Weight vs Power for PP limit tunes

[Finchypoo]

I'm really into low PP limit races online and I've been tuning a ton of cars to around 450 and trying them out. I have a few I'm really fond of including the Lancia Stratos.

I have the lancia tuned pretty well at the moment but I want to keep tweaking it. I'm right at 450pp right now without using the power limiter (I hate it for more than shaving one a few PP) and currently I only did the level 1 and 2 weight reduction.

So here's my question, In general, what's faster, adding more HP to get to a PP limit or taking off weight? This could be totally ambiguous and be different from car to car, or perhaps PP is tied to closely to HP/weight that it'll be even, but I thought I'd see if anyone has tested this, especially since I only have one Stratos and weight reduction is irreversible.

Side question, if you add as much weight with ballast, as you took off with weight reduction, does it essentially remove weight reduction ( Assuming you put the weight in the middle of the car ) I know you could reduce the weight, and add it back in the front or back to improve handling, but if you already loved the handling at the higher weight, would this get it back to exactly where it was.

 

[esoxhntr]

to answer question one, it would be track dependant.

a high(er) horsepower, heavier car will win on ssr7.

a low(er) horspower, lighter car will win on autumn ring mini.

generally speaking of course.

 

[chuyler1]

I'll answer question 2 first. Adding weight back on is not an exact science. Placing it in the center can have varied results. However the ability to add weight back on where ever you want allows you to fine tune the handling. Lighten up a rear-biased RUF yellowbird then add the weight to the front and you'll dial out some oversteer. Lighten up a FF car then add weight to the rear and you might dial out some understeer (I haven't tried this since I rarely drive FF cars...but its worth a shot). But adding weight back to any car usually requires some retuning of spring rates and other suspension settings.

Now back to question 1. Since you can't easily undo the weight reduction, it is usually best to start with bolt-ons that can be removed before experimenting with it. If you have exhausted the bolt-on routine, weight reduction can certainly help your times on tight tracks. Overdoing it on some cars can be a problem though. I attempted to tune two '86 MR2, one with full weight reduction and one without. The lighter car actually had more trouble with grip. There simply wasn't enough weight on the tires and despite softening the suspension i couldn't get it to handle as well as the heavier car. On the contrary, my RX-8 responded much better to weight reduction over added power and ended up being faster on straight tracks as well as tight tracks. Go figure.

So my conclusion is basically to buy two of each car and try it out. They will require different suspension settings to feel right, but in the end you may find one is a little quicker than the other.