Setup Questions and Understanding

[Erik Bennett]

Since I've been racing for about a month now with RD I've noticed I lack in a few degrees of racing and I'm studying that and improving. I'll break this into two parts.

Part 1: The learning of the track and how it applies to setups. The thing is with my driving at this point is that I don't fully have half the tracks memorized. Track's I've been racing at for years that are in this game I can put down consistent laps, usually within 1s of each other. I've been reading up on how to setup the car from multiple places. What I want to know is should I not worry about setups to an extreme at this point or just work on getting consistent laps before I start tweaking the car.

Part 2: At this point in my understanding of setting up a car I'm just sticking to the basics. Softer Springs = More Mechanical Grip, I don't do a lot of big tweaks to the default setup yet. I'll change ride height, springs, aero, and gearbox. I haven't fully grasped toe in/out, cambers and such, but I do know about the O C I heating dispearsion for tires. Should I spend a lot of time making sure those temps are within range across the tire or try to fine tune toe in/out, camber, pressures, and ARB's? Basically, what would give me a better bang in lap times vs. time tweaking the setup?

And a side note, how important is the fuel load, I get scared when I use my fuel calculator and always add about 3-5 more litres than I think I would need.

 

[Senad Subasic]

Not a great sim-racer myself, but I always change the tire pressure and camber, often change ARBs, and rarely change toe in/out.
In my experience, sim-racing, and bike riding , tire pressure has by far the biggest influence on driving out of those. Camber not that much, but it goes hand in hand with tire pressure, so easy to change.

As far as fuel load goes, I'm much worse than you; I always add a couple of laps of fuel extra (usually rounding to the nearest 10, OCD-ish). I don't see how a couple more laps would have much effect on my lap times.

Good sim-racers will probably disagree, but that's how I roll.

 

[Jim Cole]

First off, let me just say that if you can't make your lap times consistently then changing the setup will likely not help your times that much at all. The simbin setups, not the ones that say default but the other ones are not that bad though they can use some tweaking to get the most out of the car so start off with those setups and try and make laps that are within .5 seconds of each other for 10 or so laps at a time. Once you can do that, then your changes will be more noticeable.

Think of it this way, how are you going to know if it was the setup change or just a good lap that allowed you to get that10th of a second off your lap time if you can't do the same lap time almost every time? Get on the track, run a few laps and then go to the timing screen. Right click your name and it will show you all the laps you have done in that session. If the difference is greater than .5 seconds, work on practicing the track and don't worry about the setup yet.

As far as what to adjust and when, tire temps are important if you want to make your tires last so yes, tweaking pressure and camber to get the O C I to where there is no more than 6 degree's of variance across the tire is a good idea, but don't get stuck on making those perfect unless you are using a tool such as Motec i2Pro so you can see the temps at different parts of the track.

In short, there is no substitution for practice and knowledge of the track and car before you worry about the setup. By the way, it doesn't hurt to have something to look at when you are practicing. If you can get one of the faster guys to make a hotlap ghost and upload it for the track you want to learn, you can chase the ghost around and try and match the turn ins and exits of the faster guys.

 

[Marian Zelenka]

The thing is with my driving at this point is that I don't fully have half the tracks memorized.

If you start feeling confident with your driving, you'll find that you can learn any new track relatively easy. But if you have still problems with a certain car, then it's a problem. When I'm at the front of the field in one car, I'm totaly lost in a different car at the back. Understanding a car is the most important thing. When it doesn't suit you, you have a big problem. I know I have a big problem with certain cars and still haven't figured it out how to push them around corners.

What I want to know is should I not worry about setups to an extreme at this point or just work on getting consistent laps before I start tweaking the car.

Consistent laps as a start. But in race everything is different when someone ruins your tempo. Practicing alone is totaly different.

Should I spend a lot of time making sure those temps are within range across the tire ...

No, it doesn't work good with Race07 I'm afraid. I don't care about it anymore because it's just waste of time.

Basically, what would give me a better bang in lap times vs. time tweaking the setup?

If you can't make very good laps with default setup, tweaked setup doesn't give you much. From my experience, only fine tunning is necessary on some cars. But only you can find out what changes help you. I like for example stiffer setups.

And a side note, how important is the fuel load, I get scared when I use my fuel calculator and always add about 3-5 more litres than I think I would need.

It's good to have at the end of a race fuel for at least more than a half of a lap because you may experience engine misfiring. Also add more fuel for offroad driving. I have like 1 lap more for 30min races and 3 laps for 80min races. Fuel consumption can vary so my calculations aren't perfect for long races. Off course, use XD plugin or Motec for this because there are usually bigger numbers in garage, otherwise you could be too heavy in race.

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Not much to add.

Tips on how to learn tracks: Use Time Attack. Try to get within one second in that mode, it's great for track learning since your tires don't wear and fuel stays constant. It takes some variables off that only hurt while learning new tracks. You also get a hint of what to change in the setup later but don't make the full setup in Time Attack, it can lead to setups that destroy tires etc. Just make small changes or make a mental note and solve the issue later. Gears, steering lock and possibly brake balance/pressure can be setup in the Time Attack, you possibly need to finetune them all later. For WTCC car, those are the only changes i do everytime, most times they are the only ones needed.

You can also use Swingman camera (the chase camera, use page up to cycle thru the camear modes.). Swingman camera is best for new tracks since you can see much more and from a different angle, blind turns being the main focus..

Also almost all tracks use visual cues, they can be adboards, cones, tirewalls, even a strategically placed patch of grass can serve as cue.. So when you get within 5 seconds variance per lap, start looking everywhere else but the on the road... Trackdesigners don't often have the luxury of having objects in track that don't serve more than one purpose and more close to the track they are, the more important extra function the object usually have, Some tracks like Zandvoort uses large adboards to line up the car to the apex and entry, they are somewhere in 200m range. We don't have trackguides section AFAIK here in RD, that could possibly help.. Trackguides desribe the overall flow of the track, never used them in the initial phase. But when i'm within that 3-5 second range, usually that takes 6-7 laps, i start to look for videos online. I've driven 3 years now so most of the tracks are somewhat familiar but when a completely new one comes around, i feel that learning happens much easier than before.

Online: It's great to jump in to a faster drivers car. Use Timings page in the menu, right-click driver name to see his all laps so far, then find a fast and consistent driver. Click Drive but stay in garage with motor idling, ( don't use Monitor, use Drive!). Then use +/- keys and find the target on track. Now you can see his speed and hear the brakes and throttles, you see and hear everything. If you cycle with Home key, that will possibly give you a cameraview where you can even see the drivers hands and wheel! Page Up/Down cycles thru the rest of the cameras, Insert key will return you to the bumber of the target car. Remember that cars will look like they are braking later, that's not true, they are doing everything later depending on the latency, keep that in mind. Online human drivers in Monza with Formula RR and typical latency of 75ms will look like they brake 15-25m later than what's really happening. Slower cars suffer less of this delay but it's there so don't feel discouraged (and never compare your drivinglines and brakingdistance to AI, they both are heavily modified, ie: they cheat, usually they have more grip than you and their drivinglines are not always the fastest....). But getting in a front seat with a more experienced human/humanoid driver will be the fastest way of learning a new track, you can even ask if that driver wouldn't mind of answering a few questions. In club racing that's granted, 90% of the drivers here will answer few questions even if it cuts their practice time. Don't pick a hotlapper kamikaze alien for learning, that kind of driving will not help. It's fun to follow them for few laps but that's all it is, fun. But before you can take risks like those ultrafast qualifiers take, you need to be much much more experienced driver.

I guess i had something to add, long post once again.. So that's Time Attack, Swingman Camera and Online follow + questions, three tips.

 

[Rupe Wilson]

Is it not also the case that in time attack you can really work on you suspension as your tryes and pressures are not having an effect
It doesnt have the same feel as when i turn off tyre wear in the options realism settings when setting up a practice session..

 

[Ivan Navarro]

Good stuff guys!

I will reinforce that learning the track is huge. I have to fight the urge to tweak setups, it's in my nature to fiddle with things. Like some one already said, what good is it to look for that extra second in the car's set when your lap time is varying by multiple seconds each time around?

There are some guidelines to car setup. They vary according to drivers but generally there is a priority and you must recognize that many parameters are interactive so you must keep going back to readjust things that have an effect on other things.

Start with gearing. Then the chassis and diff.

Learn track, do consistent laps then start on setup.

Change one thing at a time then do 10 laps. Evaluate, change ONE other thing, then do more laps before changing anything else.

Search for Yves Larose's Friendly Development Series for Car Setup. Enjoy!