Cars Formula Ford - Russell Alexis Mk.14 1.1

[Andy-R]

I really think those modern North tyres want looking at. They are definitely slower than the East tyres and also slower than most of the HSCC lap times I could find. They seem to have decent mid corner grip and AFAICT decent longitudinal grip under braking but they are really bad on corner exit. I also think the old tyres at least are wearing too quickly.

 

[Ryno917]

It seems to depend on the specific car Ryno. See the attached screenshot (no.4 car on top, no.3 below). I've ran with and without the shaders mod and the dark windscreen is still present without the mod. Personally, I'd be happy for it to be removed, or made transparent.

Thanks for a brilliant car by the way.

Some skins have a darker windscreen intentionally, as I've seen some cars with it IRL and in photos. That being said, it looks like some of you are getting something less transparent than intended. I'll make it more transparent in the high res skin pack when I release it and pass those files along to stereo to include in a mod update if he chooses to

 

[Emery]

and also differential power & coast adjustments

Depends on which differential is being modeled, whether it's a cam & pawl (aka PowerLok) or Powerflow (aka Salisbury). Without the power & coast adjustments, I'm assuming the physics are cam & pawl because the physics person knows what they're doing.

The original transmission for this car is a Hewland Mk8. Most cars that still exist have replaced the Mk8 with a Mk9 which is an improved Mk8 introduced in 1973. Hewland's current documentation (http://www.hewlandclassic.com/assets/manuals/mk9.pdf) shows both differentials for the Mk9, but I can't confirm if the Powerflow/Salisbury was available for the Hewland Mk8 1968.

 

[Stereo]

4.4 Final drive ratio is free.
Torque biasing, limited slip and locked differentials are prohibited. The use of non-ferrous material in
differential components is prohibited, save that the thrust washer, Hewland Part No. HC8-214-5R,
manufactured from plastic, is permitted.

FF doesn't allow LSDs so it uses an open one.

 

[Dan Ferguson]

Enjoying driving these, fun balance between grip and power.

Many thanks for sharing your work - I did a couple of simple rallycross tracks for rfactor a few years ago so can appreciate the time and effort that must have gone into this set of cars.

 

[Adnan Dizdarevic]

Very nicely done model. However, for me it is more difficult to drive consistently (even when I try not to push) than it should be and I end to be challenged to understand tire behavior. It seems that optimum, tire temperature should be between 75-85 C by 23 psi hot. I have made several set up changes in order to force tire to get in temperature range or to overheat, without success even if I get them to stay at 23 psi. Best I can do in Brands Hatch is get rear left to scratch in low 70's. Fronts get perhaps in 60's. Best lap time in Brands Hatch GP is 1:48.6. I would expect that street tires would have significantly larger operative range and would be easier to get in optimum operating range even if one is not Emerson Fittipaldi...

 

[bsmooth]

Has anyone tried a championship with them so far ? I get an error when i try to.

 

[Ryno917]

High res skinpack available here:
https://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/russell-alexis-mk14-high-res-skinpack.24493/

 

[iwn]

Causes game to return to UI in all tracks and cars if present in content/cars. Set system files as instructed.
Edit: Something went wrong with system files, tried again and now its working. Thanks for a great mod.

 

[Alan Jones]

An excellent mod and although I haven't seen them race live since the '70s, it does seem to corner in a very similar fashion. The high rollbar is quite correct for an historic racing version. Those 'in period' were a bit "optimistic" for the taller driver!
Great fun and many thanks for sharing.

 

[Ryno917]

An excellent mod and although I haven't seen them race live since the '70s, it does seem to corner in a very similar fashion. The high rollbar is quite correct for an historic racing version. Those 'in period' were a bit "optimistic" for the taller driver!
Great fun and many thanks for sharing.

I think they were a bit "optimistic" for any driver! I know the ones on F1 cars of the period were often lower than the driver's head

 

[Leonardo Ratafiá]

hi, does this car have dogleg gearbox or the standard 1st gear on top left?
thanks

Edit: from the mk9 pdf the 5 gear set are dogleg style

 

[Stereo]

I thought it was normal H pattern of
R13
_ 24
but I'm not certain.

 

[Kyuubeey]

The nominal grip and load of the tires is identical. The load curves are just different, which could result in a real world performance difference.

Also pretty funny seeing people assume that being 3 seconds off is somehow strange and the car's fault. Most "good drivers" in sims are 3 - 5 seconds off the nominal pace in easier cars on 100% grip. Not to mention that 100% grip is just excessively grippy to begin with and probably not comparable to IRL.

An onboard comparison between a very skilled driver and an IRL lap would be more worthwhile than comparing laptimes IMO. Those usually illuminate potential flaws.

 

[mclarenf1papa]

The nominal grip and load of the tires is identical. The load curves are just different, which could result in a real world performance difference.

Also pretty funny seeing people assume that being 3 seconds off is somehow strange and the car's fault. Most "good drivers" in sims are 3 - 5 seconds off the nominal pace in easier cars on 100% grip. Not to mention that 100% grip is just excessively grippy to begin with and probably not comparable to IRL.

An onboard comparison between a very skilled driver and an IRL lap would be more worthwhile than comparing laptimes IMO. Those usually illuminate potential flaws.

1. Andy is about as fast as it gets in vintage cars and sim cars are essentially always faster than their real counterparts.
2. "Optimum grip" is just a scalar multiplier for the tires...it's all completely relative, so it's pretty funny to call it "excessively grippy." All of the cars I do are modeled to be accurate at optimum.
3. We didn't go into a ton of effort to match lap times with this car since that metric is probably the least important to car behavior/a mod's quality. The East tires (apparently the ones I did, still haven't double-checked) are reasonable tires, they just might not match real FF tires exactly.

 

[Kyuubeey]

1. Andy is about as fast as it gets in vintage cars and sim cars are essentially always faster than their real counterparts.
2. "Optimum grip" is just a scalar multiplier for the tires...it's all completely relative, so it's pretty funny to call it "excessively grippy." All of the cars I do are modeled to be accurate at optimum.
3. We didn't go into a ton of effort to match lap times with this car since that metric is probably the least important to car behavior/a mod's quality. The East tires (apparently the ones I did, still haven't double-checked) are reasonable tires, they just might not match real FF tires exactly.

I don't know who Andy is, I just scrolled the thread quickly from top to bottom. Not pointing any fingers at anyone in particular: just reminding everyone that "aliens" often knock off several seconds from established "fastest possible laps" by even quite very good drivers. Often faster than real record times. However the car itself could be just well fine.

Are all the other cars in AC modelled to be accurate at optimum? To me it doesn't look like it. If your car is indeed only "working as intended" at optimum but others are not, isn't it existing in a vacuum by itself?

Yeah, laptime's really dependent on the exact conditions of the track as much as it is on the car. Although I've managed to match pace side by side driving in the same manner as a reference video with my mod cars. Not sure if any laptimes are accurate, because the "fastest possible time" really depends on the driver and exact track condition a bit too...

I'd imagine a vintage car in a sim would be much faster, not much slower. The physics of the car look fine, and maybe a side by side video comparison would illuminate any issues. I suppose, good luck finding such footage for a car of this age. Unless modern reproductions can be considered period accurate in tire potential.

 

[aphidgod]

Andy did a lot of test driving for the Lola, too... can confirm that he's about as quick as it gets in the historic stuff.

(And he's still a few tenths off of Surtees' best lap at Silverstone.)

 

[Stereo]

I'd imagine a vintage car in a sim would be much faster, not much slower. The physics of the car look fine, and maybe a side by side video comparison would illuminate any issues. I suppose, good luck finding such footage for a car of this age. Unless modern reproductions can be considered period accurate in tire potential.

I haven't seen any period lap times for this car let alone video. Silverstone's probably the only track with the right historic layout anyway. So it makes sense to me that IRL laptimes are up to a few seconds faster if they're on current tires.

 

[mclarenf1papa]

I don't know who Andy is, I just scrolled the thread quickly from top to bottom. Not pointing any fingers at anyone in particular: just reminding everyone that "aliens" often knock off several seconds from established "fastest possible laps" by even quite very good drivers. Often faster than real record times. However the car itself could be just well fine.

Are all the other cars in AC modelled to be accurate at optimum? To me it doesn't look like it. If your car is indeed only "working as intended" at optimum but others are not, isn't it existing in a vacuum by itself?

Yeah, laptime's really dependent on the exact conditions of the track as much as it is on the car. Although I've managed to match pace side by side driving in the same manner as a reference video with my mod cars. Not sure if any laptimes are accurate, because the "fastest possible time" really depends on the driver and exact track condition a bit too...

I'd imagine a vintage car in a sim would be much faster, not much slower. The physics of the car look fine, and maybe a side by side video comparison would illuminate any issues. I suppose, good luck finding such footage for a car of this age. Unless modern reproductions can be considered period accurate in tire potential.

All vanilla cars in AC use inaccurate tire load sensitivity that make them very incorrect on certain tracks...it’s good that some mod cars are in a vacuum.

Also, you keep hammering home this idea of a video comparison. A pace comparison alone is useless and is missing the point of simulating a Formula Ford from the 60s with extremely little data. Maybe if the handling dynamics were obviously wrong, yeah, it would help. But if the only issue we’re discussing is making speeds match, that’s one of the least important handling metrics on a car like this, and, as I said, is missing the point.

 

[Kyuubeey]

All vanilla cars in AC use inaccurate tire load sensitivity that make them very incorrect on certain tracks...it’s good that some mod cars are in a vacuum.

Also, you keep hammering home this idea of a video comparison. A pace comparison alone is useless and is missing the point of simulating a Formula Ford from the 60s with extremely little data. Maybe if the handling dynamics were obviously wrong, yeah, it would help. But if the only issue we’re discussing is making speeds match, that’s one of the least important handling metrics on a car like this, and, as I said, is missing the point.

Ah, I understand now. I was assuming the modern replica stand-in tires are meant to emulate the performance of old race tires used on these cars. The idea of, perhaps, just maybe, modern tires having more performance, didn't even catch me.

Then ignore what I've said. Seems about right pace-wise then, perhaps even slightly too fast. When I drove the car, it *felt* reasonable and the data *looked* reasonable for a period car, like I'd implied. My argument never was that there's something wrong with the car, quite the contrary. I was just giving suggestions how to find out if there is and what it would be.