The definitive GT5 transmission tuning guide.

[No_OBsT33R]

No... I work on the road

This method = FAIL

OP can't even use it.

 

[grenadeshark]

This method = FAIL

OP can't even use it.

So me having a job is grounds for my tuning methods not working? Please stop trolling. I'll play your game when I get back in town... I don't understand what the problem is?

 

[drivehard]

I very much appreciate you posting this and this is something I would really like to learn. I know very little about cars other then the fact that I like to race them. So here are some questions referring to your original post that I'm hoping you can help me with.

1. Set the top speed slider 20-25mph higher than your expected top speed. If you don't know your top speed, hit a oval and find it out. If it's 155, set it to 180. Higher power cars need to set this number even higher than expected top speed (30-40 mph). This is mostly to allow for draft and give us a base set of gears that are usable. This is a general rule.

Simple enough. Got it. Does this also apply to a tune for time trials without drafting?


2. Set your final gear ratio for the track you are racing on. Taller ratios (low numbers) promotes higher top end up until a maximum at which you can no longer accelerate faster due to wind resistance(among others). Short ratios (higher numbers) promote higher acceleration and lower top end. Take into account your power curve when making these consideration. A car that has a RPM range of 0-10000 but doesn't make power over 8000 will not do well with excessively short gearing.

Another point to take notice of is that if your car has a flat HP curve from a low RPM, taller gearing will generally promote better acceleration. The reason being is the TQ transmitted to the wheels in a lower gear at a lower RPM will be higher then the TQ transmitted to the wheels at a higher RPM in the same gear. And since you cannot accelerate faster then your HP peak, gearing your car to use the entire RPM range of your flat HP line is extremely beneficial. Wasting RPMs by over shortening a car with a long flat HP curve will be detrimental to acceleration. Math proves this as well later on.

Could you be more specific in setting the final gear. The range between a high and low final gear seems to big for a simple approximation. All I do, from hearing from somebody, is set the top speed so that I hit the end of 6th gear at the end of the straight. Is this the same thing?

3. Tune first gear using the tires you will be racing with. Do a redline launch and move your first gear slider left/right until you get a small bit of a wheel spin, but mostly forward progress. If you cannot get traction by moving the slider all the way left, then you need to start moving your final gear ratio to the left. If the engine bogs down back to 50% RPMs, you went too far. Move the final gear ratio back to the right. Avoid extremes when tuning your 1st gear as too much alteration of the final gear ratio will result in a faster 1st gear, but the rest of your gears will be slower.

Got it. First gear done.

4 .Figure out the optimal shift RPMs for the engine. Ignore the transmission in making these decisions. Look at the HP/TQ curve and figure out when you need to shift (it's a bit of guess work). You can also do this on track very easily by getting on a ring and testing acceleration pulls in each gear.

Look at the pull level in each gear and figure out whether going to the rev limiter produces more or less acceleration in any given gear. An easy test is to get your car up to red line in any given gear under full acceleration. If when you shift at the rev limiter, your car pulls harder than it was in the previous gear, you need to shift earlier. If it continues pulling at the same rate or a bit slower, then continue shifting at the rev limiter. This requires testing and is not an exact science. You can look at your power curve to get an idea of where this will be on your car. If it drops significantly at any point, you can expect to shift very close to that point in general.

So you're saying I want to look for a consistent increase in speed? And I should just mess around with shifting points until I see the smoothest increase? After this you go into your alternate method which is difficult to understand. There are just gaps in your first method that you seem to be covering in your alternate method. I set my top speed. Approximated my final gear. Set first gear. Guess at shifting point and go. I need help understanding this. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[grenadeshark]

I very much appreciate you posting this and this is something I would really like to learn. I know very little about cars other then the fact that I like to race them. So here are some questions referring to your original post that I'm hoping you can help me with.

1. Set the top speed slider 20-25mph higher than your expected top speed. If you don't know your top speed, hit a oval and find it out. If it's 155, set it to 180. Higher power cars need to set this number even higher than expected top speed (30-40 mph). This is mostly to allow for draft and give us a base set of gears that are usable. This is a general rule.

Simple enough. Got it. Does this also apply to a tune for time trials without drafting?


2. Set your final gear ratio for the track you are racing on. Taller ratios (low numbers) promotes higher top end up until a maximum at which you can no longer accelerate faster due to wind resistance(among others). Short ratios (higher numbers) promote higher acceleration and lower top end. Take into account your power curve when making these consideration. A car that has a RPM range of 0-10000 but doesn't make power over 8000 will not do well with excessively short gearing.

Another point to take notice of is that if your car has a flat HP curve from a low RPM, taller gearing will generally promote better acceleration. The reason being is the TQ transmitted to the wheels in a lower gear at a lower RPM will be higher then the TQ transmitted to the wheels at a higher RPM in the same gear. And since you cannot accelerate faster then your HP peak, gearing your car to use the entire RPM range of your flat HP line is extremely beneficial. Wasting RPMs by over shortening a car with a long flat HP curve will be detrimental to acceleration. Math proves this as well later on.

Could you be more specific in setting the final gear. The range between a high and low final gear seems to big for a simple approximation. All I do, from hearing from somebody, is set the top speed so that I hit the end of 6th gear at the end of the straight. Is this the same thing?

3. Tune first gear using the tires you will be racing with. Do a redline launch and move your first gear slider left/right until you get a small bit of a wheel spin, but mostly forward progress. If you cannot get traction by moving the slider all the way left, then you need to start moving your final gear ratio to the left. If the engine bogs down back to 50% RPMs, you went too far. Move the final gear ratio back to the right. Avoid extremes when tuning your 1st gear as too much alteration of the final gear ratio will result in a faster 1st gear, but the rest of your gears will be slower.

Got it. First gear done.

4 .Figure out the optimal shift RPMs for the engine. Ignore the transmission in making these decisions. Look at the HP/TQ curve and figure out when you need to shift (it's a bit of guess work). You can also do this on track very easily by getting on a ring and testing acceleration pulls in each gear.

Look at the pull level in each gear and figure out whether going to the rev limiter produces more or less acceleration in any given gear. An easy test is to get your car up to red line in any given gear under full acceleration. If when you shift at the rev limiter, your car pulls harder than it was in the previous gear, you need to shift earlier. If it continues pulling at the same rate or a bit slower, then continue shifting at the rev limiter. This requires testing and is not an exact science. You can look at your power curve to get an idea of where this will be on your car. If it drops significantly at any point, you can expect to shift very close to that point in general.

So you're saying I want to look for a consistent increase in speed? And I should just mess around with shifting points until I see the smoothest increase? After this you go into your alternate method which is difficult to understand. There are just gaps in your first method that you seem to be covering in your alternate method. I set my top speed. Approximated my final gear. Set first gear. Guess at shifting point and go. I need help understanding this. Any help would be appreciated.

I am heading out for the today. I will be happy to answer this question tomorrow or possibly sunday when I get some time.

 

[No_OBsT33R]

So me having a job is grounds for my tuning methods not working? Please stop trolling. I'll play your game when I get back in town... I don't understand what the problem is?

Put it up, not excuses. Talk is cheap. I don't doubt your technic when you can show it at work. Till then you've made some bold claims with nothing to show.

Don't take it negative, I just want to see it in action, Hell somebody else using it and posting the resulting gears would suffice.

 

[No_OBsT33R]

I am heading out for the today. I will be happy to answer this question tomorrow or possibly sunday when I get some time.

Are you heading out? Thought you were already out (that's why you couldn't post a previous tune) now your heading out? Confusing.....

 

[drivehard]

Much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[TT3AZ]

Okay, so clearly you won't prove your claim. This is not about proving your faster then a next on the track, this is about wether your method yields faster better gear ratios then the auto tune, or another less complicated method. It's about proving your method is even applicable to the game.

If I take car A will it be faster with your gears or will auto tune's (Top Speed Tuner) or somebody else's gears be better.

I don't need to meet you at the track, that tells me nothing. I need to drive a car with your gear set up and feel it outperform any other.

If you think your method provides set ups that are so wonderful put them up or really, more unfounded claims about your method. Your just blowing your own horn for no reason.

This is about tuning gears, not driver skill.

First of all, if you know what you are doing, and use these excell calculators, the individual gear tuning will be better than auto tune. Then, he doesnt have to post his tune, he has told us much information allready. The point of this thread isnt which setup is "faster", it is to educate people like us to make our own tune and test them out. If you want the best tune, you got to spend atleast 30+ hours of tuning, then you gotta spend like weeks trying to find good competitors. Tuning isnt a one time offer, it is lifelong, because there are so many parameters that affects how fast you will be down the road.

Even if you have the "best" tune, you will be screwed 1000 times all over, you know why? Well if you dont understand what the tune does, and how it affects the car, you will encounter big problems the day you are getting smoked.

Seriously, to much garbage in this thread, dont write questions allready answered, and dont ask for tunes. We are folowing the discussion of grenadeshark concept, which i personly think works in the game. All other people coming and telling false information, and missleading us in this discusion, please leave.

I have posted information, thats shows "his" method works in game, read my post and look for yourself. I have even posted my setup, and all information about my car, so you can see. The questionable thing, is in which extent this real life things work, and that is also what we are discussing about.

 

[TT3AZ]

Put it up, not excuses. Talk is cheap. I don't doubt your technic when you can show it at work. Till then you've made some bold claims with nothing to show.

Don't take it negative, I just want to see it in action, Hell somebody else using it and posting the resulting gears would suffice.

Argg, you are getting to cocky man, posting "gears"? If you have read the entire thread, you would have seen that i have posted my gear ratios, and also analysed them according to this concept. And yes, for my particular car, this concept helped, you know why? Because i got more output torque to my wheels = faster acceleration. The differance wasnt that big in my case, hardly noticable, but still, it made a differance. Specially in drag racing, just a small change can be the differance between winning or losing.

 

[No_OBsT33R]

My goodness. It takes about 5 min to get a general gear set up, that doesn't involve all this head cracking. Takes 5 min at the track and as long as it takes to input the track results into my gear calculator and presto. It's just some basic calcs I put in excel.

All you need do after that is adjust the TS to the longest straight with the FD. Only if you need to you can then adjust individual gears to the track, like if you need to stretch second to complete a corner better.

It would help to provide a simple easy quick method, with proven results.

I'm waiting on somebody to put up some gears using these methods before I post the simple calculation I use based on track performance, that ANYBODY playing GT can easily use wether you play with no gear understanding at all or your a gear expert. My method smashes auto tune outdoing it completely.

 

[No_OBsT33R]

Argg, you are getting to cocky man, posting "gears"? If you have read the entire thread, you would have seen that i have posted my gear ratios, and also analysed them according to this concept. And yes, for my particular car, this concept helped, you know why? Because i got more output torque to my wheels = faster acceleration. The differance wasnt that big in my case, hardly noticable, but still, it made a differance. Specially in drag racing, just a small change can be the differance between winning or losing.

Could I see those "gear" please, Car and specs?

I see some questionable things in his method (like why stretch all the gears to account for drafting, when it's only your last gear that need be adjusted for the draft [how important is the draft in a drag race?]. How important is first gear grip outside of a drag race, when in most cases you never go into first driving around the track, etc) some other stuff, what get's me the most is how on earth to read the dyno graph beyond peak figures.

I see a lot of good info, but having to geusstimate the TQ & to guess the hp drop point etc, makes it pretty far from definitive.

Not to mention too complex for the average Joe. The people who understand most often have methods of their own. The people who could benefit from it are left scratching their heads.

I also have a excel calc I made that estimates the tq & hp from the peak readings, i can usually get the power band no matter how flat the tq is pretty spot on, but it's next to impossible to see the drop point and downward slope with certainty, making gauging shift points based on TQ next to impossible (you can see the optimum pre peak points, not the post). I find track results (that are easily distinguishable) work best in the game, that is what we are talking about right...

 

[TT3AZ]

Could I see those "gear" please, Car and specs?

I see some questionable things in his method (like why stretch all the gears to account for drafting, when it's only your last gear that need be adjusted for the draft [how important is the draft in a drag race?]. How important is first gear grip outside of a drag race, when in most cases you never go into first driving around the track, etc) some other stuff, what get's me the most is how on earth to read the dyno graph beyond peak figures.

I see a lot of good info, but having to geusstimate the TQ & to guess the hp drop point etc, makes it pretty far from definitive.

Not to mention too complex for the average Joe. The people who understand most often have methods of their own. The people who could benefit from it are left scratching their heads.

I also have a excel calc I made that estimates the tq & hp from the peak readings, i can usually get the power band no matter how flat the tq is pretty spot on, but it's next to impossible to see the drop point and downward slope with certainty, making gauging shift points based on TQ next to impossible (you can see the optimum pre peak points, not the post). I find track results (that are easily distinguishable) work best in the game, that is what we are talking about right...

I have posted everything you need in previos posts on this thread, feel free to look.

The things i have discussed is based, and will be used in drag racing, therfore its extra crucial to ger everything right. The guesstimates, if done nicely can tell you pretty much about how to set your gears. Depending on which rpm you land on efter changing gears, and which rpm you are on in last gear, you can see how much output torque you are getting to your wheels. This is very important depending on your tq/hp curve on your car. Lets say that you have made a detailed dynagraph like i have done for my supra (but havent posted), from that graph you can see which is the ideal rpm to be on in last gear when exit the tunnel on ssr7. In my case, the hp drops after 6900 rpm, so a good rpm to be on is less than 7100 or something like that. There are so much information to tell from making a detailed dyno graph that can help you. Our method, which is torque*gear ratio*final gear can tell you how much output torque you are getting to your wheels. This is very important, because depending on how you set your gear ratio and final drive, you will have more or less output torque to your wheels.

Maybe this things arent that important for the casual racer, but if you are into drag tuning, and want to make your car even faster, you need to do calculations, because these things, you cant know without using the needed information. There are, and will not be any drag tuning generator, because there are to many parameters that has to be calculated. A program that will generate the best settings are far more advanced than excell can handle.

For example, how can a program calculate the best gear ratio for a good balance between output torque and hp? I would say it is very hard, to high rpm on last gear maybe is good for fast and high top speed on some cars, while lower rpm is better for top speed and fast acceleration (since every car has different hp/tq curve). It all depends if you want to be near the peak torque area in last gear = you achieve relative high speed pretty fast, or if you want to be near the peak hp area = higher top speed in general.

A good example is the Camaro z28, with peak torque at relative low rpm. By making the last gear pretty long = less output torque to the wheels, you still hit higher top speed than be having a short gear. Why? Well, making your last gear to short will make you land on to "high"
rpm after shifting, and when you are beyond peak tq and hp, it is pretty hard to catch top speed.

Well, you could posibly make 5th gear shorter so you land on a lower rpm on 6th gear while shifting, but that in return will affect all of your other gears aswell. Then you must also tweak your gearing so there are no lag in speed while shifting gears, some times you gotta either make your specific gear longer or shorter to not lag in speed. If you arent accelerating smooth, you loose time in dragracing.

You see, there are many complex things you gotta think about, and i hardly believe a program can generate the ultimate settings. it about trial and error, and by calculating stuff.

 

[No_OBsT33R]

You would be surprised what you can do with math if you have the right info.

I'll give you an example

From simply imputing the peak tq and hp and their respective rpm, I can use excel to generate a estimated power graph. I'll do one then post a pic. However The in game dyno itself is not very accurate, and cars seam to pull way past the drop point, making the power graph to choose shift points based on it very inaccurate.

I have a formula to tune the gearing based off the cars performance on the track. It's geared to balance short gearing with long gearing. After it's just a matter of tweaking it to the specific track if you wish to do so.

I'll give an example of the gear tuner and Powerband generator in action.

The power band is based on the peak tq & hp. I've covered the details behind the gear calculations for the moment.

This is on a bone stock Ruf Yellowbird powerband.

Sorry, the gear set is also for the Yellowbird Bone Stock with a tunable tranny.

 

[drivehard]

So if added a fully customizable transmission to the yellow bird with racing softs on Nurburgring...What's the optimal gearing your system produces?

 

[No_OBsT33R]

Sorry, the gear set is for a Stock Yellowbird.

I love the launch of this thing.

 

[No_OBsT33R]

So if added a fully customizable transmission to the yellow bird with racing softs on Nurburgring...What's the optimal gearing your system produces?

Stock Bird aside from Racing Softs and Tunable Tranny.

1st 2.765
2nd 1.800
3rd 1.265
4th 0.955
5th 0.766
6th 0.631
FD 3.727
Auto TS 205 ( need to move to get gear parameters)

If your going to run the bird stock with no suspension tuning, at least add 149kg ballast to -50 that will make her much easier to manage around the 'Ring, but don't add any ballast if you want to recreate that famous vid with Mr Sideways.

 

[drivehard]

Thanks for posting. Will try this out. Am willing to compare against Grenades method if wanted.

 

[No_OBsT33R]

Thanks for posting. Will try this out. Am willing to compare against Grenades method if wanted.

No prob.

Sure compare em.

Gears won't replace a complete suspension etc set up. The YBird is a fundamentally flawed car, that hurts it as far as lap times but gives it personality and makes her fun to drive, bit of a paradox. Ballast helps but she just don't feel the same without her back end kicking out.

If you really want to test the method we should use it on a car your very familiar with so you can better gauge the improvements & or differencess.

 

[drivehard]

I know the Yellowbird well enough. Budious has a tune with ballast added that tames it a bit.

 

[No_OBsT33R]

I know the Yellowbird well enough. Budious has a tune with ballast added that tames it a bit.

Perfect. Makes for better data.

Are you running her with stock power? The gear set posted is at Stock hp. I can adjust it for whatever parts you install for power if you want.

Here are the stock gear set and powerband graph.

Personally I find my calculations more accurate then the displayed graph in the game. It makes no sense at times. You often calculate the tq from peak hp and the displayed results differ, the same when calculating hp from tq peak. Just looking at the slope it seams off. Plus where the in game graph shows hp & tq off the map completely (theoretically making didily squat) the car still pulls more as it would in my calculations (using in game, on track testing for engine limits to make the calculator) as apposed to the in game graph. Combined with the peak numbers and rpm.

Unfortunately the simplified powerband generators I make are engine specific to a certain degree, the one you see is good for all the Ruf 3.2 - 3.6 Turbos, a different one is used for Turbo Hondas. I'm working on a way to unify them into one, I think I can do it, then I'll generate a shift point calculator to go with it.

I've unified it and I'm now testing on different engine types, I'll update to see if it's good on V8's to Turbo 4's.

 

[TT3AZ]

So how can you generate a tq/hp graph from the info about the cars?

 

[No_OBsT33R]

So how can you generate a tq/hp graph from the info about the cars?

Look at the graph, I'm not revealing all my math just yet.

It's not too hard with the right math. However trying to make it universal to all engines hasn't worked out, it's dependent on the gap between the 2 peaks, when the gap is larger or smaller (as is with different engines types) it need be adapted.

 

[TT3AZ]

Look at the graph, I'm not revealing all my math just yet.

It's not too hard with the right math. However trying to make it universal to all engines hasn't worked out, it's dependent on the gap between the 2 peaks, when the gap is larger or smaller (as is with different engines types) it need be adapted.

Yes that was what i meant, you have to treat each car individually = time consuming.

 

[No_OBsT33R]

Yes that was what i meant, you have to treat each car individually = time consuming.

Naw, it's only really time consuming the first time, then it's pretty much a formula that's adjusted. I'm working on a shift calculator to work with it.

 

[TT3AZ]

Naw, it's only really time consuming the first time, then it's pretty much a formula that's adjusted. I'm working on a shift calculator to work with it.

Yes, and that is the formula im talking about as well.

 

[No_OBsT33R]

It just seams like your making it out to be more difficult then it is.

I've been able to do it, and will release when ready, I've got a whole lot more then just a powerband generator in the works. The gear tuner is working great.

 

[TT3AZ]

It just seams like your making it out to be more difficult then it is.

I've been able to do it, and will release when ready, I've got a whole lot more then just a powerband generator in the works. The gear tuner is working great.

No, im not making it more difficult, im discussing all things that affect which speed you are going to hit at the exit of the tunnels, and how to achieve that speed in tha fastest time.

 

[esoxhntr]

you can find dyno sheets for many popular engines online. or using desktop dyno apps. they line up fairly well with whats in gt5. the torque curve i used in my examples way back in this thread are of a stock Chev 350 that i obtained from a desktop dyno app.

unlike the real world, adding mods to engines in gt5 (with the exception of the three turbos) does NOT change the shape of the curve. meaning the gear ratios you set up for a stock motor will be the same as the ratios for a modified car.

 

[TT3AZ]

you can find dyno sheets for many popular engines online. or using desktop dyno apps. they line up fairly well with whats in gt5. the torque curve i used in my examples way back in this thread are of a stock Chev 350 that i obtained from a desktop dyno app.

unlike the real world, adding mods to engines in gt5 (with the exception of the three turbos) does NOT change the shape of the curve. meaning the gear ratios you set up for a stock motor will be the same as the ratios for a modified car.

Well, the question is if the real life dyno graphs "work" in gt5? The important thing isnt to have accurate numbers, it is to see which rpm gives a certain ammount of tq/hp. Then another question is how accurate the dyno graph is in gt5, some people say its flawed.

 

[esoxhntr]

yes. real world dyno sheets plot rpm vs torque.

i suspect the graphs in gt5 are accurate however there is no scale (you have to separate the hp and torque curves) and obviously no detailed rpm vs torque numbers other than peak. hopefully PD addresses this as that would take transmission tuning to the next level in the game.