tranny tuning

[browneyedman]

I"ve had gt5 for a year now and..even though I"m not a great driver like some on here, I do like my vehicles to perform. So I go to the tuning guys for tweeks to my cars. Lately I've been a bit puzzled by why the transmission tuning did'nt make a lot of difference.

I downloaded the new track and low and behold it has timings for all you need to check out your vehicles.

I decided to test out my theory that tranny tunings seem to make very little improvement in performance...(Unilke all other tuning parameters) Which I value dearly.

A quick explanation:
Group A Default no change to gears 1-6
Group B: Gears 1-6 at their lowest
Group C: Gears 1-6 at their highest
Group D: Tuning from GT5 tuners.
DFR: Deep Forest Raceway

Red numbers fastest time. This flat out acceleration.

Doe this mean anything at all?? I don't know...just interesting....

SO....Like I mentioned above, the other tuning is to me at least the key, handling, breaking, acceleration etc.

 

[fightnightchamp]

I to would like to know the answer to this. Recently I've started flipping the transmition and have defiantly noticed increased acceleration. It seems to be most noticeable in 1st -2nd gear, and off the line.

 

[carracerptp]

I think the transmission tunes on some cars can help more than others.
I'm still learning how to tune but I do know that a car with a "real" transmission tune is a good 1 second faster around a track that is heavy on acceleration.
If you look at the drag racers, just running a car with a stock transmission will leave you in the dust.
I have tried "Drag tunes" for my transmissions in road races, it helps for sure.

 

[browneyedman]

I customized cars when I was younger and changing transmissions and rear end made the cars perform like night and day, but here it matters very little. Do I dislike the game because if it? NOT at all...it was an observation.

I used a Bentley Speed 8 tuned to down 650pp and racing hard for all the tests.

 

[Poontanir]

This is an interesting test but with out more info on the car, transmission and testing procedure its hard to call this conclusive. If you look purely at acceleration than the setting that make best use of the power band will win, If you look at lap times having a particular gear be shorter or longer than the rest can help with a tricky corner. Also having the lower gears be long and higher gears be short helps with drive-ability. The default trans settings tend to be very middle of the road; so trans tuning is normally done to optimize the car for a given acceleration range. I see you didn't measure anything like a 40-60 time or a 60-100 time which might reveal more about the benefits of trans tuning. Top speed has more to do with power versus drag, though drive-train drag would be included in this.

 

[shmogt]

It makes a big difference especially for track specific tracks. If you have correct timing for the gears you can shift perfectly. For example if your going down a straight and need to shift up just barely at the end before having to break that's bad tuning for that gear. It's would be better to make that gear a little longer so you can reach the end and downshift to brake for the turn.

Also it's more on the power band and how much torque the car has. If the car has tons of power extend the transmission longer to prevent it from hitting the rev limiter too fast and burning up the tires. Or the opposite occurs the gears have to be tighter to always keep it in the higher rpm range.

 

[browneyedman]

I never made any claims with just this ONE experiment that I could say that "Tranny Tunings" are a waste of time. I posted the times on the spreadsheet for Deep Forest raceway only because when I did the spreadsheet I was on that track. The times not matter what track I raced on are all within a second of each other. I only used times for the one track.

This is NOT a rule, more of an observation. I FULLY agree that tuning transmissions help for certain tracks. It just happens the tracks I like the most have a lot of corners and not a lot of top speed run outs. (La Sarthe, Monza.etc)

I agree with Scmogt, sometimes a longer gear would help. An interesting note that when the gears were set to their lowest the top speed was virtualy the same as a tuned tranny. The only difference was final gear itself.

If the gears were lower the top speed was in 3rd gear. Set normal the final gear was in 6th.

 

[fightnightchamp]

For example if your going down a straight and need to shift up just barely at the end before having to break that's bad tuning for that gear. It's would be better to make that gear a little longer so you can reach the end and downshift to brake for the turn.

If the car has tons of power extend the transmission longer to prevent it from hitting the rev limiter

I have found that not to be an issue at all as long as I adjust the final gear ratio to the proper top speed for that specific track. Here is how my transmition setup goes. I'm sorry for not giving the appropriate garage credit as I've forgot who it was.

1. Reset to default
2. Final drive as high as possible
3. Top speed as low as possible
4. 5th and 6th gear max to the right
5. 1st gear max to the left
6. 2nd and 4th gear balanced out
7. Then I lower the final drive to get the appropriate top speed.

No doubt this gives you an acceleration advantage off the line. And makes all of the shift points for every turn up and down at the right time. With the exception of tracks like HSR, and NUR. When I drive theses tracks I then will change just the 5th and 6th gear.

Now finally my question. I've stated the pros for this above. What would the disadvantages to this technique be. And how would I properly acount for the torque in this equation. I really don't understand how to read the graph chart on the tuning page.

Thank you in advance

 

[Adrenaline]

The test track needs more measuring points. Ones that are relevant to circuit racing. It's great for the drag guys, but for circuits, I'd like to tweak my transmission to optimize my 60-100mph acceleration, or 100-150mph. It'd even be nice to see a breakdown of each gear. Duration, rpm, mph, and so on. 0-anything is useless for me, because that only happens once in a real race, and rushing to turn 1, is the last thing I want to do in an online lounge.

So, it was a nice addition, but I'd like to see more functionality from future updates.

 

[browneyedman]

Today I worked on a dozen or so cars, making them all 650pp.
Took them to the drag strip. One car in particular was first in all categories, yet it struggles in tight tracks like Madrid in Seasonal Event. It is really evident that tuning for some tracks is needed....One of the cars Bentley Speed 8 averaged fourth in all categories, but it wins against the Maclaren F1 easily. Like I said earlier food for thought