car setup

[Karl Barnes]

just looking for a little bit of advice when it comes to setting up the car, I know alittle bit but would like some more in depth help. Thanks karl.

 

[Nox]

Hi! See: http://www.racedepartment.com/forum/threads/setup-guides.74895/

That should help

 

[Karl Barnes]

thanks

 

[Dennis Phelan]

Preface: Some drivers don't have to know how to setup a car, they can go fast with anything. Asking many of them how to setup a car is useless, as bad as asking a person with good teeth to recommend a dentist. There are also quick drivers that can produce a very driveable car.

If you know a little bit, it probably comes from reading a few setup guides and making changes to a car, some of which have worked out. Some of the guides that are still out there come from really old sim's and some are even based on running ovals which does little to help a road car with today's physics. Going through several of them and putting a hard think on what is common between them is their best use. Some books written by real car builders will give good information but still, these are sim cars.

To be successful, I think you have to understand what the car is going through to make an improvement. When driving, to tune, finding speed is the end result for sure but also having a car that responds reliably is also important. A search for speed should not be taken on with a frenzy of driving at 100% and missing what the car is doing or not doing while it's keeping your speed down. Through trials, you should become faster without trying harder, a better car will give a quicker lap more easily!

One only need be a rocket scientist to figure this out. You are that specialist! No one can do it for you, Luck will help you out and so will perseverance but it really helps both of those aspects if you have some kind of understanding of basic physic's and an idea of what's happening to the car. Your knowledge doesn't have to be all inclusive or be right all the time because you're also going to be using that luck and perseverance as well as common sense to get it right.

Ask yourself. Really, this is what you have to do. What is the car doing "right now" that I sense is hurting my performance in this [and other] corner, is it transferring weight too fast, not quickly enough? Is the motor pulling hard everytime I ask it for power? Which tires are locking on braking? Why does it sound like that when I corner? Answers can come quickly when you can bring things together in the process of improving. A replay can help whenever you're lost or can't figure it out. You may find the Time Attack mode very useful, set a time and then make your changes and see how they compare with what you had, probably the best way to get feedback on changes.

Changes he said. Even without any great knowledge of the physics of a car you can make changes. Not willy nilly but thought out as best as possible, one at a time and in a methodical manner. You will soon and easily come up with a process for going through a car to establish a setup that suits you. It may take a while to learn the process and what suits you. An education in anything doesn't just happen because you want it now, there are many things to learn here!

An example of basic setup of slow damper setting for a front end by a complete physics idiot[myself] would go like this: Drive a few laps on a known course in a familiar car to get a feel. Back to the garage, if the Bump and Rebound[R] settings are not the same number make them so "and go out again"[AGOA]. Better/worse, in garage, raise both B&R to a high number AGOA. Better or worse, set both to a lower number AGOA. By now you have an idea about damper settings and which suits you. Now go back to the setting that worked best for you and lower the B setting to half of the R AGOA. Better or worse? Switch the settings around, raising the B back up and lowering the R AGOA. Better, or worse? By this point you have a good number of relevant points to reference what works and what doesn't. You can put in a lap or three to see if what you have found works. Hopefully you have also thought about what's going on and tried to figure out a reason for the numbers working out. That information should have you thinking about whether to increase or decrease an individual setting or soften/stiffen the combination of setting and of course AGOA.

Now, that sounds like a lot of work. I hope you didn't expect to pull into the pit and go out with a perfect car first time, did you? It won't happen! This is a learning process, how long did it take you to learn something this complicated in the past? This effort on the slow dampers of the front suspension can be carried out though all of the adjustable components in the car. The adjustments to some of the setting will make very little difference in how the car drives for you, others are very sensitive and important. It's good to find out what these are and get them right first. Done individually it would take a long time. Though in the beginning, while figuring out how to go through the process and before you find what usually ends up working out for you just make one kind of adjustment at a time. Soon begin to multitask, think about the entire car while test driving and make changes in several areas at once, you can do it.

There are really only two types of car to setup, Front Wheel Drive[FWD] and Rear Wheel Drive[RWD] and they have some different needs. Some of the needs are in how inputs are made to the controls, others are car settings. Don't expect what you learned in a FWD car to be true in a RWD!

There is another area to be identified but not a part of this discussion, controls. How much you allow your steering wheel to turn[not steering lock], the sensitivities you apply to you brake and throttle as well as steering. I mention this as many bad problems can be solved through wheel travel[degrees of rotation] and steering lock, which is changed in the car. Other areas of control that affect car operation in the extreme environment of racing are timing of downshifts and braking, holding throttle in a corner and of course it's application and how rapidly you turn in and out of corners. Your selection of Force Feed Back can be just as important as any other setting and all of those items set correctly won't help you if you just plan turn the wheel too much and constantly scrub rubber off the tires, overheating them. To help in that area I suggest going to the Options/Audio area of the sim and turning up the volume for Tire Scrub and Tire Skid!

Food for though and I hope it helps you. Oh yes, go out and try it again.

Dennis

 

[Karl Barnes]

i don't expect to get a perfect car in one go and i know a little about setup through real cars adjusting wheel alignment, tire pressures, dampers,ride height etc. i always think very logically in the sense that anything you do has an opposite reaction as in stiffening rear dampers an extra two clicks can in-juice some over steer. but what you have said had help me a lot thanks. its just a long process of rinse and repeat but i am a quick learner and a hard worker in everything i do. i also know how to drive smooth with wheel and pedal inputs just not where near the pace of you guys aha