Suspension Tuning for beginners by rule of thumb

[KAlex122]

Hi! The guy with no feeling at all here! (says the wife)

I somehow gave up tuning due to me not really grasping the differences while driving.

Could you or could you not affirm that what i do here is better than nothing:

If i get a relatively "normal" FR road car like a Toyota 86 GT

i tend to do this here:

Native frequency doesn't go any higher in the front. Same values on all the numbers for front and back are a bit ocd. LCD i go for numbers like fossil fuel does it in his explanation videos for FR/MR/4WD/FF cars as i have no clue there either. Height is 10mm above minimum. Of course RS tires would go on a more powerful car. This is just to show you.

Of course it's not optimal but would you say it can work at least "mostly"?

Thanks!

 

[Gorefast]

Hi! The guy with no feeling at all here! (says the wife)

I somehow gave up tuning due to me not really grasping the differences while driving.

Could you or could you not affirm that what i do here is better than nothing:

If i get a relatively "normal" FR road car like a Toyota 86 GT
View attachment 1446030

i tend to do this here:

View attachment 1446029
View attachment 1446031View attachment 1446032View attachment 1446033View attachment 1446034View attachment 1446035View attachment 1446036

Native frequency doesn't go any higher in the front. Same values on all the numbers for front and back are a bit ocd. LCD i go for numbers like fossil fuel does it in his explanation videos for FR/MR/4WD/FF cars as i have no clue there either. Height is 10mm above minimum. Of course RS tires would go on a more powerful car. This is just to show you.

Of course it's not optimal but would you say it can work at least "mostly"?

Thanks!

I am not the one who can give you an answer but I don't get it why you would go that way without more power or other changes. More stiffness in the dampers only because of softer tyres?

 

[coryclifford]

Leave it stock, learn to drive the car. It will be more helpful than tuning the car, especially if you don’t know what is going on when you just move numbers around.

 

[KAlex122]

I am not the one who can give you an answer but I don't get it why you would go that way without more power or other changes.

Of course softer tires would go with more power. That's just to show you what i would do tire/suspension wise. Maybe not enough of an example. This here would be clearly a CS car, maybe SH...

More stiffness in the dampers only because of softer tyres?

That's what i read over the years. Of course only a stronger car would get those tires. As written in the first part of the reply this is maybe not enough of an example.

These weak cars are typically CS tires for me. Above 500pp maybe SH, 550pp SM, 600pp SS and so on....

 

[KAlex122]

Leave it stock, learn to drive the car. It will be more helpful than tuning the car, especially if you don’t know what is going on when you just move numbers around.

I do learn to drive cars. I'm not perfect/alien material but i slowly get near the top 1000 in the online TTs and can gold anything in the game.

Stock suspension feels good on some cars like some BMW M3s but not on most of them. Especially if you want to get a slow car to a higher PP category. They tend to be to soft.

 

[CTRL Garage]

Well you don't have to increase a specific part religiously like that because of the tyre's "hardness"/durability/grip.
But there are rough guidelines that you should have a certain range depending on the type of tyre you're using, I usually follow near this type of split:

Now GT7 is heavily influenced by weight transfer which affects things during cornering/accelerating/braking differently depending on the cars drivetrain and weight distribution. Higher rear natural frequency will "push" the weight of the car forwards.

Usually I'll set the suspension in the beginning to something within the range shown above depending on tyre and then use the weight distribution to get Natural Frequency to a similar "ratio. so in your case the estimated ranges(Don't have to be strict on this, you might prefer a feel that is outside of this range) for the above 86 '15 is:

Comfort: 1.20-1.83 Front 1.35-1.98 Rear
Sports: 1.52-2.46 Front 1.67-2.61 Rear
Racing: 2.37-3.10 Front 2.52-3.25 Rear

Now the car's weight distribution at the moment is 56:44 so I'd have the Front Natural frequency higher on the slider than the rear, in this case it could be 2.25 front and 2.30 rear on sports tyres but the ratio is higher at the front if you look at the slider range.

So we now have a base setup on Natural frequency for the type of tyres, we need to go out on track and see how the car behaves and whether the natural frequency is too soft or too stiff.

Soft Natural Frequency:
This is the lower part of the range

• Good: Wheels stay on bumpy roads, giving better grip.
• Bad: Car leans in turns and shifts weight easily, which can make it unstable when turning quickly.

Stiff Natural Frequency:
This is the upper part of the range

• Good: Less leaning in turns makes the car feel more stable and easier to control. Can also make the car sit lower without hitting the ground.
• Bad: Car bounces over bumps, which can make the tires lose grip and the handling feel jumpy and hard to predict.

We then need to raise both front and rear depending on the test drive you do and what you feel in the car.

Then once you've found some balance, we need to look into changing settings front and rear depending on the test drive results.

Car Behaviour	Slow Corners	Fast Corners	Under Braking
Understeer	Decrease Front Natural Frequency	Increase Rear Natural Frequency	Decrease Front Natural Frequency / Increase Rear Natural Frequency*
Oversteer	Decrease Rear Natural Frequency	Increase Front Natural Frequency	Increase Front Natural Frequency

*Some setups may require either one or both adjustments

 

[KAlex122]

Well you don't have to increase a specific part religiously like that because of the tyre's "hardness"/durability/grip.
But there are rough guidelines that you should have a certain range depending on the type of tyre you're using, I usually follow near this type of split:
View attachment 1446041

Now GT7 is heavily influenced by weight transfer which affects things during cornering/accelerating/braking differently depending on the cars drivetrain and weight distribution. Higher rear natural frequency will "push" the weight of the car forwards.

Usually I'll set the suspension in the beginning to something within the range shown above depending on tyre and then use the weight distribution to get Natural Frequency to a similar "ratio. so in your case the estimated ranges(Don't have to be strict on this, you might prefer a feel that is outside of this range) for the above 86 '15 is:

Comfort: 1.20-1.83 Front 1.35-1.98 Rear
Sports: 1.52-2.46 Front 1.67-2.61 Rear
Racing: 2.37-3.10 Front 2.52-3.25 Rear

Now the car's weight distribution at the moment is 56:44 so I'd have the Front Natural frequency higher on the slider than the rear, in this case it could be 2.25 front and 2.30 rear on sports tyres but the ratio is higher at the front if you look at the slider range.

So we now have a base setup on Natural frequency for the type of tyres, we need to go out on track and see how the car behaves and whether the natural frequency is too soft or too stiff.

Soft Natural Frequency:
This is the lower part of the range

• Good: Wheels stay on bumpy roads, giving better grip.
• Bad: Car leans in turns and shifts weight easily, which can make it unstable when turning quickly.

Stiff Natural Frequency:
This is the upper part of the range

• Good: Less leaning in turns makes the car feel more stable and easier to control. Can also make the car sit lower without hitting the ground.
• Bad: Car bounces over bumps, which can make the tires lose grip and the handling feel jumpy and hard to predict.

We then need to raise both front and rear depending on the test drive you do and what you feel in the car.

Then once you've found some balance, we need to look into changing settings front and rear depending on the test drive results.

Car Behaviour	Slow Corners	Fast Corners	Under Braking
Understeer	Decrease Front Natural Frequency	Increase Rear Natural Frequency	Decrease Front Natural Frequency / Increase Rear Natural Frequency*
Oversteer	Decrease Rear Natural Frequency	Increase Front Natural Frequency	Increase Front Natural Frequency

*Some setups may require either one or both adjustments

I very much appreciate your detailed answer. Just to get it out: I will use all your details about setting. On the other side: the "get on track and feel this ant that to tune further..." this is the part i won't use a lot. Because it's not an exaggeration that i don't feel a lot. I used that Toyota on CS tires with natural frequency of 2.00 and then went down to 1.30 front and back. Yeah, i guess there's a difference but i couldn't really tell you. So progressing further through me feeling is the part i accept after a year won't really work.

That's why i think rule of thumb is still better than stock suspension even if that of course costs some pp points.