SimRacing.org.uk

As we all know some setups work for one but not another and I'm a firm believer of sorting the handling yourself and learning in the process. Setups for the fast chaps are also no good for us slower chaps- well for me at least and whilst most of my Gpl dramas are when I'm on the brakes I jotted down the adjustments that helped and thought that maybe they might help someone other than me. My notepad says:-

 Car unstable under braking:-

 Add positive rear toe in, move brake bias forward, soften rear rebound, taller gearing on lower gears.

Regards

John ;)

Interesting that you have posted this Johnny. I may be wrong but there seems to be a fair number of drivers who are reluctant to play with setups simply because they are not confident about what they are doing. This is a shame, because it is highly unlikely that the default setup is best for any individual. They are constructed to give a "safe" starting point and a chance to at least complete a few laps at a reasonable speed.
If I were to ask any of those drivers on a default setup if the car responded exactly how they wanted it to, I doubt that any of them would be 100% happy.

I must confess that most of the "Setup Guides" that I have read for GPL have often left me more confused than when I started, and what I have discovered has mostly been through trial and error .....mostly error. Occasionally I get lucky and hit what is the "sweet spot" for my style of driving in a particular car and then I am confident that I can challenge many of the fast guys ( maybe not the true aliens, because frankly their pace just scares me!!  :o ).

For a long time I have hoped that someone would post a very simple list of about 10 basic parameters that will offer guidance on what effect you can expect if you, for instance,  ...increase/decrease the rear roll bar, or lower the front bump/rebound settings. Not as a guide to produce a foolproof World Record setting car, but more as a starting point on the road to the headache of setups. So that anyone new to setups can make a change with foreknowledge of what they should notice, and then decide if it works for them. I have always been of the opinion that confidence in a car's handling will lead to faster lap times. It is not about maximum grip or perfect gearing ( although at the very top end of performance these must be a factor) but being sure that when you turn in the rear end will not try and get to the apex first, and when you stamp on the gas you will not be instantly looking back the way that you came. So that your driving inputs are smooth and consistant and so are the results. If you look at most race winners, it is not always about ultimate pace over a single lap, but consistantly turning in lap after lap with a few tenths, just as in real life. Not easy if you are fighting the car at every corner??

The beauty ( or curse lol!) of GPL setups is that most adjustments are also dependent upon, or modify some other parameter, so often making an adjustment to a diff or roll bar for instance, might only be 50% of the solution that you are looking for.

A well respected member of the GPL community (who has far more knowledge about setups etc than I do.) and myself are currently discussing basic setup theory and I hope that we can post something like 10  starting points for modifying the default setup in the near future.
I am being a guinea pig in this process using the 67 BRM as a "control" chassis. mainly because in all my years racing GPL I have never had much success with that particular car and never truly got the Beast to handle better than a supermarket trolley with a bent wheel!!

Don't hold your breath this make take a week or two but hopefully some helpful hints can be published soon.

IMO this is wrong!
Those guys have lots of experience and made some laps to optimize a car.

My way of finding a setup for a given car on a given track is:

- go to the track database and look for setups of well known good drivers and download them.
   (I prefer Masaki Asano, Roland Ehnström and Greger Huttu race setups.)
- Have a look at these setups with the Setup Manager and adjust only the steering ratio to your preferences.
- go on track and test each setup, starting slowly with smooth throttle until the tyres get warm and you can feel the cars behaviour. 
- I am interested how they set the gears, as this is the most difficult part for me. You can gain seconds with the right shifting points.
- Choose the setup that suits your driving best and then do some small changes if needed.

As I prefer to drive rather than fiddle with setups I also go online, download a setup and change the steering and brake balance to suit me (and rarely the gear ratios). Job done.
And yes I probably could shave of seconds by careful preparation but I really cannot be bothered.

Interesting- I have never found somebody else's setup any good for me. To be honest I prefer to find my own base setup and change it accordingly for each race. IMO setups for faster drivers are often too unstable for novices with the car rotating too easily.

I go along with Johnny on this, as I find most online setups undriveable.  It may be that those with G27 type wheels, are better suited to use more aggressive settings.  But regardless, when pushing the limits, we all have our own style, so in theory, we should all use our own personal setups, for best results.

The big problem, when learning, is that big changes to one thing, automatically make a small change to other things.  It's the best way to start learning, but only experience will tell you, exactly what will happen after making an adjustment.  Or sometimes a tree will tell you.  It's all a part of the art of racing.  :wacko:

Hmmmm. An interesting selection of views regarding setups. 

"to tweak or not to tweak,
that is the question.
Whether 'tis faster on the track
to suffer the bump and rebound
of outrageous default,
or to take armfuls of roll bar
against a sea of angry skid marks
and by balancing them, end them.
to tweak, to leave;
and by leave we say we end
the headache and the thousand shocks
that setups are heir to, tis a constipation
to be devoutly wished for.
to leave; to sleep
to sleep perchance to dream, ay there's the rub
For in that world of setups what dreams may come
of when we have passed the chequered flag.
where we must pause..there is respect
for those whose calamity of long nights
who bear the scars and scorns of time ill spent
on the setup that went wrong,
 but the proud man continues
The pangs of physics laws, the diffs response
the insolence of the toe in and the failures
The patient merit that the unworthy takes
When he himself his quiet progress makes
with fevered brow who would his burden take
to swear to sweat under a weary life
and yet find the promised land.

That undiscovered country from whose grasp
no setup developer returns, puzzles the will
and makes us live with what we have
rather than fly to others who have trod the path
Thus concience makes cowards of us all............

Apologies to Will,   ::)

 

Thanks for the above suggestions and encouragements. I am a novice with GPL. I like that the statements above match what I have experienced so far on track.

Q: When we are adjusting springs, ARBs, and damper, does anyone use the "only change one thing at a time" approach? I tried changing one thing at a time, but the change in car behavior was too subtle for me to notice. Thanks, WC 

Get radical, Walter!  And to Evil, I fear a historical error has been made - Shakespeare was not referring to the 66 season.  Methinks him more of a GT man.  ::)

The logic of changing one thing at a time is of course, absolutely logical.
 However , if you cannot perceive any difference then it is going to be difficult to make any meaningful progress?

I too found this a problem when I delved into the murky world of setups. Also, which item should I change first??!!!

I don't want to offer anything specific before I have got the whole plan together, but I might suggest that if you cannot discern any difference then perhaps you did not make a big enough adjustment, or you changed the wrong thing and it has not had the effect that you had hoped.?

I'm not sure about others, but I actually found that I had a reluctance to tinker too much with setups in the early days. It was almost as if I was afraid that maybe I would break something if I got it wrong!!!  Yes I know it is illogical!!  lol

These days I have a fairly comprehensive list of setups, some are better than others and one or two are excellent. But there are some that frankly I fight all the way around the circuit!!

The best and most simple advice I can give those who want to dip their toe in, is to get into the habit of developing a setup by preserving what you already have, so that you can always go back if the route you take creates a monster that cannot be controlled by man nor beast :o :o.

 I tend to label my setups progressively such as.... 67 BRM 1, 67 BRM 2, for significant changes and maybe 67 BRM 2a if you have applied a small tweak for fine tuning what appears to be a pretty good solution. Once I have arrived at a setup that I am satisfied with I delete all of the earlier setups EXCEPT the step before the final version. That way after a race that has tested the setup I can go back one notch and adjust things in the light of experience. Maybe the engine expired and I need to change the gearing, or the outside front tyre overheated on the outside edge and I need to do something to control that? Also, if you delete your hard won setup accidentally ( it has happened to me more than once, maybe I am just clumsy!!) then you will have a backup which is almost as good.

Congatulations to Clive who is clearly a poet, and I didn't...er know it...

..anyway. I agree that those who have posted setups probably know something about it. I'd encourage new starters to spend some time with setups from different people and see which drivers they like. I use setup guides (never found one I totally trusted/understood, just built up a rough idea) to get a feel for what might work if I need to make a change.

For me, I used Dark's setups unaltered for years (assuming any deficiencies I felt were mine). I only started making bigger dents in my GPL Rank when I got the confidence to start altering them. They're still my base point, but I make various standard changes before using them, and see how I feel.

Just one thing if you do use imported setups. Go and check the ramp angle settings. Many of Dark's come with a ramp angle of '? ? ?', which I assume means they were created in an external setup editor program. I always start with changing this to 85/30, so I know what I'm getting.

Arf

I never really used other people's setups, but mostly borrowed ideas from them and experimented with incorporating some of their parameters into my own setups. Even if I try out someone else's setup, I start tweaking it almost immediately. The only way you can learn how each parameter affects the handling is through experimentation and testing on track, so I suggest not only changing setups, but doing it all the time - basically any time you go on track, make sure to change something (or more than 1 thing, as I usually do), to see its effect. When you change multiple things at once (2-3), not randomly, but with some idea you have, you speed up the process a lot. I only change one thing at a time after I arrive at a very good setup which I'm happy with and I want to try to improve it further, but prior to that, it's quite pointless to change just 1 thing. Go to extremes to find out much quicker what works and what doesn't.

Of course, it helps to find information on each parameter and read its actual meaning. I suggest real life information as opposed to strictly simracing guides. Even if GPL is not 100% realistic, the parameters affect the car handling in pretty much the same way as they would in reality. I prefer reading specific parameter explanations, rather than an overall setup guide. The latter are almost always wrong in some parts or lacking enough depth to really grasp a parameter's function and concept.

BTW, I found this the other day, so it's not a bad start I guess:

http://www.jamesonline.net/images/gpl/suspension.jpg
http://www.jamesonline.net/images/gpl/drivetrain.jpg

And lastly, avoid default setups, especially F1 67s! They're horrible, too much understeer, too soft suspension, weird camber and tyre pressure, etc.

And double lastly, unless you feel comfortable with your driving and you know what you're doing, changing setups may have a negative effect, because your frame of reference in terms of driving and the feedback you get from the car would be unreliable, inconsistent.

I have been looking everywhere for those graphics H!!  I could remember seeing them many years ago, but not exactly where.

i definitely agree with your last comment H......

Above everything you must feel comfortable with the car. If you are not able to position and control the car smoothly you will not produce consistant lap times. If you have to fight the car to decide who is in charge of direction, then maybe it is time to adjust something? ( listen to the expert talking  lolololol!!).

Oh!, and now the bad news..... You will have realised that after going through the process of tweaking things and hopefully finding that you are now lapping a couple of seconds faster, you should be entering corners slightly quicker, carrying more momentum through the apex and producing a higher exit speed. This is where you have gained those precious seconds. After all, we have to assume that you were giving the car max power on the straights even with a default setup, so the only place to gain time is in the corners???!!

So now you might need to look at gear ratios,  :o   because if your exit speed is now higher than before, you might be close to max revs in your chosen gear for that corner, maybe you would benefit from adding a notch or two to that ratio so that the car pulls cleanly out onto the next straight before you need to upshift?  which of course means that you will arrive at the next corner travelling even faster, so do you need to adjust your braking point and downshift......... ;D 
Which is where this all started I think?

GPL just gets better and better doesn't it???  :wacko:

This is a worthy subject, in need of a worthy author.  Hristo has suggested a high level of competence is needed, before a driver launches off into the unknown, but I suggest you're never too young to learn.  I hope this finishing school gets back on track, instead of wobbling about,  near the startline! :P  Let the worthy author continue.

Those 2 images can help I guess, though I never believed in those type of guides where it says "if you have oversteer, do this and that". I'd rather look into more detail while driving, try to observe it better and try to figure what really needs changing, rather than follow a generic guide. You don't have to be an expert on setups, you can learn which parameter does what just by experimenting. What it helps to know what each parameter means is when you want to achieve a certain effect and especially when you want to fine tune, not so much when you want to achieve an overall balance. That is the easy part, the hard part is getting speed out without ruining that balance. It's a matter of sacrificing comfort for speed really, so it depends where your comfort zone lies.

I don't know if Johnny has raced on the same track as Hristo, but he is amongst the best in the business.  I imagine even the fast guys take notice of his ideas and technique, because they work.  But this thread has now become confusing.

You guys need 2 threads - Pro tips , and NOVICE TIPS - RESTART.   For Novices, 10 clear subject titles or  11, for experimental recklessness under supervision, in the GPL Labs.  Pro-fessor H. for the Pro's, could offer a separate coarse, to those interested in gaining a degree in cornering, if that's not already been done.  You could even use the same subject titles.  8)

The biggest problem with this topic, and publishing a guide to setups, is the danger of starting a row between those who DO tinker with setups about which is the correct way to develop a setup.

From experience, opinions about setups are like noses....everybody has one!! plus I am convinced that whatever setup you are looking for will be dictated by your driving style ( or more correctly, the style in which you want to drive).

So, I think there is room for an interesting discussion between the more experienced members regarding setups and how we think they work for us.
But I also think that there is a real need for a straightforward "Starter Kit" for those who want to start playing with setups and trying different things, because quite frankly there is a whole world of different handling out there waiting to be explored.
I suggest that anyone who has stuck with the default up until now should download a couple of setups for the same car and circuit from those available on the track database and just try them. You will think that you are driving a totally different car, or that the laws of physics have somehow been corrupted momentarily. What you find, you might feel is better or worse than what you are used to but it will show you that handling can be dramatically changed by adjusting the setup.

I think you can easily come to basic approach to setting up the majority of GPL cars (F1 type cars anyway) by just looking at a collection of setups. Here's an example of a setup (in metric units) that would work for most cars, ranging from 65 to 67:

Front Tyre Pressure: 131 to 159 for F1 cars, 152-172 for F2 mod.
Front Springs: 140
Front Bump: 2
Front Rebound: 2 or 3
Front Camber: -0.50 to -1.25
Front Bump Rubber: almost always minimum
Front Ride Height: almost always minimum

Front Toe: -0.064 to -0.508 (less with 65, 66 2L and F2, more, in negative direction, with 66 3L and 67)
Rear Toe: 0.127 to 0.699 (same as above, except in positive direction)

Rear Tyre Pressure: same as Front
Rear Spring: 193
Rear Bump: 2 or 3
Rear Rebound: 3
Rear Camber: -0.25 to -0.75
Rear Bump Rubber: almost always minimum
Rear Ride Height: almost always minimum

Pressures and Camber should be set according to the tyre temps reading after a stint on the track. Try to equalize all temps across the thread. The only exception is on fast tracks, where higher pressures give more speed down the straight, due to less roll resistance.

As for drivetrain settings, set gears so you keep the car in maximum torque range in the middle of the corner. The differential is really a matter of personal preference, so you only need to understand what each of the settings of the diff does to set them accordingly, to experiment. I prefer more lock on power, less lock on coast, and 1 or 2 clutches at most. I usually start with 45/60/1 or 60/60/1-2, regardless of mod.

Some cars (like 67 BRM or 65 Honda) are an exception of this setup base, due to their different weight distribution, but most of the cars work fine with that.

69 are a bit different because of the wings, so they change more than no-wings cars from track to track.

Now, if you want to know what to tweak to fine tune the car by following some simple guidelines without actually understanding the parameters, there are plenty such online. I'm not a fan of those, as I said, because they're never quite correct for all situations or all cars. Here's one though:

http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbarnett/SetupMatrix.html

Hehe - well, looks like that's a good way to potentially kill off the thread :)
[as in looks like there's a degree of info in there!].

That's not to take anything away from the other contributers of course.

Personally,  I probably would not even notice the difference with minor/moderate tweaking.  I'd just put it down to the driver (me) having an off day.   But,  I appreciate that at the higher echelons of racing society, there is a need to know what you want to do & what you want the car to do for you. 

But thanks all for the advice. Maybe just maybe I'll pick something up.  Gotta start somewhere, right...?

Cheers,
Dave.

 

Seeing that I started this thread it seems right that I sign it off. I had a few more gems in my notepad for novices when your having that 'off' day. My notepad says:-  Raise the ride height- although this will scramble nearly every other parameter- your car will be much more tame and less twitchy.

Regards
John

I've been amazed at how many racers online, don't make their own setups.  For me, it's a part of the challenge, and put's me fully in control of my own destiny - good or bad. :P  Experimentation is needed, with simple stuff to try, so it's fun.  That was Evil's idea, and Hristo's generic setup above, makes a good starting point.  It's not really such scary stuff.  ;D

Well thank you Hristo for saving me some late night writing and editing  lol.   :-\ The articles that you have posted probably cover far more than I was trying to put together!!!  ::)  and I doubt whether my version would have been as good. LOL  ;)

I have just read the link   http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbarnett/SetupMatrix.html  and I recommend anyone wanting to play with setups reads it. It has been written to cover simracing in general and there are some obvious sections that DO NOT apply to GPL. However where it refers to parameters that do exist in GPL, it is probably exactly what I think you would want to know as a starting point.
Read it in conjunction with the 2 graphic pages that H posted ( http://www.jamesonline.net/images/gpl/suspension.jpg  &   http://www.jamesonline.net/images/gpl/drivetrain.jpg ) .

These guides do not tell you what you should do to create a setup that will knock 10 seconds off a World Record time, but highlight how adjusting a parameter should affect the way that the car behaves. Perhaps more importantly, it suggests which parameter is causing your current setup to do what you DO NOT WANT it to do and where to look to control it?

With any setup the biggest source of variables is with the nut holding the steering wheel. I'll leave you to work out how much you tighten that one .................... ;)

Ooh - I suppose that I should probably point out that the Setup Comparator at www.gplsc.net/gplsc/ (http://www.gplsc.net/gplsc/)  looks like a good way to compare a number of setups from different sources.

It's still all gibberish to me,  but even I have used this in the past.  Probably also handy if your custom naming has got rather cryptic/out of hand :)

Cheers,
Dave.

Good suggestion, keep them coming please. - WC

EDIT: Sorry that I posted this at a late hour. I forgot about the time difference.

Raising the ride height is something that I have actually done on several occasions when I am near the end of qually for a race and my attempts to create a setup have got to the point where only a 6 armed alien with a brain the size of a planet could possibly control the beast I have created.
Raising the ride height effectively softens everything and makes a twitchy setup less so. It is a trade off between ultimate response from the chassis and driveability ( is that a real word??).

As I have said before you will do quicker and more consistant lap times if you feel confidence in the car under you. So, if raising the ride height makes it more "user friendly" that is probably the way to go in the short term. Maybe returning to the original lower setting in some private development and adjusting things to make it work, because lower should = faster.

Bear in mind that some tracks will need a slightly higher ride height anyway to avoid bottoming out the suspension OR you will need to have much stiffer springs and bump rubbers to avoid some nasty moments.

A very good example is Brands 67.
This track is a great challenge with its altitude changes and sweeping curves, but many cars suffer at Dingle Dell or even at the entry to Hawthorn if you are really too soft.. If your setup is not right and you hit the depression just wrong at high speed, things go crazy very quickly!!!
The car will snap sideways uncontrollably usually resulting in a trip into the hedges or the start of a chain reaction of contacts should you be racing in close company. The frustrating thing about this is that it might not happen on every lap, or it is fine if you are running a light fuel load in qually. But 1st racing lap with a heavy tank of fuel and cold tyres catches you out big time.

Also if you set the front springs/dampers too low the car might bottom under braking which can also be spectacular  ;).
So maybe next time you find that you are losing control suddenly, think about what the track is doing just there and try a few adjustments?

Thank you Hristro for the suspension recommendations. So far so good. I did not see any advice for setting the front and rear ARB. I read in 4 wheel drift that a rule of thumb is to set the front ARB 10 pounds higher than the front spring rate (Imperial measurement). Then multiply the front ARB by 70% for the rear bar. Thanks, WC

Crikey!! someone who still has a copy of the original manual that came with the GPL CD.   :eek:

There are some useful tips in there, although I think the GPL aliens have uncovered ways of maximising performance way beyond that which the original game developers envisaged.

It's also available out there (along with the manual) for download in .pdf format.

I can probably find them and stick them on UKGPL3.