Tuning with regard to tire wear

[DA6righthand]

Recently I've been racing in extended races and I need some hints as to how I can tune to make tires last longer. Cars I'm working with are the super gt NSXs. Those cars eat tires. Thanks for the help!

 

[chuyler1]

It has been discussed in many other threads. 85% of tire wear is going to be driving style. Ease into the brakes and ease into the throttle. Don't push the car into the red by over turning the wheel.

When it comes to tuning for that last 15%, usually lower camber settings do better. Tune the car for balance with lower camber and your average lap times will improve despite having a lower best lap.

Toe also plays a role in tire wear. 0 front toe and only as much rear toe as what you need for stability. In the NSX, I doubt you'll get away with 0 rear toe. Usually +15-20 is necessary to keep it in check depending on the tire choice.

The NSX is fast in a straight line but lacks cornering grip. When battling others, don't try to run their corner speeds. Instead, take your time through the corners and wait until you are close enough to draft pass your opponents.

 

[OK8]

I'm currently trying to work a setup for the ARTA NSX and just realised I've a lot of rear camber and my rear tyres are always gone before the front tyres reach even half durability, so gotta adjust that, thanks! 👍

On a side note I was wondering what sort of brake balance are you using? I'm not very experienced with running ABS so I've no idea what the brake balance should be. I read somewhere that 10/10 gives you a shorter braking distance, but what do you think?

 

[chuyler1]

My ARTA has something like 6/3. I like to trail brake so if the rear end kicks out with my foot very lightly on the brake pedal I drop the rear bias until it goes away. 10/10 will enable the ABS immediately...which will probably chew through tires quicker than a lower setting where the ABS only kicks in if you overshoot a corner. Again, its more about driving style than tuning...but brakes at 10/10 won't help.

...i will note, I haven't driven the ARTA since before the 2.02 update...so I'm sure my tune needs some tweaking.

 

[Johnnypenso]

My ARTA has something like 6/3. I like to trail brake so if the rear end kicks out with my foot very lightly on the brake pedal I drop the rear bias until it goes away. 10/10 will enable the ABS immediately...which will probably chew through tires quicker than a lower setting where the ABS only kicks in if you overshoot a corner. Again, its more about driving style than tuning...but brakes at 10/10 won't help.

...i will note, I haven't driven the ARTA since before the 2.02 update...so I'm sure my tune needs some tweaking.

I am also of the opinion that the driver is responsible for the majority of tire wear regardless of the tune. A recent example, I run in the Spec Alfa Zagato Cup so everyone has the same tune and the only thing we can adjust is the brake balance and of course our own driving. I had to review a replay of our Tuesday night 10 lapper at GP/F and took a look at the tire wear just for laughs. I had maybe 15% tire wear (SS tires) and some of the fellas had 25% or more. One had at least 1/3 or 33% tire wear. I watched him for a few corners late in the race and noticed he was cranking the front wheels way further than he had to and his overall driving was more erratic. It was his driving style possibly combined with his brake balance, that created the huge tire wear. I had my brake balance at 3/1 for that race and generally I'm between 3/1 and 6/5 on most cars. I did well in the FGT time trial with a 1/0 brake balance.

Smooth inputs both in steering and throttle are the keys to good tire wear. The NSX GT500's in particular like to light up the back end as well when there is significant tire wear and become even more tricky to control. Balancing tire wear is also key, as generally you want the front to wear out slightly faster than the rear if possible. Deep into a tire wear cycle you want the front end to wash out as oppposed to the back end kicking out, at least I do anyway. You can do this with the tune and with the brake balance. If you find the back wearing slightly faster, go to a brake balance that is higher front and lower rear. Or add more camber to the front to get the benefit of the enhanced cornering grip but wear the tires slightly faster.

 

[OK8]

My ARTA has something like 6/3. I like to trail brake so if the rear end kicks out with my foot very lightly on the brake pedal I drop the rear bias until it goes away. 10/10 will enable the ABS immediately...which will probably chew through tires quicker than a lower setting where the ABS only kicks in if you overshoot a corner. Again, its more about driving style than tuning...but brakes at 10/10 won't help.

...i will note, I haven't driven the ARTA since before the 2.02 update...so I'm sure my tune needs some tweaking.

Yeah I've certainly found that the rear kicks out almost immediately. That's why i've had to go really smoothy from the gas to the brake, always left foot braking and having some throttle on while braking.. maybe that's not the best solution .

I thought I got best braking performance at the end of a straight with 10/10 but as you said I guess the benefit is gone with tyre wear. I'll try 6/3 and work around there tomorrow. 👍

 

[Poontanir]

Toe and Camber are the biggest tuning factors to tire wear. Zero toe front and rear is all I run. Camber is tricky; you have to get the camber set so that the tire is presented squarely to the tarmac as often as possible (the unseen camber/roll rate helps). If your camber is wrong your tires will come up to temp fast and wear one edge fast, if your camber is set correctly your tire will take time coming up to temp and wear evenly. After all that you have to do is not lock them up or light them up.

 

[DA6righthand]

Thanks for the responses everybody. I too believe the driver has a lot to do with tire wear. Where the huge difference is, in my opinion, is what the driver is driving with. DS3 controllers devour tires and steering wheels do not. It's near impossible to get good tire wear with a ds3 because you just can't match the smoothness of a steering wheel.

I posted in this forum because I didn't know if there were things that could be done to help take it easy on tires. Sorry for asking about something that's already been covered. I actually read through the stickies to see if anything addressed tire wear and nothing did. Maybe I missed something (besides the search function).

 

[Johnnypenso]

Toe and Camber are the biggest tuning factors to tire wear. Zero toe front and rear is all I run. Camber is tricky; you have to get the camber set so that the tire is presented squarely to the tarmac as often as possible (the unseen camber/roll rate helps). If your camber is wrong your tires will come up to temp fast and wear one edge fast, if your camber is set correctly your tire will take time coming up to temp and wear evenly. After all that you have to do is not lock them up or light them up.

This is true in real life, but is it something you've tested in GT5?

 

[SolidSnake7735]

aside fom the obvious (toe/camber) the differential settings also affect tire wear. this also depends on driving style but with a higher acceleration sensitivity the tires hold onto the road with less pressure on the gas than with less acceleration sensitivity. higher braking sensitivity also has the same effect but take into account what your initial torque is and if it it's too high you will understeer plenty both braking and accelerating.

i suggest you practice in your lounge (online, so there wont be any discrepancy from offline tuning when racing online) and find the right balance for your car.

On the Super GT NSX's i run my LSD at 13-45-20
That lets me ease in and coast through many turns with minimal throttle inputs without losing speed and i can floor it exiting corners without spinning my tires or the whole car itself
my brake balance is 5/7 so the car basically dives smoothly into the turns and keeps the rear tires in check and lets the front tires work more so the wear is somewhat more even after extended use. Even after 4+ laps this setup keeps the car running smoothly without erratic and unexpected behavior such as under or oversteering

as everyone's mentioned above, you're driving style/technique are the biggest factors in managing tire wear

 

[Poontanir]

This is true in real life, but is it something you've tested in GT5?

I wouldn't call it definitive testing but after spending a lot of time learning about the math behind car setup, and applying it to GT5 I found huge gains. I was using racing hard tires, before getting my camber set right half a lap and I had optimum temp; after getting my camber set right it took two laps of warm up to get optimum temp. So while GT5 doesn't do a good job of letting you know whats wrong, when you get it right everything falls into place.