mountain ready.

 

[Scaff]

Are you saying that the jittering in Lotus Elise or Opera 350Z do not have the same cause as violent bouncing in my dad's car? What I try to say is I believe they all have the same cause, bouncing caused by unsuffivient damping force.

What Elise and 350Z? Why have these suddenly come into a discussion about your dad’s car?

I can only speculate that you are referring to GT cars, in which case I simply can’t answer with the info you have provided. I mean how exactly were these cars set-up?

Ok. We don't change it ourself.

Hold on a second here. In every post that you have talked about this you have said ‘me’ or ‘we’ (in relation to your Father), and now you are saying that you did not do this work yourselves. Now that’s quite a big change, for starters how can you then comment on how easy or difficult the job is (as its actually a potentially tricky job, any work with metal under any form of compression is).

This is once again borderline AUP violation here, which does quite clearly state that you are not to post any knowingly false information; you need to be far clearer and a lot more careful in future. As you have just gone from someone commenting on work they had carried out themselves to someone speculating about it.

When I post (page 12 in Damper thread):
"loosing contact can happen too if you use stiff spring and very soft damper".

You answer it with:
"As I have said above, I do not dispute this, just that (as I have said many times) it is less likely to occur.".

At that time you know that I dont see damper too soft as the only way to loose traction. Although I forget in what case it is less likely to occur, are you talking about in game or real life stock car or real life race car?. If it's in real life stock car, I see many car in here showing the hint of damper too soft and don't remember seeing car showing the hint of damper too stiff.

Actually suchayo you have maintained for a very long time that soft dampers are more likely to lose contact than stiff dampers, and all things being equal that is simply not the case.

I’ve provided source after source to confirm this and you still insist that it’s not the case, and you use your own opinion as if it were fact to try and back it up.

All these cars you have looked at how do you know if they are under or over damped just by looking at them? Are you a suspension engineer or did you remove the units and run them through a damper dyno?

Given a big enough bump (or series of bumps) and enough speed a car will lose contact with the road, regardless of the damper settings. As a general rule if all other factors are equal a car with softer dampers will be less likely to lose contact than one with stiff dampers (and extreme values at either end of the scale are very problematic).

If this was not the case then surely rally cars would not run softer set-ups for gravel rallies when compared with the much, much firmer set-ups they run for pure tarmac rallies.

I am however simply repeating exactly what I have said for the last year (and it has almost been a year now), I will however run some more tests on LFS and RBR and compare them to GT4.

Ok. What do you mean by unlikely but possible? On what condition?

Unlikely in that for pure spring oscillation alone to cause a loss of contact with the road surface would require either no dampers to be present or very, very weak or faulty dampers. Almost any meaningful level of spring damping will be sufficient, this is all however dependent on the size of the bump and the speed at which it is hit.

I wish you testing more damper value in GT1 at that time and test more car too.

Why am I not surprised to hear you say this?

No matter what tests people carry out they are never enough for you, I think it’s more a case that you are unhappy with the results.

For the record I bought GT (and GT2, GT3, GT4, etc) on the day it was released and have set cars up on the series since then. In the example above I spent hours running the tests over and over again, I’ve also run back to back testing on a range of cars across the series for another thread I started here on the changes across the system.

I test GT1 and GT2 TVR Grifith just now, no wonder you have wrong conclusion, it look almost the same from bumper view. And since I think you use US version of GT2 the bouncing you see is a lot less. Even if it look the same, the behaviour is different. In GT1 jump happen only on bump and no small jump following them. Too bad in GT2 the jump do not show big enough. In my recent playing of Lotus Elise, after the first jump meeting the bump, the car will countinue to do some successive small jump for litle while.

If you try Supra RZ you will see that when using damper value 10, the car jump show as jerky and sudden movement, without trailing jump after. From bumper screen the screnery look zaping around.

This is different from what you see in GT2 (and I bet in GT4 too) where from bumper view you will see scenery look bouncing around like it attached to rubber band.

First a correction, I do not have or use the US version of any GT, I’m in the UK and as such all my copies are PAL.

Now let’s have a look at the above, once again not a single mention of anything but visual information, not a single mention of how it feels or any aural info (did the cars feel and sound smooth over the rumble strips or was it harsh and noisy), yet you reach definitive conclusions.

You ask me to try this over a range of cars, well over the years I have, on the entire series and not a single thing has ever indicated to me that the values should be reversed in any of them.

Yes. But remember that I decide that my dad's car have damper problem aside from feel I use visual too. About feel, what can you feel in the game if not visual? can you really differentiate between damper overly soft and damper overly stiff without looking at screen?

So do you think that the GT series are 100% accurate in terms of visual information then, if that’s the case can you please provide me with a screen shot or video of a car in the GT series displaying camber loss or gain under compression, or severe suspension droop from a car going over a jump.

This is a shot of a car going over a jump in GT4 with minimum spring rates and minimum damper values, Min stabilisers were used and the ride height was set to the maximum, what we should see is the suspension droop and the wheels look as if they gain positive camber (top further out than the bottom) as it happens.



Instead we see the wheels do drop in height, but no true droop occurs. I tried this with every suspension type (including just stock) and every setting range possible, the results all looked the same.

This (taken from Enthusia) is what we should see



Along side these two real world examples

The GT series is not visually accurate enough when it comes to suspension information to use on its own, and as that applies to GT3 and GT4; it’s even truer of the first two in the series.

You run GT and GT2 on a PC emulator using the keyboard as an interface and most of the time letting the PC drive, what kind of detailed and objective testing is that? It removes you as far as involvement goes (and even if you did drive this time around you still have no feel and ignore the sound), you become an observer of flawed visual information.

In regard to your point of can I tell the difference by feel alone, the answer is yes. The feel is totally different, as is the sound. I have always used a combination of all these factors to come to my conclusions, you use a single form of info and then have the gall to dismiss my testing as incomplete.

I don't have decent PC and I don't have wheel. If I can I would love to see how I can duplicate GT4 Lotus Elise jittering behaviour in LFS, I bet it would need stiff spring rate and very soft damper at the rear. Are there any ripple in LFS track?

LFS has both road tracks (with nice high curbs and good rumble strips) and autocross tracks (and they are more than bumpy enough). I will run tests on these and post up videos with details of the settings, I do however fully expect you to try and dismiss these out of hand as you have done with every other test.

How about subaru 360? Can you explain again your comment:
"Dampers 10/10
Definate 'jump' on contact with curbs, with little wallow and/or oscilation on return to the ground.

Damper 1/1
Less 'jump' on contact with curbs, small wallow on return to the ground."

Which is is smaller, small or little?

In this particular example you seem to have got thrown by the terms used so I will re-write it to remove any chance of any mis-understanding.


"Dampers 10/10
Definite 'jump' on contact with curbs, with almost zero wallow and/or oscillation on return to the ground.

Damper 1/1
Less 'jump' on contact with curbs, a small amount (more than with the Damper 10/10 settings) of wallow on return to the ground."

Hopefully that will make things clear.

My previous answer is they do it to cover some bug. Now I think that PD just do it for no reason.

That was not your previous answer at all, you previously tried to claim it was related to the ‘incorrect’ (in your opinion) increases in camber values as suspension type changed. You never mentioned a bug at all.

Now they had no reasons for it? That has to be the single weakest piece of rubbish I have seen you come out with so far. I can imagine the conversation,

Programmer A ; “What shall we do with these damper values as the rest of the suspension values stiffen and get more ‘race’ orientated? Shall I stiffen them as well?

Programmer B: “Nah don’t both with that, far too logical, just set them to what you feel like”.

I seriously doubt it (yet that’s what you are suggesting), would you care to try and explain then why they increase in a nice ordered manner (4, 6, 8)?

Ok. Since you are not programmer I won't argue further. But as info, you can't hack something if you don't know how it works.

Even I know that’s not true, you can change a value and see what effect kit has, you then know what that value relates to, that does not mean you know how it works.

Observing cause and effect is one thing, understanding exactly what the mechanism is behind it is quite another.

That apply to all tire, that is the way I think reasonable enough to use to simulate tire behaviour on different suspension setting. Change to different suspension part will create different tire grip vs slip level graph.

So you are once again saying that a change in overall spring rate (stiff or softer) will change overall levels of grip, care to explain how?

Edit: I got fortunate chance to play PS2 today. And I have Caterham seven fireblade setting for trial mountain ready.

Excellent, I have put a thread together to get drivers for this and it can be found here

https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?p=2512726#post2512726

I hope that it meets with your approval, and that you have followed your normal approach to set-up (and that’s kind of the point here).

For submission of you modifications and set-up details please PM Der Alta who will then distribute them to the drivers, please make sure that full details of every part fitted is included and exactly how to set every value (remember N3 tyres).

Edited to add - Its been suggested that the use of Trial Mountain may throw the results given the technical nature of the track; Midfield has been suggested as an alternative. I have no problem using Midfield as long as you are happy with it. Please let me know ASAP.


Regards

Scaff

 

[sucahyo]

Edited to add - Its been suggested that the use of Trial Mountain may throw the results given the technical nature of the track; Midfield has been suggested as an alternative. I have no problem using Midfield as long as you are happy with it. Please let me know ASAP.

No problem.

 

[sucahyo]

What Elise and 350Z? Why have these suddenly come into a discussion about your dad’s car?

I can only speculate that you are referring to GT cars, in which case I simply can’t answer with the info you have provided. I mean how exactly were these cars set-up?

GT4 Elise and Opera 350Z when equipped with stiff spring rate show behaviour like what I see in my dad's car when following from behind.

Hold on a second here. In every post that you have talked about this you have said ‘me’ or ‘we’ (in relation to your Father), and now you are saying that you did not do this work yourselves. Now that’s quite a big change, for starters how can you then comment on how easy or difficult the job is (as its actually a potentially tricky job, any work with metal under any form of compression is).

Sorry, I say easy because my father changing it very often when still using previous damper. I don't mean that we do it ourself.

Unlikely in that for pure spring oscillation alone to cause a loss of contact with the road surface would require either no dampers to be present or very, very weak or faulty dampers. Almost any meaningful level of spring damping will be sufficient, this is all however dependent on the size of the bump and the speed at which it is hit.

And I keep arguing that what you see in GT4 is a very very weak damper. I see it often on many car, and even new car, where they osccilate more than once after passing road irregularity. And on bumpy corner, those car will suffer loss of contact with the road surface. Car which showing almost no osccilation when passing road irregularity, do not suffer as much. I still don't get it, do unlikely here mean less frequently happen in real life?

Now let’s have a look at the above, once again not a single mention of anything but visual information, not a single mention of how it feels or any aural info (did the cars feel and sound smooth over the rumble strips or was it harsh and noisy), yet you reach definitive conclusions.

If I succesfully apply it in real life, why not?

My dad's car sound quiter passing over road irregularity when using new damper than when using original damper, feel smoother and more comfortable too.

Are you trying to tell me that fitting a stiffer damper can't make the car ride more smoother and quiter? You are wrong.

You only think one way of making the car ride more smoother and quiter. Only the case of fixing overly stiff damper with the just right amount of stiffness. Something (overly stiff) which I think very rarely happen in real life.

You forgetting the fact that fixing an overly soft damper with just the right amount of stiffness can make the car ride more smoother and quiter too. Something (overly soft) which I can see very frequently.

You ask me to try this over a range of cars, well over the years I have, on the entire series and not a single thing has ever indicated to me that the values should be reversed in any of them.

I have two video about Supra RZ in GT1 and GT2. Both using stiffest spring rate, max ride height and 10 damper.

Do you see both has the same behaviour or not:
GT1 Supra, bumper view
GT2 Supra, bumper view

So do you think that the GT series are 100% accurate in terms of visual information then, if that’s the case can you please provide me with a screen shot or video of a car in the GT series displaying camber loss or gain under compression, or severe suspension droop from a car going over a jump.

The GT series is not visually accurate enough when it comes to suspension information to use on its own, and as tha8t applies to GT3 and GT4; it’s even truer of the first two in the series.

I am not saying it is 100% accurate. But I think you use "visual error" as a reason for something you can't explain. Can you describe what the effect of this "visual error" in more detail? preferably about how it make the car behave relating to damper tuning?

In regard to your point of can I tell the difference by feel alone, the answer is yes. The feel is totally different, as is the sound. I have always used a combination of all these factors to come to my conclusions, you use a single form of info and then have the gall to dismiss my testing as incomplete.

If it's only about harsh sound and no rumble feel, I explain it above.

LFS has both road tracks (with nice high curbs and good rumble strips) and autocross tracks (and they are more than bumpy enough). I will run tests on these and post up videos with details of the settings, I do however fully expect you to try and dismiss these out of hand as you have done with every other test.

I'll be interested on how you can mimic Lotus Elise and Subaru 360 behaviour.

In this particular example you seem to have got thrown by the terms used so I will re-write it to remove any chance of any mis-understanding.

"Dampers 10/10
Definite 'jump' on contact with curbs, with almost zero wallow and/or oscillation on return to the ground.

Damper 1/1
Less 'jump' on contact with curbs, a small amount (more than with the Damper 10/10 settings) of wallow on return to the ground."

Hopefully that will make things clear.

Thank you. I just want to confirm that you really feel wallow in GT4 Subaru 360. Something that I feel (see) too.

So, explain why you say this:
"And nor do the cars in GT4 feel 'boeing, boeing' with high damper settings, GT4's damper settings do not allow you to set truly soft values (not as represented by every other sim in the last list I posted. Truly soft dampers would see the car visibly 'wobbling' as it pulled away, cornering is not needed to see it. LFS, RBR, Rfactor all show this quite clearly; GT4 does not on any damper setting."

Explain why the wallow you see in Subaru 360 do not indicate that the damper is too soft.

I see no wallow when I try it in Viper Racing.

BTW, this is the car that you can use to test setting in Viper Racing. The standard car can be used, although the damper setting lower limit is still a bit too high and the spring rate setting upper limit still a bit too low.

To simulate Lotus Elise jiggling behaviour:
Damper Bump: 9/2
Damper Rebound: 24/6
Springs: 100/100
Anti-Roll: 0/0
Height: 9/9

To simulate Subaru 360 wallowing behaviour (soft spring):
Damper Bump: 1/1
Damper Rebound: 4/4
Springs: 6/6
Anti-Roll: 0/0
Height: 9/9

To simulate Subaru 360 violent bouncing behaviour (stiff spring):
Damper Bump: 0/0
Damper Rebound: 1/1
Springs: 100/100
Anti-Roll: 0/0
Height: 9/9



Now to try something you would't see in GT4:
Damper Bump: 18/18
Damper Rebound: 100/100
Springs: 100/100
Anti-Roll: 0/0
Height: 9/9

This may look like jiggling in the Elise, but the difference is, the acceleration suffer on road irregularity, car jiggle is happen when the car passing the road irregularity but with no trailing bounce. when the car dropped at the start, car became steady imeaditely.


My point is, you can't simulate subaru 360 behaviour either with soft spring or stiff spring with Viper racing stiff damper.

When you try LFS or other game, don't forget to test what damper setting that can make car behave like subaru 360.

Even I know that’s not true, you can change a value and see what effect kit has, you then know what that value relates to, that does not mean you know how it works.

When the possible value to change is more than one thousand, you need more than luck, you need clue.

Anyway, another opinion from simulation developer which I think relevant from forum.rscnet.org:

Yes, there seems to be something weird in Viper Racing. Just look how a car acts when you crash! It can stand on it's ass spinning around and around as if it never is gonna come down. Also, in real-life a car can roll like crazy. In Viper Racing a car can hardly roll one turn no matter what settings you use. You have to use setting that makes the car undrivable to make it roll realistic.

The collision detection/response is a totally separate thing from the vehicle model that's responsible for how the car handles (in all my code, anyway). Vehicle models used in engineering for chassis design and performance/handling prediction for real cars often have no collision detection/response code at all in them. So even if the car drives exactly like the real car does, and I mean EXACTLY, you'd drive right through walls and so forth. So don't let what happens when you bang into something effect your opinion of the actual handling dynamics when you're on the road The only "physics being wrong" there is on the collision end of things.

So you are once again saying that a change in overall spring rate (stiff or softer) will change overall levels of grip, care to explain how?

I don't have explanation for this except comparison with other game. In GPL and Viper Racing using stiffer spring rate will result in less overall level of grip in constant radius corner. In GPL or Viper Racing the effect is about the same as making stabilizer stiffer. In GT4 it is reversed.

The experiment I use to test this aside from how it handle in constant radius corner is by making the car sideways. Using N1 tire, when the car sideways perfectly (you hit the wall while the car maintaining the same angle it self), you can make the car correcting it's direction to the opposite direction of sideways (the rear step out) by:
- using stickier tire for the front, N2/N1
- using extreme camber at the rear, maybe 0.0/12.0
- using stiffer front spring rate

 

[Scaff]

GT4 Elise and Opera 350Z when equipped with stiff spring rate show behaviour like what I see in my dad's car when following from behind.

Apart from the fact that you have once again failed to supply a complete set of settings, are you honestly trying to say that you believe that a loss of traction and contact with the road in your dad’s car (which we can see no evidence of) is the same as the forces at work in a Lotus Elise?

You try and claim this (and one part of your ‘proof’ we are unable to actually see), yet dismiss the photographic evidence of the BTCC shots and comparisons.

Sorry but that is rather laughable.

And I keep arguing that what you see in GT4 is a very very weak damper. I see it often on many car, and even new car, where they osccilate more than once after passing road irregularity. And on bumpy corner, those car will suffer loss of contact with the road surface. Car which showing almost no osccilation when passing road irregularity, do not suffer as much. I still don't get it, do unlikely here mean less frequently happen in real life?

As above you are comparing what you see on a road car, on bumpy roads with a car set for a track running in much smoother conditions.

These are not directly comparable, you admit you have not driven on roads as smooth as this (or a track) yet you are talking as if you have direct experience of this and are drawing conclusions from it.

If I succesfully apply it in real life, why not?

I don’t see any evidence of ‘you’ applying this in real life at all.

My dad's car sound quiter passing over road irregularity when using new damper than when using original damper, feel smoother and more comfortable too.

Now you need to be clear on this are we talking about a new damper (as in a replacement for one that was faulty) or a firmer damper (to replace one that was softer). Specific answer please, as it does have a rather large part to play. Even if it was firmer, its still not going to be track firm (in regard to the cars weight) as it would be totally un-driveable on a normal road, let alone a poor quality road.

Are you trying to tell me that fitting a stiffer damper can't make the car ride more smoother and quiter? You are wrong.

You only think one way of making the car ride more smoother and quiter. Only the case of fixing overly stiff damper with the just right amount of stiffness. Something (overly stiff) which I think very rarely happen in real life.

You forgetting the fact that fixing an overly soft damper with just the right amount of stiffness can make the car ride more smoother and quiter too. Something (overly soft) which I can see very frequently.

Great you are at it again!!!!

Once again you are taking my words and trying to present them as if its new to me, what you have outlined above is exactly what I have been saying, you have done this many, many times in the past and quite frankly I’ve had enough of it.

Me from about six posts ago….

I have always maintained that dampers need to be set 'right' and that massive under-damping can cause problems, particularly with cars with a significant weight, large degree of load transfer and is dependent on the spring rates. If sufficiently under-damped and the suspension then bottoms out the problem gets even worse. However the characteristics in terms of both look and feel are very, very different to that of over-damping and the problems that causes, which are not soft bouncing, but harsh and crashy (which can also happen with bottoming out - but that when the bump stops are hit and the suspension goes from very soft to very, very hard in a matter of milliseconds). Overdamping is also far more likely to result in a loss of contact with the track surface if a bump, such as a high curb, is encountered at speed, an underdamped car in the same situation may well lose contact with the road surface, but its less likely, will feel totally different and either the result of prolonged oscillation (unlikely but possible) or the suspension bottoming out, in which case its technically now very stiff, not soft.

and

Almost any meaningful level of spring damping will be sufficient, this is all however dependent on the size of the bump and the speed at which it is hit.

….I mean you even quoted me on it. How can you now turn around and try and ‘tell’ me this as if I was not aware of it and keep a straight face.

I have two video about Supra RZ in GT1 and GT2. Both using stiffest spring rate, max ride height and 10 damper.

Do you see both has the same behaviour or not:
GT1 Supra, bumper view
GT2 Supra, bumper view

Two onboard cam shots that don’t show the car itself, contain differing speeds (and yes I did convert mph and kph) and you take different lines in them.

I have never said that GT & GT2 are exactly the same; I have said that the ranges for dampers work in the same way. Besides, the two videos alone do not give enough information to make a firm decision, what were the exact settings for both for a start?

I am not saying it is 100% accurate. But I think you use "visual error" as a reason for something you can't explain. Can you describe what the effect of this "visual error" in more detail? preferably about how it make the car behave relating to damper tuning?

Did you miss the four pictures I posted or was the significance of them lost on you?

I don’t use ‘visual error’ as an excuse for something I can’t explain at all (and I’d love for you to prove that rather wild accusation), I use it as the reason why I don’t use visual information on its own.

If it's only about harsh sound and no rumble feel, I explain it above.

You explain nothing of the sort above and you still have no answered my questions regarding how you run the cars.

So, explain why you say this:
"And nor do the cars in GT4 feel 'boeing, boeing' with high damper settings, GT4's damper settings do not allow you to set truly soft values (not as represented by every other sim in the last list I posted. Truly soft dampers would see the car visibly 'wobbling' as it pulled away, cornering is not needed to see it. LFS, RBR, Rfactor all show this quite clearly; GT4 does not on any damper setting."

Explain why the wallow you see in Subaru 360 do not indicate that the damper is too soft.

The first quote of mine describes dampers and suspension soft enough to cause wallow just by pulling off (so the rear weight transfer from acceleration alone is enough to cause it). The second (the 360) quite clearly says that a small amount of wallow occurs after a very minor jump.

These are two totally different situations, and not even remotely comparable. Which leads me to one of two observations, either you don’t understand what is being discussed here or you are doing this deliberately. Neither of which is good.

I see no wallow when I try it in Viper Racing.


To simulate Lotus Elise jiggling behaviour:
Damper Bump: 9/2
Damper Rebound: 24/6
Springs: 100/100
Anti-Roll: 0/0
Height: 9/9

To simulate Subaru 360 wallowing behaviour (soft spring):
Damper Bump: 1/1
Damper Rebound: 4/4
Springs: 6/6
Anti-Roll: 0/0
Height: 9/9

To simulate Subaru 360 violent bouncing behaviour (stiff spring):
Damper Bump: 0/0
Damper Rebound: 1/1
Springs: 100/100
Anti-Roll: 0/0
Height: 9/9



Now to try something you would't see in GT4:
Damper Bump: 18/18
Damper Rebound: 100/100
Springs: 100/100
Anti-Roll: 0/0
Height: 9/9

And I see no Anti-roll bar settings at all in these settings at all, and as its totally impossible to disconnect the stabilisers in GT4 its hardly a good comparison at all is it.

When the possible value to change is more than one thousand, you need more than luck, you need clue.

That still does not demonstrate an understanding of exactly how the code is working, just that you are able to find and use the data.

One of the courses I train is report writing in dealership management software. This requires me to be able to locate and use data fields within the software, but it does not mean I understand exactly how the code works, nor how to actually code it. They are two totally different things.

Anyway, another opinion from simulation developer which I think relevant from forum.rscnet.org:

Thanks for the link, I had a very, very good look around the forum in question.

It would seem that you have made a very similar impression over at rscnet as you have here. The members there have also questioned your understanding of the actual real world physics and how they apply to sims. In addition they also say that the use of ‘real world’ values in Viper racing is problematic, which is obviously going to cause a few problems using it as a direct comparison here.

Most concerning however is that you have been warned twice (in my brief look around) for hacking other peoples code and posting it up, a clear violation of copyright and the sites AUP.

The experiment I use to test this aside from how it handle in constant radius corner is by making the car sideways. Using N1 tire, when the car sideways perfectly (you hit the wall while the car maintaining the same angle it self), you can make the car correcting it's direction to the opposite direction of sideways (the rear step out) by:
- using stickier tire for the front, N2/N1
- using extreme camber at the rear, maybe 0.0/12.0
- using stiffer front spring rate

That makes almost no sense at all?


Regards

Scaff

 

[sucahyo]

Apart from the fact that you have once again failed to supply a complete set of settings, are you honestly trying to say that you believe that a loss of traction and contact with the road in your dad’s car (which we can see no evidence of) is the same as the forces at work in a Lotus Elise?

Too bad I don't have video record for that. But I think if you ever see car with faulty damper in real life you should have no problem imagining. Don't forget that I believe that car in GT4 have "faulty" damper too.

You try and claim this (and one part of your ‘proof’ we are unable to actually see), yet dismiss the photographic evidence of the BTCC shots and comparisons.

I will try finding BTCC video.

As above you are comparing what you see on a road car, on bumpy roads with a car set for a track running in much smoother conditions.

No, I am comparing road car with almost faulty damper with road car with healty damper, car that I usually pass or follow everyday. Something like 1991 Lancer vs Peugeot 505, a bouncy low rider Civic vs Isuzu Panther.

Now you need to be clear on this are we talking about a new damper (as in a replacement for one that was faulty) or a firmer damper (to replace one that was softer). Specific answer please, as it does have a rather large part to play. Even if it was firmer, its still not going to be track firm (in regard to the cars weight) as it would be totally un-driveable on a normal road, let alone a poor quality road.

It seem you firmly believe PD equipping all GT4 road car with track stiff damper. Something I think rather unlikely. Do road car with sport suspension can achieve track stiff damper?

….I mean you even quoted me on it. How can you now turn around and try and ‘tell’ me this as if I was not aware of it and keep a straight face.

Since you keep arguing that when we hear harser sound it is always the result of stiffer damper.

I have never said that GT & GT2 are exactly the same; I have said that the ranges for dampers work in the same way. Besides, the two videos alone do not give enough information to make a firm decision, what were the exact settings for both for a start?

Stock Supra RZ with FC suspension, max spring rate, max ride height and damper 10, ok forgot about the stabilizer, no stabilizer or lowest stabilizer.

The subtle difference in GT1 and GT2 bouncing is an important difference for me.
You see sudden movement in GT1 Supra but without trailing jiggle like in
GT2 Supra.

For comparison you can run my Viper Racing car with this setting:
Damper Bump: 100/100
Damper Rebound: 100/100
Springs: 10/10
Anti-Roll: 10/10
Height: 9/9

vs

Damper Bump: 3/3
Damper Rebound: 8/8
Springs: 100/100
Anti-Roll: 10/10
Height: 9/9

If you drive from bumper view, even with soft spring rate the first one will look like GT1 video. The second one look like GT2 video. Both will show car jumping on road irregularity, but the rebouncing behaviour is different.

I will try to create video for it, but I don't know if you can see it clearly on 10 FPS.

Did you miss the four pictures I posted or was the significance of them lost on you?

I don’t use ‘visual error’ as an excuse for something I can’t explain at all (and I’d love for you to prove that rather wild accusation), I use it as the reason why I don’t use visual information on its own.

I don't see the relevancy of those 4 picture with how GT4 damper work. Not implemented and reversed implementation is different thing. You arguing that the fact GT4 do not implement dynamic camber making GT4 errorly show reverted damper behaviour.

Explain what is the effect of "visual error" in visualizing suspension behaviour. Because I believe that what you see as "visual error" is actually proof that damper is reversed.

What I am trying to say is, if what you call as "visual error" make damper 10 look like softer damper in all car, you should just accept that damper is reversed.

And you still arguing that harsher sound and more vibration in wheel caused only by stiffer damper.

When you drive GT4 Subaru 360 using the stiffest spring rate the car will be bouncing around visually. What do you feel in your wheel and hear when this happen? is it not synchronize with the bouncing? Do this violent bouncing visual error? if it is, what it's error?

The first quote of mine describes dampers and suspension soft enough to cause wallow just by pulling off (so the rear weight transfer from acceleration alone is enough to cause it). The second (the 360) quite clearly says that a small amount of wallow occurs after a very minor jump.

These are two totally different situations, and not even remotely comparable. Which leads me to one of two observations, either you don’t understand what is being discussed here or you are doing this deliberately. Neither of which is good.

So you think wallow is perfectly normal when using an overly stiff damper?

I try it in Viper Racing, with
Damper Bump: 100/100
Damper Rebound: 100/100
Springs: 6/6
Anti-Roll: 6/6
Height: 9/9

I try to make the car jiggle around with stiff damper, and I don't see something similar to GT4 Subaru 360 wallow.

I'll be interested to see you attempt to mimic GT4 car behaviour in other game.
- Simulating wallow with stiff damper
- making the car violently bouncing around with stiff damper

And do you not notice how easily we can reduce car jumpiness in GT4 by reducing spring rate? Try it in other game, use stiffest damper, and see if reducing spring rate stiffness can reduce the car jumpiness as much as GT4 do. My test using the above Viper Racing show it only reduce a little, still plenty of jump caused by stiff damper.

What I mean by jump in GT4 is the GT2 video like, Viper racing stiff spring soft damper like jump.

And I see no Anti-roll bar settings at all in these settings at all, and as its totally impossible to disconnect the stabilisers in GT4 its hardly a good comparison at all is it.

Viper Racing has anti-roll bar setting between 0 to 100, what value will satisfy you?

And I think it make no difference. The only difference is the additional left to right movement.

BTW, do LFS allow us to use very soft or very stiff damper setting? very soft until car loose traction or very stiff until car loose traction?

Most concerning however is that you have been warned twice (in my brief look around) for hacking other peoples code and posting it up, a clear violation of copyright and the sites AUP.

I am aware of that, it's a miss understanding, and it count only once since Matt give both objection in the same day about the same thing. My main grief is why Matt choose to make an accusation like that openly without checking first. He and I already doing private mail discussing about how to make Viper Racing tire more realistic. He know that I use the same tire name because I told him. My mistakes is I use the same tire name as his tire without his permission (Michelin...). He accuse me of using the tire data he working hard to tune, something which I don't use. He already acknowledge this now.

That makes almost no sense at all?

My test show me that stiffer spring rate has the same effect as fitting stickier tire when sideways.

 

[Scaff]

Too bad I don't have video record for that. But I think if you ever see car with faulty damper in real life you should have no problem imagining. Don't forget that I believe that car in GT4 have "faulty" damper too.

I have seen (and driven) cars with faulty dampers in the past, but without any record of your fathers car I can even begin to guess that was the problem. To be honest as you have no documented proof of this and did not change the part yourself, it’s an irrelevance.

I am however interested to hear you say that you now believe that PD modelled ‘faulty’ damper for GT4! Now why on earth would they do that?

I will try finding BTCC video.

Here you go







All of the above videos (the top one being one of the most famous BTCC moments ever) quite clearly show that just because a car is running a stiff set-up (and please do not try and claim otherwise – you can’t run ride height that low and not run stiff) does not mean that a car’s movement is totally controlled. They will still buck and move, sometimes it will look a little like bouncing, but it is most certainly not a result of a ‘road’ car set-up or ‘faulty’ dampers.

The second clip was from a race event (at Silverstone) that I actually attended earlier this year and I was in the stands right in front of that incident.

No, I am comparing road car with almost faulty damper with road car with healty damper, car that I usually pass or follow everyday. Something like 1991 Lancer vs Peugeot 505, a bouncy low rider Civic vs Isuzu Panther.

And how exactly do you know for a fact that these cars were running faulty damper?

It seem you firmly believe PD equipping all GT4 road car with track stiff damper. Something I think rather unlikely. Do road car with sport suspension can achieve track stiff damper?

A few questions

• What exactly do you think the Racing Suspension is trying to model?
• Why do you think the options go ‘Sports’, Semi-Racing’ and then ‘FC Suspension’?
• Why do you find it unlikely that PD would allow you to equip racing suspension suitable for a track in a game that involves racing cars on tracks and also includes racing cars (which share the exact same set of suspension tuning options as the FC suspension)?

This is not ‘sports’ suspension at all (that’s a separate option), once you equip the FC Suspension in GT(any of them) you are effectively running a race suspension set-up, the picture even shows that the top mounts and bushings will all be replaced.

Since you keep arguing that when we hear harser sound it is always the result of stiffer damper.

Are you talking about GT here or the real world?

Real World ‘harshness’, both in terms of ride quality and sound are very, very variable qualities. For a start you would have to separate Primary and Secondary ride quality, then look at the car itself and the level of soundproofing that had been used, etc, etc. That’s a far more variable set of circumstances.

GT is obviously far simpler, and from my testing (all other factors being equal) as you increase the damper stiffness the sound and feel gets harsher.

Stock Supra RZ with FC suspension, max spring rate, max ride height and damper 10, ok forgot about the stabilizer, no stabilizer or lowest stabilizer.

The subtle difference in GT1 and GT2 bouncing is an important difference for me.
You see sudden movement in GT1 Supra but without trailing jiggle like in
GT2 Supra.

For comparison you can run my Viper Racing car with this setting:
Damper Bump: 100/100
Damper Rebound: 100/100
Springs: 10/10
Anti-Roll: 10/10
Height: 9/9

vs

Damper Bump: 3/3
Damper Rebound: 8/8
Springs: 100/100
Anti-Roll: 10/10
Height: 9/9

For a start you are assuming here that no difference in the physics engine is present between GT and GT2, and from my own analysis that again is not true at all.

I’m far more interested in the ‘actual’ settings you used in GT and GT2 here, not the Viper racing series settings, that I can actually look at in some meaningful way.

I don't see the relevancy of those 4 picture with how GT4 damper work. Not implemented and reversed implementation is different thing. You arguing that the fact GT4 do not implement dynamic camber making GT4 errorly show reverted damper behaviour.

No I’m not saying that at all, please read my post more carefully, what I am saying (and have always maintained) is that GT4 suspension information can’t be proved or disproved easily from visual information alone. You are trying to imply that I have said it can’t be trusted at all, or that it’s useless. Which I have not said, visual information is useful when looking at the ‘whole’ range of feedback.

Explain what is the effect of "visual error" in visualizing suspension behaviour. Because I believe that what you see as "visual error" is actually proof that damper is reversed.

And how is proof?

Actually don’t answer as I’ve put together a little test to show dampers in action in GT4 that confirms what I have been saying. You will find it over in the GT4 & Dampers Thread, which is the place we should be discussing this.

What I am trying to say is, if what you call as "visual error" make damper 10 look like softer damper in all car, you should just accept that damper is reversed.

I have never said that at all, once again you are trying to put words in my mouth.

And you still arguing that harsher sound and more vibration in wheel caused only by stiffer damper.

No I have not, I’ve said that stiffer dampers increase vibration and produce a harsher sound, not that they are the only cause of this.

That’s now the second time you have tried to make out I have said something that I did not.

So you think wallow is perfectly normal when using an overly stiff damper?

That’s now a third time. I’ve never said that wallow is perfectly normal when a car is overdamped.

I did however go back and have a look at the original post and noticed that you omitted ¾ of the information I gave in those tests, which is rather disturbing as it’s important information in this discussion

Dampers 10/10
Initial turn in is good, however grip fades quickly after turn-in.
Contact with rummble strips is harsh and noisey.
Slow roll under load transfer under braking and acceleration.
Definate 'jump' on contact with curbs, with little wallow and/or oscilation on return to the ground.

Damper 1/1
Intial turn in slightly more reluctant, but with better grip after turn-in.
Contact with rumble strips distinctly softer with less harsh noise.
Faster roll under load transfer under braking and acceleration.
Less 'jump' on contact with curbs, small wallow on return to the ground.

I’ve highlighted in bold the six lines you missed out and would like to know exactly why you missed them out.

BTW, do LFS allow us to use very soft or very stiff damper setting? very soft until car loose traction or very stiff until car loose traction?

Yes.

I am aware of that, it's a miss understanding, and it count only once since Matt give both objection in the same day about the same thing. My main grief is why Matt choose to make an accusation like that openly without checking first. He and I already doing private mail discussing about how to make Viper Racing tire more realistic. He know that I use the same tire name because I told him. My mistakes is I use the same tire name as his tire without his permission (Michelin...). He accuse me of using the tire data he working hard to tune, something which I don't use. He already acknowledge this now

And I only have your word for that, it is however irrelevant as it does not change the other points I made. Members at RSC stated quite clearly that they believed your testing in VR is flawed by the fact you use a keyboard, that you had no idea how to model cars or the forces involved and that VR itself can’t directly use ‘real’ data, rather you have to play around with it to get a realistic feel.

My test show me that stiffer spring rate has the same effect as fitting stickier tire when sideways.

You test makes no sense at all, being confusingly written to say the least.



Regards

Scaff