The theory is that when working on car setups, you shouldn't change more then one thing at a time...
but time & interest levels may be in short supply for messing around in the garage & I'm looking for the quickest/easiest improvements not perfection (yet). I've prioritised my list in order of what P&G seems to respond best to (i.e. if you haven't sorted stage one & two, you wont get the best from stage three).
P&G setup priority list (The following assumes you're already familiar with the track).
Stage one:Choose the car you want to drive.
Set the
fuel &
wheel rotation to a level you're normally happy with. Choose the
tyres you'll most likely want to run in the race (click left to get the softest tyres available).
Save your current setup as step 1.
Do some laps, three or four would normally be more then enough to work out if the car understeers/oversteers or both & when?
I've found that for me (& my driving style), generally the cars all understeer on their default setups. They understeer while accelerating, while power is off & while braking.Stage two:Gear ratio (did it need to be longer or shorter)
Rear ride height seems to work best when about 3 to 3.5cm higher then front ride height in P&G. (keeps the weight over the front of the car, which helps get round a corners generally)
Power Diff, I find it easier to drive the cars generally with this set lower (at about 20% normally for me) & also easier to corner (but I know some prefer it set much higher, usually the faster drivers)
Coast Diff, if you're going along a straight then take your foot off the accelerator to coast round a corner (at about the right speed), if the back end doesn't come round as you try to turn you've got power off understeer & reducing your coast diff a few clicks will help the rear come round. Alternatively your rear end might fly round too quickly as you lift off the accelerator (see Porka's
) & you might want to increase your coast a click or two.
Save the new setup as step 2.
Do some laps, three should be about enough to find out if your changes have helped, made a problem worse or the changes have given you the opposite problems? Is the car good while power is off but still understeering when accelerating perhaps or the other way round?
Now you might want to try increasing/reducing or even reversing the changes you made in the last step
if you think it could help. You should probably do that before progressing to the next set of suggested changes & perhaps saving your setup as step 2a before doing a couple more laps to confirm any extra changes are helping. But if very short on time, perhaps combine further changes with the next stage.
Stage three:If the car is still understeering generally, decrease the
front springs and/or increase the
rear springs by a click (the opposite ways to reduce oversteer).
Front Toe, seems to be set on all P&G cars to "+0.20", I'd suggest knocking that down to around "0.00" for now if you're struggling to start turning in. (It will also help reduce front tyre wear & increase top speed).
You can also help the car turn corners easier by reducing the
front anti-roll bar a click (or the opposite to discourage oversteer)
Think about adding a couple of clicks of
castor if the car is still understeering, or maybe remove a click of
camber to reduce oversteer.
When you brake hard from speed, does the rear end stay straight or try to come round on you? If it's staying very straight try moving
brake balance a click towards the rear. If it's coming round too easily move the balance a click to the front.
Save the new setup as step 3.
Do some laps, three should be about enough to find out if your changes have helped, made a problem worse or the changes have given you the opposite problems? Does the car still have the same problems? Try reviewing the previous step & adding another click here or there to help a specific problem, then saving the changed setup to step 3a.
There are more things you can change (I've not mentioned
tyre pressures/rear camber/rear anti-roll bars/front & rear bump & rebounds/rear toe settings), but hopefully I've not confused you too much at this point &
you've now managed to remove the biggest problems with your selected car had & you've made yourself a decent basic set up in less then half an hour? (you'll get quicker as you repeat it with more cars)
