Car setup mindgame

[Richard Bunschoten]

A funny thing happend to me this evening.

I was practicing on a track that i'm testing on last couple of days trying to create a perfect setup for this track. So i was tuning and tweaking spring, camber pressures all kinds of stuff , and my laptimes got better and better, so i though i'm doing a good job here. Reading articles on this forum about tire temps and stuff , made me tune some more, i read that temps should be 10 degrees between inner and outer temp , where i was aiming on 5 degrees , so i try the 10 degrees and yeah better times . So i think i'm doing a good job here. Steering lock matters alot and steeringwheel sensitivity , tuning that too , yeah better times , you know what i though1 .... yeah good job .

Then i wanted to compare the super turbo woowsers setup i created with the crappy default to show that it matters alot to take time to create this setup....

So i load the default , gues what happend ... drove the best time yet ...

So ... what did i learn here, well i thought i was creating a better and better setup and because of that i was improving my laptimes, but what i actualy did was driving the track so often, that i became better and better at the track, no matter what setup.

i had saved a couple of setups , and drove within a sec with all of them. Ok i choose one that my time eventualy was best with... and it was btw with a inner outer temp differnce of about 7 degrees on front tires and 5 on rear.

What i also found out is that i did really became alot quicker when setting my steering wheel sensitivity on the right setting ... so for the guy's who seem to keep struggling getting those times better , maybe it's wise to have a look at how far do you actualy turn your wheel and do you use the max you wheels CAN turn when in the car ... i found lots of seconds there.

But the part where i loaded the default and drove the best time after all this effort on a setup , i found really funny hehe .

After all this i felt like sharing this with ya all :thumb:

greetz

 

[Gary Lennon]

Thats a Perfect Post Richard :thumb:

I found the same things out myself,mainly i had a serious tyre wear problem in my early Race07 races,and i found the solution in the steering and pedals sensitivity settings and ratio setting in setup,they all work together good for you,or horribly bad if they are wrong,its very worth taking a nice relaxing 30 mins or so at your favourite track and just experiment,also pay close attention to the wheel in the cockpit moving along with the wheel clamped on your desk movement,get them the same,and nice and smoothly,you dont want the wheel in the cars cockpit zapping round to 180deg when you move your wheel 45deg,this not only cured my big tyre wear problems,but generally speeded me up and just made the whole thing feel more..."Right".

 

[Marcel vd Aa]

Well richard i hate to say this buddy, but didn't i mentioned something like that....first know your track in and out then focus on gaining those last tenths of a second by tweaking your setup.

LOL i can't actually recall me saying this but i did read it somewhere and i'm my opinion this is 100% true.

 

[Eric. K]

A funny thing happend to me this evening.

I was practicing on a track that i'm testing on last couple of days trying to create a perfect setup for this track. So i was tuning and tweaking spring, camber pressures all kinds of stuff , and my laptimes got better and better, so i though i'm doing a good job here. Reading articles on this forum about tire temps and stuff , made me tune some more, i read that temps should be 10 degrees between inner and outer temp , where i was aiming on 5 degrees , so i try the 10 degrees and yeah better times . So i think i'm doing a good job here. Steering lock matters alot and steeringwheel sensitivity , tuning that too , yeah better times , you know what i though1 .... yeah good job .

Then i wanted to compare the super turbo woowsers setup i created with the crappy default to show that it matters alot to take time to create this setup....

So i load the default , gues what happend ... drove the best time yet ...

So ... what did i learn here, well i thought i was creating a better and better setup and because of that i was improving my laptimes, but what i actualy did was driving the track so often, that i became better and better at the track, no matter what setup.

i had saved a couple of setups , and drove within a sec with all of them. Ok i choose one that my time eventualy was best with... and it was btw with a inner outer temp differnce of about 7 degrees on front tires and 5 on rear.

What i also found out is that i did really became alot quicker when setting my steering wheel sensitivity on the right setting ... so for the guy's who seem to keep struggling getting those times better , maybe it's wise to have a look at how far do you actualy turn your wheel and do you use the max you wheels CAN turn when in the car ... i found lots of seconds there.

But the part where i loaded the default and drove the best time after all this effort on a setup , i found really funny hehe .

After all this i felt like sharing this with ya all :thumb:

greetz

I am slowly finding the same thing out but for me it is also fun playing the setup...

BTW, are you by any chance practicing for Istanbul? :evil:

 

[Andrew Evans]

lovely post, richard... much amused... i've recently been trying to get to grips with setups and, to be honest, sometimes i'll change one parameter from min to max and i can't feel a single difference

i think i read in one of the guides that you should be able to lap consistently before starting the tweaking.... and that the tweaking will only gain you an extra second or so... i just find it hard to understand how i can be six seconds off the pace sometimes, when in my eyes, i'm driving a sexy lap - my lines can't be that bad! :becky:

i think i need to concentrate more on the general driving and worrying about the setups later on...

 

[Neil Johnson]

I'm not much of a setup guy, at present, i'm setting pretty good times using the default setup and just removing some fuel, and stretching the gears out a little (this is for SR4/Nordschleife), but i know what you mean by it being a mindgame, you've described it perfectly, great post Richard.

 

[vmagics]

I started a thread over at nogrip(I think) regarding setups being psychological. While this isn't entirely true, you must admit it is a factor. Placebos work!

 

[Daniel Monteiro]

i agree!:thumb:

 

[Ramon van Rijn]

Good posting Richard.
I explain it also in the setup guide, but even I fall into this trap.
When Evo was just released I tried to create a setup for NurburgGP to reach Sander's times. I thought I did well but then I loaded the default and drove the same time

 

[Chris Buchanan]

I fully agree it's mostly about knowing your target and learning where you're marks are.

Tweaking the settings on your controller of choice is obviously important as that's where you will feel your car but really knowing your car and track are the most important things. I have been driving on the default setup with very few tweaks recently and just trying to find the rhythm of the tracks and the feel of the car.

I have also been driving almost exclusively one car sice I got Race 07/GTRE and will be sticking with it until I can start consistently finishing and staying with the pack in these weekly races.

 

[Richard Bunschoten]

And now i found that when driving a few laps without offroad trips, even the tire pressures seem to be close to nice pressures.

I actually always raise the pressure, cause it always seem to low. But my last couple off races i found that the pressure was not so bad in the default .

Could be track related though...

is the game starting again , :evil: get out get out , of my head ......

 

[Lee Downham]

LOL ... spot on dude ... so many times have I done this exact same thing ... especially when I first started looking at setups.
I would tweak and fiddle and mess with a setup only to return to the default for comparison and find I had actually liked that better and was faster with it too (cos I now knew the track better) :doh:

I am still useless at it, but my setup chasing now is more to get something that handles in a way I want it to (eg. diff lock/coast on GT cars), and helps keep tyre wear low and even.

Finding a setup I like helps me drive more relaxed and think more about the racing rather than what the hell the car is going to do in the next bend.

I also fiddled around and turned down the FF on my wheel last week (was set way too high and I knew it, just never got round to changing it for some reason :doh
... am now finding that feel and precision when cornering is much better, as I am not fighting like a Spartan with it to get it to turn!!

Nice tip from Gary re wheel lock settings ... I usually have the in car wheel turned off, but will check this.

 

[Abdul Al-Amry]

Richard what benefits will I have with the Steering Wheel Sensitivity?

Good read

 

[Richard Bunschoten]

It sets the curve your wheel responds ,

look @ picture, the blue line would be a 50 % setting
the red line would be more of a 20% setting .

so with a 50% setting your wheels respond earlier on turning your steering wheel. and visa versa .
the benefit could be a more responsive car, for instance if you don't turn your steering wheel that much.

hope i explained it allright like this.

 

[Johan Bergqvist]

Very interesting reading for I am doing just that tweking and setups on different tracks, I think I have to take it one track at a time..