Starting to do your own setups?

[darock]

I've read a bunch of setup guides. Most of them don't actually give a "do this before that" list. And a ton of them tell you to change only one thing at a time.

If you're a complete beginner, and follow that advice, the present game that is your favorite will be into it's 3rd release before you start getting results. So.................

If you are a newbie, let me hit you with some advice that goes against the previous. But first..............

With RACE'07 you often have two setups you can start with. There is the one you get if you do absolutely noting at all but jump in the car and drive. It's the default setup. Then there are usually two SimBin setups available, the "wet" setup and the other one. At least those two have something worth starting with that considers the capability of the car. Some might even have the gearing halfway right. So even if you don't plan to do much tuning, at least select the dry Simbin and set it as the favorite.

And then start out easy and sensible with your changes by................

The first thing you need to do is get the tires' footprints "straight across" the tread and the camber right. Yeah, that's two "first things". But they can be combined without any problems. And doing each by itself is a monumental waste of time. Matter of fact, you really should do THREE things all at once at first. Setting the gearing can be done in the first tests without messing up the setting of the other two, which won't mess up setting the gearing and...... jeez..... let's just do a test run, this typing crap is getting out of hand.

Do a run of 3-4 consecutive laps. You want the last lap to be one where you don't spin or go off track. And after crossing the s/f line on that last one, reach up and hit Esc while flat out. (You can't do that in RealLife, but would if you could.) I like to hit the Esc just as I'm starting to brake into the 1st turn.

Just as I'm about to reach the brake point for the 1st turn and am reaching for the Esc, I look at the tach and the speedometer. It's info that helps tune 6th gear. You want the rpms to be about to bounce the engine off the rev-limiter and you also want to know how fast that gearing pushed the car. Truth is, you actually want to know those two numbers at the end of the longest straight, but the majority of tracks have the s/f on the longest straight. So deal with each track accordingly for that info.

So now you're going into the garage with some idea if 6th is pegging out early or not winding out tight enough. This trip into the garage, we're going to tweak 6th and the cambers and the pressures. I do the gearing right away since the results are in my head.

Now you can either make the setup "independent" or "symmetrical". If you choose symmetrical, you need to make a decision. Is the track a right hander or a left hander. Look at the fronts and pick which one, left or right, is the hottest. That tells you if the track predominantly turns clockwise or counter clockwise. In either case, you're going to work with the hotter front anyway.

Look to see if the inner-outer temp range is 10F or 5-6C. If it's not, adjust the camber a click or two the way you think will bring about the 10F/6C difference.

Now look at the middle temp. If it's not exactly between the inner and outer then give the tire pressure a click or two the way you think will change the middle temp. It's pretty simple. If the middle is too cold, the center of the tire footprint isn't pressing against the track enough, and the tire needs more air. etc......

Now do the back tires the same way.

OK, you've changed the gearing, the cambers and the pressures all in one shot. Go back on the track and run 4-5 laps and see if any of the wheels fall off. They didn't? Then do the drill over again. You'll see if you went the right way on the camber and your pressure changes did what was needed and if 6th is working for you. And it'll just take a couple of tests when you get used to this technique.

Then it gets to be even more fun.

[darock]

BTW, setting up your gearbox is a bit more complicated than described above. But it's not hard to do, just hard to explain.

Setting 6th correctly has been explained correctly. But you also need to do a couple of other things in that box.

You want a steady progression of gears from 1st to 6th. And if you just change 6th, the engine will probably see either a too-low drop in revs going from 5th to 6th, or little drop and suddenly you're out of straightaway.

So when you adjust 6th, you often adjust 5th a click in the same direction. Often you swap all the gears top to bottom. And when you got the engine revs dropping about the same bottom to top, you're done right?

No

Some cars have huge horsepower for their weight. They're real devils to get off the line without smoking the tires and having the grid run all over you (or leave you in the dust and your own tire smoke).

So next thing you do after you've got a decent stance and tire pressures is setup 1st gear for a combination. Standing starts are important and it's also good to be able to use 1st out on the track. You want 1st to be good for both standing starts AND useful out of the hairpins and tight corners.

So you tune 6th for the longest straights, you do something like that for 1st only for the slowest corners and standing starts. For the 252bhp Radicals, for example, 1st can be softened quite a bit. The SimBin box has 1st set at 11.330 or somesuch. I think my setup has 1st at 10.000. I don't get smoked at the line and I have 6 gears to use on track.

OK, you'll want to adjust both 1st and 6th for specific things. What you want to do as you're messing with either of those two, is to shuffle the inner ones to keep a uniform progression from 1st to 6th.

Ever heard of "close ratio" gear boxes? You've just made one.

[Josh1]

You do good work darock. Thanks for posting this kind of info.

[guybo]

Setting up the basics here is a great start that anyone can do. I read a lot of setup guides that suck and have nothing but bad info- this one is sensible and everyone should start here.

GG darock

Reducing wing will only provide for very marginal gains, so don't reach for that setting right away. What little you gain in the straights you give away in the corners. This is great at Monza which is all straights but at tighter tracks you will lose more than gain.

As an addendum to what darock said above- if you are unsure of what gear ratios to use, go for the smaller one for the extra nut you need out of corners where your acceleration is most needed. Exit Speed is King.

[Smokeylizard]

http://www.nogripracing.com/details.php?filenr=2291

To be honest that one is pretty "stand on it's own" effective and i've had great luck with it, but thank you for what you've done here it will surely help too ! :)

[darock]

OK, now a report on how this setup technique works in real life. OK...... how it works in real sim life.

I've not driven the FBMWs much at all. Last night I got into an online race at Imola in FBMWs. Of course I had no setup for the car anywhere, and certainly not at that track. So I took the SimBin one and dinked with it in the time I had in practice. And of course, the practice session was voted short, so I was just getting the camber and tire pressures worked out and 6th gear set when Qualifying started. Got them in the ballpark and had the 1st gear changes started when they voted to Advance To Next Session. Jeez, some of the children in Multiplayer are a Mpita.

I ate the field alive on the start. I'd bet the farm none of those kids had adjusted the low gearing in their setups. During the race the brakes were a nightmare. The car shuddered and it was hard to keep from locking them up. Imola has a couple of really tough turns to get right but the brakes made them really difficult. I decided then that I'd take some time today and figure out the brakes on that sucker.

So just awhile ago, I started working on a setup at Monza. Why Monza instead of Imola? I wanted to adjust the car, not the car for Imola. And didn't want the Imola encounter to muddy the waters.

So.....................

[darock]

First thing I did was load the SimBin dry setup. And then started running laps. After 5 of them I was hitting my marks and had set a 2:04.9 time that I figured was clean enough it'd serve as a marker. I knew right away that I really couldn't use 1st gear on the track but 6th seemed just a bit too long.

So I had 5 consecutive laps of heat in the tires and some idea of what changes I wanted to do to the gearbox. Hit Esc at the end of the 5th lap and went into the garage. I had to adjust the cambers a bit and the tyre pressures too. I changed 1st up quite a bit and shortened 6th a click. And then sorted the gears in between to get slightly decreasing gaps.

Went back out and ran the 2nd lap clean and in 2:03.456. And noticed that 6th gear was actually holding back the top speed. But I kept going until I'd done 3 more laps to have decent heat in the tires. Hit Esc at the same point as before and went to the garage.

6th got clicked back to it's original setting and the cambers and pressures needed a click or two here and there. Went back out and promptly ran the first 3 or 4 laps through the gravel and grass and would have gone through the walls if they'd let me. So I took a break. Told myself once again that the object of testing is to fix the car not break it and that it's not to set records but to set the car so it can set records LATER.

When I sat back down, I was running in the high 2:02s. Moved the 1st gear up a bit and twiddled the odd pressure or such and ran a 2:02.424 somewhere in about the 4th turn of testing.

I have no idea what that time would do against the average competition online, but it was comfortable to drive and a decent improvement over what I did with the SimBin right off the bat. Just to check out what my practice contributed to the lap times, I did go back and run some laps with the SimBin dry. I could run high 2:03s after I got used to having less car under me. So I figure just the camber/pressure/gear changes all done at once gave me a setup that's a little more than a second quicker.

Now I can concentrate on learning to drive that car at that track. That's where chunks get bitten off the lap times.

Time now to see if I can get a bit better turnin out of that sucker.

[Sludgey]

I find your setup discussions/lectures/tutorials (?) very interesting darock, but I find (in general) that it's best for me to get things like differential and brake bias sorted out first before tweaking the things like camber, gearing, wing, pressures, suspension etc

I find that diff/brake bias set wrong totally destroys my "confidence in the car"... and anything else is irrelevent until those get set properly because I just cannot do consistent laps otherwise.

I start by getting the braking stable, then get the power on/off oversteer to my tastes, and only then start optimising the other setup options. It's all iterative of course :)

regards,
Sludgey

[darock]

I find your setup discussions/lectures/tutorials (?) very interesting darock, but I find (in general) that it's best for me to get things like differential and brake bias sorted out first before tweaking the things like camber, gearing, wing, pressures, suspension etc

I find that diff/brake bias set wrong totally destroys my "confidence in the car"... and anything else is irrelevent until those get set properly because I just cannot do consistent laps otherwise.

I start by getting the braking stable, then get the power on/off oversteer to my tastes, and only then start optimising the other setup options. It's all iterative of course :)

regards,
Sludgey

Then why don't you start a setup thread and lay out your formulas.

[guybo]

I find your setup discussions/lectures/tutorials (?) very interesting darock, but I find (in general) that it's best for me to get things like differential and brake bias sorted out first before tweaking the things like camber, ........
regards,
Sludgey



Your braking will change as your camber/castor/toe changes. To go right away for brake settings will leave you only with bad brake settings. Setting up the brakes should be one of the last things you tweak.

[Sludgey]

Yes, it's an iterative process...I said that :up:

[darock]

Camber and tyre pressures usually aren't very iterative. And have an affect on braking in the real world quite a bit.

[Sludgey]

Perhaps you misunderstand what i'm trying to say.

I find that the default/Simbin setups aren't usually those that suit my driving style to be able to drive consistent laps. If I'm not able to drive consistent laps then it's difficult to assess change to setups.... getting tyre temps correct etc, doesn't really help at this stage because the fundamental car stability is missing (for me and my driving style).

In most cases I find that (starting from Simbin setups), reducing the coast diff and moving brake balance to the rear brings immediate major improvements to feel/handling/consistency/laptimes and I find that those changes far outweigh anything to do with tyre pressures/camber etc...I then use that as a starting point for tweaking/optimising the rest of the setup. Subsequent changes to everything else may well result in me adjusting the diff/brake balance again for sure - it's an iterative process...

[guybo]

gotcha, I understand where you are coming from

[darock]

Yeah, we all probably did. The point isn't about you, btw. The idea of this kind of thread is about the beginners.

When I commented that you ought to start your own thread, I meant it. You got a positive plan to offer the newbies, they'll benefit from that a lot more than your negative opinion of the plan I offered. It's ok to hear you don't understand what my thread is, and that you don't do things that way, but how about instead of spinning off help threads like this, starting your own. The newbies get a clearer view of the individual schemes that way.

It's about them.

regards.........

[fizman]

ok, so bearing in mind everything above, i still have nightmares...
i guess the most significant problem is that once the car is stable, i really should work on getting consistent laps in before adjusting again.
trouble is, i find myself sometimes over 5 secs slower than the laptimes posted under the hotlaps, i panic, i change things, and all of a sudden im lost.
i cant tell if the changes were rubbish, or i've simply come off the boil.

so:

roughly how long would u spend tweaking a car?
is it something u do in a few minutes, and then focus on driving the thing for a while?
or do u tweak for weeks before trying to use a setup in a race?

and:

how much slower than the fastest posted lap would be acceptable for online racing?
is 5-6 secs behind too much? or is it realistic for a racelap?

[darock]

Jeez, Fiz, I just finished the 6th post (this being #1) below to answer your questions. I figured they were such good questions, they'd deserve some background and decent explanation etc........ hehehehe........ so read on..........


Basically, your lap time comes from your practice in the car at the track. So do not expect setup changes to suddenly drop a bunch of time into your lap. And do not expect the guru provided setups to be magic. Yes, they did turn those amazing lap times with the setup they're so happily sharing with you (it's standard fare at a lot of the showcase sites), it it wasn't because of some magic change in their setup.

So knowing that, I do what I've described at the top of this thread. And then do a few standard things that work for me to find out the fast way around that track. I start running short races with the AI.

Almost all of us are "5-6 seconds behind" the hotlap times when we're so new to a track that we're having to sort out a setup for it. And where does that time difference come from? Simple.

Figuring that the cars are the same and assuming we have the same motor in our car that the hotlap guys had in their car, when we stomp the gas in that car it's going to accelerate just as fast for us as for them. And it takes no skill at all to stomp the gas. So the difference comes from the speed they bring the car through the turns. And since the tires on the car are hopefully the same they used, any major difference in speed through the turns is going to come from judging the speed INTO and through the turn. And that comes from the driver's judging, not from the car. So.................

[darock]

The thing that needs to be found to give the first major chop to our lap times is the speed into the turn. And how to do that?

Well, running with the AI is a real good way to find out how fast the turns can be taken. They do it as if they were letting a computer drive their cars.

[darock]

And then how do we consistently control the car to wind up with that speed every time we sail through that turn?

We don't have g-forces to feel, and don't have peripheral cues that actually are peripherally located, so something else has to work for us.

Braking into the turns is what can be used to great effect to do just that. And where and how can we discover a good starting point? By running in a pack of AI.

So next time you take the green flag in a standing start with the AI, and they instantly do their half-ass start (where they show absolutely no human-like reaction to the start and punch out off the line AND THEN seem to forget how to mash the gas)....... next time you have that chance to blow past half the field, DON'T DO IT. Just pass a couple.

Run some races with them and stay in a pack and you'll get a good look at where usable brake points are at every turn. Take note of them all in your mind because they are the clue to running the fastest and most CONSISTENT times through the turns.

If you compress all the moves you have to do for anything into the shortest distance and time, you wind up having to do them right every time, AND you wind up at the end of them at the perfect speed for continuing through that turn.

So now you've worked your lap down so that the alien's have no advantage on the exit of the turns. They can't mash the gas any better than you can. And you've sorted out a way to go through the turns about as fast as the car can go for you and any other human. And you've got good braking points that setup those just mentioned two.

And you ought to be in the ballpark to run online.

As for doing hotlap lap times............. ok, now it's time to talk about the setup tuning.

[darock]

roughly how long would u spend tweaking a car?
is it something u do in a few minutes, and then focus on driving the thing for a while?
or do u tweak for weeks before trying to use a setup in a race

What I said about starting your setup takes almost no time. Get the camber about right, the tyre treads so they're not puffed out like balloons or caved in at the center, and the gearing pushing the car as strongly as it can from 1st to 6th wherever those 6 gears are used on the track. That takes almost no time.

Now, focus on driving with the AI awhile. Working out the brake points for all the turns will give you a feel for how the car is handling. This takes whatever time it takes you to settle down at that track. You want to reach the point where you suddenly realize you're adjusting your driving at each and every turn to see if something different works better INSTEAD of trying to figure out how to keep out of the gravel.

At that instant, you've learned enough about the track that you actually will have a sound basis to decide if you think the car is understeering too much or not. Or oversteering. Or whatever.

Now is when running that track online is really ok.
And you actually have been using that simply tuned setup in races with AI.

[darock]

After you gain experience doing setups for a certain car, you'll probably have a few things about it that will almost always have to be done. Some of the support class cars really have default setups with settings that don't suit. You think FWD cars and Radicals both brake best with 60/40 bias for example. If you do, you need to read up on trail braking and it's benefits.

But that's after you've gained some experience. Experience with that type of car at more than one type of track. Cadwell Park is nothing like Monza for example.

[darock]

how much slower than the fastest posted lap would be acceptable for online racing?
is 5-6 secs behind too much? or is it realistic for a racelap?

There are two answers to that question.

For open servers online, what does it matter? You are going to find when running online that not too many people can turn those hotlap times. There are a couple of reasons for that, but you'll find that out. What you really want for a yardstick for your decision to get into any race online is whether or not you can run the track like described above. If you are NOT to the point where you lap without trying to figure out how to make the turns, don't bother going online to that track. If you are lapping a track with a reasonable expectation of staying out of the gravel, by all means jump into any and every online race at the place.

There is no better way to find just how far it's possible to take your brake point into a turn than racing against other humans. There will always be one or two who can outbrake you. AND THEN you come home knowing that it's possible to adjust the brakes in your setup better than you've got 'em.

[guybo]

I start out running laps with an almost stock setup. I have to change the steering lock because I use 540 degrees on my wheel. Then I put in qualifying amount of fuel (after 5 laps your tires are no good to quali.) That's it.

I run a few laps just to get the layout- I run those laps using nose cam view to see the track surface and find the grip. These are slow laps looking at the curbs (are they usable?) finding reference points and looking for bumpy parts of the track. I do this until I have spent that tank of fuel.

Then I go back to the pits, switch to cockpit view and start to see how the track looks at-speed. My braking points, turn-in points, apex and track-out points all start to come into focus. I try to find trackside objects to use for reference for each point if I can. Finding these and getting a feel for the track grip takes another tank of fuel.

Then I go back to the pits and start to change my setup. I change the camber and tire pressures for optimum temps across the tread. I adjust the gear ratios so that I am just tickling the redline (when the gear number is red, not when the dial goes red) at the end of the longest straight. Unless a setting is obviously all out of whack, I keep the rest as-is and put up laps.

Lots of laps. Usually the first day willend with me putting up maybe 30-40 laps and only doing as outlined above. This is called "working up a track" and to get good at a new track, you must be good at working up a track. At the end of day 1, I should have a decent time (usually about 5 seconds or so off the leaderboard times) and I can run that time consistently within a second or so.

[guybo]

If you are new to a game, or new to racing in general, do not worry about more setups than this. It is easy to get caught up looking at the car for more speed, but 99% of speed comes from technique, so look at yourself for speed, not the car at first.

-Look within for speed, not at the car.

If you can run consistently kinda fast even if you qualify like crap, you can do well. The key is to not go off, do not wear out your tires early and be consistent. A lot of racers will hit the track and put up an awesome quali time. They will race and put up some awesome laps at the beginning. Then they will get passed by a slower racer later in the race because they are pushing on tires they have used up going so damn fast, while the slower guy conserved his tires (though he may not realize it) because he was going slow.

-Consistency is more important than speed

Racing is about being the guy with the fastest total race time, not the fastest laps.

[fizman]

u guys rock :)
thanks a million, even though it will take me a few months to digest all that properly no doubt...
just out of interest, how many tracks would u say u know WELL?

[fizman]

p.s. rename the thread to "How to Drive"

[darock]

u guys rock :)
thanks a million, even though it will take me a few months to digest all that properly no doubt...
just out of interest, how many tracks would u say u know WELL?

none yet

[guybo]

I have to work up every track I race on in Race 07. I am familiar with Brand's Hatch and the tracks we have done so far- some more than others. I just did Anderstorp last night and I did Oschersleben 2 weeks ago- I know them pretty well. We did Magny Cours not too long ago, but I never really felt like I got to know that track well. Monza too I know sort of, but not great. Valencia I have done races on a few times and I love that track.

But there is no track I can say 100% that I know it and don't have to work it up before I race on it.

[darock]

p.s. rename the thread to "How to Drive"

You know, it would be a good idea to start a thread or two about driving.

Say, "Tips on Driving FWD" or somesuch.

[JakeB]

ok, so bearing in mind everything above, i still have nightmares...
i guess the most significant problem is that once the car is stable, i really should work on getting consistent laps in before adjusting again.
trouble is, i find myself sometimes over 5 secs slower than the laptimes posted under the hotlaps, i panic, i change things, and all of a sudden im lost.
i cant tell if the changes were rubbish, or i've simply come off the boil.

so:

roughly how long would u spend tweaking a car?
is it something u do in a few minutes, and then focus on driving the thing for a while?
or do u tweak for weeks before trying to use a setup in a race?

and:

how much slower than the fastest posted lap would be acceptable for online racing?
is 5-6 secs behind too much? or is it realistic for a racelap?

First of all a "thank you" to darock for putting up so much work in order to help us all, getting back nothing else other than our appreciation. Fizman I read your message and i think that many drivers, mostly new ones, have those questionmarks, and i also had the same when i started playing online. None had clearly answered me and i would like to say what i figured out on my own. I used to play sims against the computer and from one point and on, i was confident with my laps. When i started playing online, i saw that although i thought my setup and my driving resulted to a fast lap, i was still slow compared to other online racers, by seconds. I thought ok, there are gamers who are faster, but how can they be that faster? In order to keep up with the front runners i tried a lot. I was mostly focused on the setup initially, my times could improve sometimes, but i couldn't find one to make me so fast. I had heard practice could make you faster. Well, i thought that this could be true in some degree, but i used to believe that if you are fast, you are, so practice plays a role only in consistency and to get used to the car and the circuit. So i didn't practice to enhance my driving skills, but only to see how fast the setup was (which i later found out that differs from person to person, a good setup for one, can make another faster but also slower. So there is not such thing as ideal setup just by its own, but there is ideal setup for a driving style). As i was trying it more often, i found out that i was becoming constantly faster. And using the same setup in online races of many laps i surprisingly noticed that i had reached a point at which i was whole seconds faster than i was before, when i just had got used to the car and the circuit, even though i was using the same setup. I was much faster than when i could only put reasonable laps. How did that happen? Practice made my steering more direct, my braking more marginal and my throttle manipulation more neurotic but at the same time controllable through the corners. Instinctively i positioned the car better in turns. And practice also gave me the awareness of how much speed every corner can take. Beautiful racing lines give you a driving pleasure but they are not necessarily the fastest, since most speed comes from your feet. Setup will give you some time, but driving will give you more. Once you have become fast through practice, an ideal setup will give you a bit more speed, stability (=consistent laps) and confidence. Also correctly adjusted wings and gearing are the first you have to look for, since they are a given speed. Practice and the positive outcome will come sooner or later. Usually later :) Give it a shot Fiz.

[fizman]

wow!
u guys actually LOVE racing.
i cant belief you'd go through so much effort, let alone believe it would actually be so useful :)
prior to race 07, we only raced on PS2's, linked with GT4 (and all iterations dating back to the original GT), coz lag really pissed us off.
as u may or may not know, linked GT4 doesnt allow any tuning, just use of stock setups.
im not lying when i say that the thought of having to work out tunings that you guys have distilled over years, pretty much submarined our morale for a while.
this one thread has made a BIG difference.
thanks :)

[darock]

Actually the focus of this thread is to give an idea of a few simple setup changes that people who're not familiar with car setup can easily do.

Adjusting just the camber and tire pressures gives really good results. And are pretty much the basis of any further setup changes.

(and I wanted to bump this thread too ;) )

[Femto]

For the french competitor (sorry for the others!), a very useful guide exist (it was edited for GTR 2, but it also work with race 07)
http://technolan.free.fr/divers/GUIDE_GTR2_V1.1.pdf

[darock]

The guides are a natural progression to follow after you get the tire pressures up and the camber sorted.

I've found that the majority of my lap time improvements come from having the temps balanced across the tires (pressure settings do that) and the right camber. Next most important has been to adjust the gears (all of them) to suit the track.

And of course, you can do all that together as you learn each track. Adjusting one while adjusting the other two details doesn't cause problems.

Once you've got those big three roughed out, the things you pickup out of a setup guide are usually done just one at a time. And that takes time. And doesn't really work well unless the tires are working well.

[fizman]

err..
on a couple of occasions.. on quite a few actually, ive sat down to try and tune my car, and checked the tire pressures after 3, maybe 4 laps, with minimal offs, and a decent last lap, only to find that my middle temps are 10C higher than either outer or inner.
assuming i had WAY too much air in the tires, i lowered them and set out to try a few more laps.
after 3-4 laps, come in and check again.
same readings.
exactly same, sometimes, even worse, with a higher gradient across the centre, still peaking in the middle.
so i go to minimum tire pressure allowed, and still the same.
camber seems to make random differences, if any.
what am i doing wrong????

or is this a bug?

[darock]

That happens in the TIMEATTACK. The idea is to remove the necessity to run an outlap on cold tires. Unfortunately, it makes the readings worthless. Pressure and camber changes don't do diddly.

And since tire temps also are a major player in working spring rates, doing setup in TA is pretty much worthless.

It's also a bad deal that some people who're trying to figure out the method of reading setup changes get such a confusing message. It seems it would have been more sensible for the code to have checked to see if TA was the mode and then publish a bunch of zero's. But wth, the small percentage of users who access forums eventually get the word to ignore the TA numbers.

They call that kind of stuff, design considerations, not bugs. ;)

[fizman]

hmmm.
i rarely test in TA, i usually go for practice, having figured that a rolling start may give dodgy readings...
i did notice some mention of a bug that gave wrong pressure/temp readings, whilst i was checking the new patch details...
will investigate over next few days..

[darock]

hmmm.
i rarely test in TA, i usually go for practice, having figured that a rolling start may give dodgy readings...
i did notice some mention of a bug that gave wrong pressure/temp readings, whilst i was checking the new patch details...
will investigate over next few days..

The temp readings that are worth looking at come after some number of consecutive laps. So rolling start of cold start, RL teams don't stick their tire temp gauges into rubber until it's been around and around and around enough that the reading means something.

It's actually not a bug about the readings. It's what application development bigwigs call a "design decision". They chose to not bother with whatever the temps read. They just didn't tell anybody about it until someone complained.

If you were thinking about trying to find a key to the TA temp readings, I wish you luck. I decided one day that TA setup development would save time (all those worthless warmup out laps, you know) and tried to compare 5 consecutive lap's temps to some number of consecutive laps temps from a testing session. I didn't find any consistent difference. But wouldn't be surprised if somebody else did. Let us know.

[fizman]

nah, TA readings are total rubbish.
checked again, and even though its handy for getting a quick idea how a car handles, the actual readings are total gibberish and can change randomly with any given setup.
and it does appear that i was testing in TA afterall.
damn.
on the other hand, that does mean i've been racing with dodgy cambers and pressures.
so i *should* go faster once i adjust all my saved settings..

[darock]

Yup, I don't know anyone who has found the TA readings to be anything but noise.

[darock]

If you haven't read the first page of this thread, it's where the majority of the information is.

Basically, it tells you how easy and worthwhile it is to set the tire pressure and camber in just a couple of test runs. And how you can do all that together, you don't have to do 5 laps and make just one setting change, do 5 more, etc etc. You can work temps and camber all together. But read the first couple of posts, you'll see.

[JakeB]

Tire pressures is a key point indeed, however, i think while ideal ones give you speed in qual, they might also take speed away during the race. I don't know if they keep the same throughout the race... don't they alter? Obviously you play between some groupings of values. Either you set 167 or 170 for example, you might experience both during the race.

[darock]

Tire pressures is a key point indeed, however, i think while ideal ones give you speed in qual, they might also take speed away during the race.

Testing answers lots of speculations. Experience does too.

There could be a perfect pressure for qualifying. Testing would show that for sure. And there certainly is a best pressure for racing. That actually depends on the race length.

What you want to do is get the pressure set according to something, and just leaving it alone from what Simbin left over from the last version of the game doesn't insure anything.



I don't know if they keep the same throughout the race... don't they alter? Obviously you play between some groupings of values. Either you set 167 or 170 for example, you might experience both during the race.

No they don't keep the same throughout a race. They start off at the cold temps and build for a number of laps, then stabilize. The outside edges of each tire heat up first because the start pressure isn't enough to balloon the center of the tire out flat to the track. And as the outsides send heat into the tire, the pressure builds up and pushes the center onto the track. And then it starts to heat up and adds more pressure. (One value of MoTeC is that you can watch all three temps of all 4 tires as they change.)

It's quite simple to deal with pressure. You decide what the task is and test for pressure settings for that task. If you only plan to run 3 laps at a time while qualifying, set the pressure to be good for your 2nd and 3rd laps. You really want the entire tire footprint to grip for those laps, so set the pressure so it will. And then don't expect that pressure setting to work on a long race.

I've found that the FWD WTCC cars I favor take about 4 laps to stabilize temps and pressure good enough for any race length I run into in the open servers. And also found out that the start pressure for that is also good enough for a qualifying, any qualifying I happen to need in an open server, where you often are balked trying to do short runs.

So I don't sweat the details. I do what the first 3-4 pages of this thread describe to get the pressure/camber settings that're very probably 95% perfect. And I use online race weekends to perfect the settings. After the 1st race of a 2-race online session, I go to the garage setup screens and fine tune any tire I find that doesn't look good. And after the next race of that set, I go check to see how that worked. If I change anything, I simply save that setup to keep the changes.

Work the setup as described at the first of this thread, and you got a lots better grip for your first online runs, or offline if you don't do online. And the races from then on work great for adjustments to those pressures/cambers.

Next race at that track, I got very good settings for however long a race I'm about to run PLUS I've found that the settings are good to go for qualifying. They not only are good enough, but actually pretty good. AND I get a feel on the qualifying outlap for what the car's going to feel like the first lap of the race.

And those camber/pressure settings beat the hell out of the "one size suits all Simbin 'setup' settings"

[JakeB]

I see. This post answers many questions of mine. Especially the qual detail about adjusting pressure for a later lap to take advantage of the max tire performance is something i hadn't thought of. And i expected to have the same qual time at lap 1 as in lap 2 or 3 if i did my best... lol. I often run 5 straight laps qualifying and there were times when laps 3 or 4 were better than the previous by much, or the last one, and if i felt i had done my best i thought... how much time can 2 or 3 laps less fuel give you? What did i do wrong, or what did i do better? Tire performance is more significant than i had thought in this game. Same in race when in lap 3-4 usually we get our best times.

[3000gtvr4]

Great info darock, I'm relatively new to sim racing (in this decade), but In regards to learning the track, I've noticed that in Race07 there is a very distinct "line" where the traffic has been running. If I follow that line, it helps me to learn a new track much quicker. It's more fun to drive on the pavement than on the grass :)

[RBalfour679]

Every time I try do make a setup it always seems to slow me down!!

I have used every single tip and help I can use but looks like ill leave the setups to the pros!

[darock]

Great info darock, I'm relatively new to sim racing (in this decade), but In regards to learning the track, I've noticed that in Race07 there is a very distinct "line" where the traffic has been running. If I follow that line, it helps me to learn a new track much quicker. It's more fun to drive on the pavement than on the grass :)


I watch quite a few hotlaps in my job as hotlap marshal. So I can study other's styles. It's fairly obvious that the fastest way around most corners is that dark line.

It's often referred to as the consensus line. The dictonary says that a consensus is "a general agreement". So all that rubber tells us where almost all the drivers would be going.

In some games, and some older tracks that've been converted to RACE07, those lines aren't very accurate. But the RACE07 tracks, at least the ones that came with the game, all seem to have very good consensus lines.

They are good to use learning a track.

BTW, there also seems to have been an effort made to have the optimum brake point for threshold braking be simulated by the rubber line showing up suddenly and dark. Darned if that isn't true to life. And useful.

[darock]

200-205-210 // 195-190-185
180-185-190 // 175-170-165

This would be a good set of tire temps for a FWD car.

You work the camber of each tire so that the inside temp is about 10F hotter than the outside. And you adjust the pressure so the middle temp is halfway between the inside temp and the outside temp.

You might see this at a track that was clockwise.

[JakeB]

:) Many, many Thanks!

[darock]

Basically you can't do too much to increase or decrease the temperature range. What you get, is what you get.

But you can use camber and tire pressure to work the range of temps across each tire.

And you get the best "rubber to the road" when they have whatever camber/pressure gives them that temp pattern.

[Roberto Sagessi]

darock, I've been having some success finally using your advice running a SEAT, offline Pro 2007 chmpshp. In my "DOG" thread I ask if you one can ever get the inside temp to be close to the outside temp. You've answered that for me here, and actually I've gotten closer than 10 degrees +/- so I think I'll work on inside temp now, which if I understand all this, is achieved by pressure. It looks like you suggest an even increase out to in across the tire. Is this correct? One more question, the GTR2 guide says if the inside temp is greater than 5 degrees from outside then: "decrease negative camber" in that case -3.5 IS decreased from say -4.0...correct?...just want to make sure I'm getting this decrease right and that there isn't a trick negative/positive direction. Thanks for trying to help us all.

[JakeB]

About the rear wheel cars such as BMW 320.

What is a high performance tire pressure and camber setting? I would appreciate it if someone could give me some advice on that (I am not using imperials but metrics).

I use more negative rear camber than front since i have found this works better for me, but still struggling to find the ideal settings.

[RBalfour679]

Can someone tell me do you + or - rebounds, Toe-ins and springs to get them to go faster over bumpy ground in a BMW E90??

[JakeB]

Bumps and Rebounds: By "trial and error" i have noticed that the higher they go, the softer the car gets. WTCC cars' bumps and rebounds numbers are much lower than the F3000's ones so it is fairly easy to adjust them for optimum performance. Just try to put a difference of about 3 to 5 clicks between bumps and rebounds. It works better for most.

Springs: The higher they go, the stiffer the car gets. If you set higher spring in rear than front, the easier the car turns, but you have to deal with some oversteer some times. If you do the opposite, the car is slower in entry of the corner, but you can be earlier on the throttle for faster exit. It is all about your driving style which setting to prefer.

Toe-Ins: Those are for fast corners mainly as far as i know. Higher front toe-in than rear will make the car more agressive in the corners, a bit oversteering. Equal front and back numbers will make the car more neutral. Front -2.0 and Rear 2.0 is the standard for a reasonable handling, but according to the track this can change for even better one. Personally, i usually use higher front than rear toe-in in F3000, and higher rear than front in WTCC cars. But try to keep them arround those numbers.

It would be nice if also someone else could share his knowledge about this matter, so we can all get a better view, and learn something more.

[RBalfour679]

Thnx Jake this is really helpful!

[darock]

darock, I've been having some success finally using your advice running a SEAT, offline Pro 2007 chmpshp. In my "DOG" thread I ask if you one can ever get the inside temp to be close to the outside temp. You've answered that for me here, and actually I've gotten closer than 10 degrees +/- so I think I'll work on inside temp now, which if I understand all this, is achieved by pressure. It looks like you suggest an even increase out to in across the tire. Is this correct?

When you say you can get the temperatures closer than 10degrees..........

You want the inside temperature of each and every tire to be as close to 10 degrees hotter than the outside as possible. That insures the camber is best for that tire. You don't want less than 10 degrees difference or more than 10 degrees, you want 10 degrees.


One more question, the GTR2 guide says if the inside temp is greater than 5 degrees from outside then: "decrease negative camber" in that case -3.5 IS decreased from say -4.0...correct?...just want to make sure I'm getting this decrease right and that there isn't a trick negative/positive direction. Thanks for trying to help us all.

You are correct. Decreasing -4degrees negative camber would give -3.5 negative camber. And decreasing the camber on a tire that had too hot an inside temperature would reduce that inside temperature as the middle and outside temperatures were increased.

BTW, all these temperatures mentioned would be Farenheit.

[darock]

About the rear wheel cars such as BMW 320.

What is a high performance tire pressure and camber setting? I would appreciate it if someone could give me some advice on that (I am not using imperials but metrics).

I use more negative rear camber than front since i have found this works better for me, but still struggling to find the ideal settings.

Rear wheel car tires on RWD cars are done the same way as front wheel tires on FWD cars. Matter of fact, all tires on all cars are done the same. Work out the appropriate temp spread from inside to outside with camber, and the middle temp with pressure.

You want the best rubber to road contact patch possible, whether the tire is one the front or back of a FWD car or the front or back of a RWD car.

There are no specific settings that work for all the tracks. You adjust for each track. The shock absorber settings and the spring rates need to be set for each track and they affect the tire temps. And affect the way the tire temps are produced across each tire. So you don't simply apply a certain camber and pressure. You have to work camber and pressure for each track.

You will find after working out a few setups for the same car at different tracks, that there is a good starting setup. Each car is different. Each track is different.

I would not simply use more rear camber or less rear camber. If the temp spread across the tire isn't 10F or 5-6C, you're not getting maximum adhesion from those rear tires. It's better to get maximum traction when possible.

[Roberto Sagessi]

darock...understood and THX again. To jakeb...thanks for this new info I will try to tweak these settings to see if I can get more out of the DOG. Here's another setup question if you don't mind. I find very often that my brakes will bog down the car badly...it's an effect where the engine loses power at the end of the pedal and almost dies...almost always when slowing down from 6th to 2nd at the end of a long st8 for instance. If I let off the pedal the engine comes back but of course my momentum is lost. I am currently feeling this at Macau with my Seat DOG (but find this on every track) and I HAVE been adjusting braking percentage AND Bias, which seems to help but does not eleviate the condition completely....I still have to watch how much brake I use...which is of course real world, but our SIM doesn't feel real when this happens. Comments much appreciated.

[flipteg]

hi, i started playing with the BMW E90 in the 2006 and i tried setting up camber and air pressure to achive what you describe, but i already have the air pressure as low as it will go but the middle is still hotter than the outside and sometimes, it's still even hotter than the inside parts of the tire... any advice...?

[darock]

That's the way the tire temps display in the TimeAttack. The temps there are completely worthless for setting pressure.

If you are going to work on the setup, the best place is in Practice offline. I actually do a lot of my setup changes during a two race set online. You have to watch the track condition, specifically the track temp, online because some races have variable weather. They basically just jack the track temp around, but it makes your pressure settings jump around.

After this last Simbin online patch I've quit relying on the tire temps I see in the Practice session before Qualifying online. For some reason, the pressure response to temp in that Practice seems significantly screwed up. On the other hand, I do rely heavily on the tire temps I see at the end of the 1st race online. I can adjust the pressure immediately at the end of that 1st race and see and feel the results in the 2nd race. And can fine tune at the end of the 2nd race. The pressure is almost always good to go from then on. Just one online race session usually firms up the pressure settings and they seldom need to be touched again.

[darock]

It appears that Simbins latest attempt at a patch is affecting the way tire temps respond in practice. Amazingly talented those guys......

I've noticed at a couple of online races where the qualifying laps start like a hotlap, that the temps appeared to be unreliable. And at a couple of online races with "clear" weather, the track temp starting at 68degrees Farenheit, the tire temps were way too hot. Either the server was screwing around with something that didn't get caught by the cheat code or the code has been screwed up.

The temps in the race seemed to respond as expected, however.

So don't rely too much on tire temps from practice or qualifying online, is my guess.

[wootownpimp]

Bumps and Rebounds: By "trial and error" i have noticed that the higher they go, the softer the car gets. WTCC cars' bumps and rebounds numbers are much lower than the F3000's ones so it is fairly easy to adjust them for optimum performance. Just try to put a difference of about 3 to 5 clicks between bumps and rebounds. It works better for most.

Springs: The higher they go, the stiffer the car gets. If you set higher spring in rear than front, the easier the car turns, but you have to deal with some oversteer some times. If you do the opposite, the car is slower in entry of the corner, but you can be earlier on the throttle for faster exit. It is all about your driving style which setting to prefer.

Toe-Ins: Those are for fast corners mainly as far as i know. Higher front toe-in than rear will make the car more agressive in the corners, a bit oversteering. Equal front and back numbers will make the car more neutral. Front -2.0 and Rear 2.0 is the standard for a reasonable handling, but according to the track this can change for even better one. Personally, i usually use higher front than rear toe-in in F3000, and higher rear than front in WTCC cars. But try to keep them arround those numbers.

It would be nice if also someone else could share his knowledge about this matter, so we can all get a better view, and learn something more.

So exactly how much time can i look at shaving off my lap times by adjusting my spring setup? If I reduce the spring rate equally (frt/rr) the car will be less responsive but corner better and raising the spring rates equally (frt/rr) will make the car more responsive but corner worse... right?

How soft or stiff can I make the springs rates before they have a negative effect?

Just for the record, I'm running a Bimmer E90.