The Dangers of Over Tuning

[panjandrum]

Ok, I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that many of us are over-tuning the suspensions of our cars. I got in the habit of quickly putting the full racing suspension on nearly every car I bought. While this does produce the best times on most cars (I found a few exceptions), it also found it had three distinct yet inter-related disadvantages which have spurred me to switch many of them back to stock or sports suspensions.

1) The cars all drove in a more similar manner than they should. They lost much of their distinctive flavor. Thus, driving the 54 Mercedes Gull-Wing wasn't all that much different that driving a modern vehicle. Body-roll, for example, was almost eliminated on this car.

2) Because the cars began to drive in a more alike manner, it was actually *more* difficult for me to adjust between vehicles. This seems counter-intuituve at first, but when you think about it longer it begins to make sense. If I've got a monster-powered FR car like the Austin Martin Vanquish, and a monster-powered RR car like the Yellowbird, but I've tuned them to reduce understeer on the Vanquish and to reduce oversteer on the Yellowbird, I've suddenly got two vehicles that drive enough alike that I don't automatically adapt to the differences. Because I don't *feel* the differences in the wheel (DFP) as much as I should, my brain doesn't shift into, for example "Yellowbird mode" when I get into the yellowbird. I hope I'm making that clear. When I started switching my cars back to stock or sports suspensions they immediately felt unique again, and my reflexes quickly adapt to the vehicle.

3) The entire game became more enjoyable because the cars drive so much more uniquely than they do when you've stuck the racing suspension under all of them. Suddenly, driving the Ginetta is much different than driving the Ghia is much different than driving the Elise. I'm finding that I'm enjoying the game much more.

Anyone else driving the cars with stock, or close-to-stock handling?

For those who are putting the racing suspension on everything like I did, I suggest at least giving the stock or sports suspensions a try. The Sports suspension makes a nice handling-upgrade, but without making the cars feel much different than they do stock.

 

[djaft3rb3ats]

hmm, very insightful, ill give it a try when im not battle ingother pepople


djaft3rb3ats

 

[futuredrifter]

to think about it your right i put back stock suspensons and most of my tuned cars and there is a difference in the way i drive each one. Wen im stuck in a problem area in game play i go drifting and since i took the full suspension off i see a difference also.

 

[rk]

I got in the habit of quickly putting the full racing suspension on nearly every car I bought. While this does produce the best times on most cars (I found a few exceptions), it also found it had three distinct yet inter-related disadvantages which have spurred me to switch many of them back to stock or sports suspensions.

Just to give the 15,000c suspension equal airtime with the 7,000c one, I'm going to go ahead and clarify, ok?

1) The cars all drove in a more similar manner than they should. They lost much of their distinctive flavor. This, driving the 54 Mercedes Gull-Wing wasn't all that much different that driving a modern vehicle. Body-roll, for example, was almost eliminated on this car.

Race suspension limits quirky traits which makes cars slower, like body roll.

2) Because the cars began to drive in a more alike manner, it was actually *more* difficult for me to adjust between vehicles. This seems counter-intuituve at first, but when you think about it longer it begins to make sense. If I've got a monster-powered FR car like the Austin Martin Vanquish, and a monster-powered RR car like the Yellowbird, but I've tuned them to reduce understeer on the Vanquish and to reduce oversteer on the Yellowbird, I've suddenly got two vehicles that drive enough alike that I don't automatically adapt to the differences. Because I don't *feel* the differences in the wheel (DFP) as much as I should, my brain doesn't shift into, for example "Yellowbird mode" when I get into the yellowbird. I hope I'm making that clear. When I started switching my cars back to stock or sports suspensions they immediately felt unique again, and my reflexes quickly adapt to the vehicle.

Race suspension makes a car harder to drive for some players, because they don't expect the car to handle as well as it does.

3) The entire game became more enjoyable because the cars drive so much more uniquely than they do when you've stuck the racing suspension under all of them. Suddenly, driving the Ginetta is much different than driving the Ghia is much different than driving the Elise. I'm finding that I'm enjoying the game much more.

Race suspension makes the cars too boring for some drivers.

Anyone else driving the cars with stock, or close-to-stock handling?

Not me, I always tune to race my friends. The sheer joy of kicking his booty with my Alpine while he drives his RUF, far outshines any enjoyment I could have manipulating a two dimensional simulation of a tool through the park in photo mode. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I have real cars that I can do that in.

 

[Mechanicalizzle]

I agree with what you say about how easy it becomes to control the car's once they have been tuned really good (even by just buying that parts and not even customising the settings). Once by accident i tuned a skyline but didnt add the suspension kit. I felt the car looked and handled 'better' and more realistic, you could say....there was body roll going on, and it felt better and it felt asif i was driving a proper car...to a certain extent.

When i added the suspension kit, i found that the above had been lost. So my overall experience dropped, but my lap-time did too!

I'd rather sacrifice realisim and challenges than better lap times. (There are exceptions though)

 

[Canadian Speed]

Further more,

All you have to do to make the car feel "more stock" is loosen (lessen) the spring rates. As racing and org shock sets are more stiff, loosening them can often bring the cars back to where they were when you first started... Just a question though, are you running all of your cars on Sports or less tires? It would be somewhat logical, that if somebody wanted the cars to drive more "realisitcaly" and get more feel out of their rides, that this would be the first thing they'd opt for. If you're using racing tires on your car, no amount of suspention will make the car fee real, due to the amount of traction these tires provide. And, if this is the case, try running sim tires on a racing suspention and se what you get...

 

[doormeister]

Just in the past couple of days, I read something here saying that it may be overkill to put racing suspension on a sports car or race car, and after trying it out, I probably could have saved at least 50 x $10k, if not more. Most of the beginner and manufacturer races could probably be done without suspension mods at all..

 

[djaft3rb3ats]

while it may be fun for u to drive a car with stock susp, it may not be so for the rest of us. the point of gt4 was not to be easy, like in the missions, they are hard as hell. granted that some races are hella easy, the others ones are not. if u go to stock susp, then u save money, but u also risk driving the same car over and over again because u cant win with that susp. and u cant tune it anymore

thats my 2 cents


djaft3rb3ats

 

[panjandrum]

Race suspension makes a car harder to drive for some players, because they don't expect the car to handle as well as it does.

No, that wasn't the point at all, and, you might notice, that I specifically mention that the racing suspension does indeed improve lap-times on the vast majority of vehicles. I found a couple exceptions, the Lotus 111r being the primary example.

 

[rk]

No, that wasn't the point at all, and, you might notice, that I specifically mention that the racing suspension does indeed improve lap-times on the vast majority of vehicles. I found a couple exceptions, the Lotus 111r being the primary example.

But you must admit, it is an exception that only YOU are claiming...

 

[djaft3rb3ats]

o0o0oo GOTCHA!!!


gj rk



djaft3rb3ats

 

[kennythebomb]

Another point is that if you automatically buy the racing suspension, you become dependent on it for control of the car.

 

[djaft3rb3ats]

ur kinda late, i believe that the thread should be closed because its irrelevant now. the tuning debate is now over, please discontinue this debate as rk clearly beat all of u

thanks and have fun



djaft3rb3ats

 

[Nate14Gt]

I don't like tuning every car for that reason. Takes away a bit of the personality. But ofcourse there's 3 settings you can have. You can always have one be stock. And I don't tune unless I really like the car, really hate the car or I'm using it for some sort of competition.

 

[panjandrum]

I don't like tuning every car for that reason. Takes away a bit of the personality. But ofcourse there's 3 settings you can have. You can always have one be stock. And I don't tune unless I really like the car, really hate the car or I'm using it for some sort of competition.

There are a few cars I'll never take the racing suspension off of, like the Opel Speedster Turbo. A relatively cruddy car stock, but with the racing suspension tweaked like crazy it handles great and is pretty fun to drive. I don't think I'll take the racing suspension off the Ruf 3400s either, because if I remember right that thing understeers horribly without the racing suspension.

Part of the issue might be that I've become a much better driver now than I was at first. In many cases I *had* to have the racing suspension to be competitive. A car like the Yellowbird? Forget it! I couldn't manage that thing at all (and I have an RR car in real life, so I'm not totally unfamiliar with rear-weight bias). Just today I took the racing suspension off my Yellowbird (again) and I'm loving it. I've gotten so much better at driving cars with wildly different handling that the differences are now an enjoyable experience, whereas before they were just a hindrance.

If you aren't using the DFP, you probably don't have quite the same experience. You can really feel the "personality" of the car though this thing, which is a lot of fun.

 

[djaft3rb3ats]

yes, i agree, and i have both.


djaft3rb3ats

 

[BS87]

I agree in some aspects. Lets take my BMW's for example. I left my 2002 the way i won it, with a few minor power upgrades, and i love it to death. My 330i, however, felt like a boat stock, and now i love the thing 10x more with the racing suspension.

 

[djaft3rb3ats]

oh, thats good, some settings would be nice...




djaft3rb3ats

 

[niky]

a 330i a boat? I love that car... drift, drift, drift... just cut some weight off the top and it's perfect.

 

[djaft3rb3ats]

i have tried the settings from the drift depot, but its a bit hard for me, that car i just lack a feel for

i like to drift with the odessey, its a great car



djaft3rb3ats