SimRacing.org.uk

GT Sprint Cup - Season 2, Round 6 at Spa

Date: Tuesday 17th January

Practice 1: 8:30pm (15 mins)
Qual 2: 8:45pm (28 mins)
Warmup: 9:13pm (2 mins)
Race: 9:15pm (40 mins)

Cars allowed: Any GT car or Corvette or Viper G2. (Seat Toledo is allowed but will not score points.)

Weather: Rain

Notes:
(1) Full time drivers should arrive during Practice 1 if possible. Reserve Drivers can take spots AFTER 8:40pm (5 mins to go in practice 1) to give Full Timers big enough chance to join.
(2) Server Password has been emailed to those registered racers for the relevant race. Please contact a member of the admin team to get the password if you are registered and have forgotten or not received the password. It will not be given out in the GTR chatroom as that is a public place. The password wont change for the season unless there are security concerns.
(3) See  UKGTR Sprint Season 2 Info (https://www.simracing.org.uk/index.php?ind=lm2&group=10) for general Season 2 info.
(4) Please make sure you are fully aware of the UKGTR Rules (https://www.simracing.org.uk/index.php?pid=7)

I'm gonna be doing some practice tonight, prob 7:30 to 8:30 ish, If anyone wishes to join me they're welcome, I'll run my own server is the main one isn't on Spa GT.

Fozz

i'll come for play for a bit

whats the pword Fozz to get in?

couldnt find you on lobby fozz. you use racemore?

Lol, I've only just put it up, PW will be default uk***prac

[update its stuck atm, will be up in < 5]
[update its up now, will be on after i finished reading what i missed on forum]

i cant find it

im just gonna do a reboot, got funky stuff going on.

Well I don't know whats going on, my routing is correct, but it was taking like 3 minutes to start either dedi server, and then even i could not join it, I've started a normal listen server, hopefully u guys can join/see it.

Fozz

Thanks for hosting the praccy server last night Fozz, learnt some useful tips from JonM too  :)

Just done a quick 20 minute race against the computer in (97%)the wet, started from last, the NGT cars are incredibly scarey, usually a GT car has an advantage everywhere to some degree, but in the wet, I'm no quicker round the corners, so you have to do it down the straights really. When I hit the tail end of the GT cars thats when the fun started, no straight line advantage, but I could still grab a little on entry to the corner and get the power down slightly earlier.

Ended up 9th with only outbraking myself once at Les Combes, and lapping in the 2:27's so I'm pretty happy. I'm sure I can make soft wets work too after that race. they are superb on lap2, and fade a little, but they don't seem to be getting worse, and the temps are stable.

Fozz

I'm competetive in UKGTR if I beat AI car on 110%, which I usually don't, that's why I'm not competetive in UKGTR.

 :o ??? ::) :-\

Looks like a Zen riddle  :D

I know i havent attended any races in GT this season due to several reasons, but whats with the racing in wet? is this for every race? tried to race in NGT race in wet which was a distaster. Damn was looking forward to Spa too.......

What compound and manufacturer of tyres is best for the type of wet race we are going to encounter? (i will be driving a Ferrari 550).

Any tips on wet weather set ups and driving technics (basic explaination/advice!)

Thx, Fly.

A wet Spa was a one off within the Sprint season to spice things up, the other races are all dry. Endurance was a different matter where each race's weather was randomly defined!

Don't know if I'll find any time to practise for this, could be interesting....

Should I use soft or hard wet tyres for this?

Well I'm usually light on tires and survived 20mins no probs, no fade, I was sliding around quite a bit too, as for 40 mins, I'm not sure, I'm gonna risk it.

I guess it depends on how hard you are on em.

Also I don't think they are "Soft" I think they are monsoon, ie a different tread, I'm recounting something Gizmo said ages ago, and is not necessarily remembered right tho  ???

Well I'm going for mediums on the back anyway. I did this last week and they lasted well but the softs on the front were starting to go causing understeer.
I wouldn't like to have to find out how difficult it would be to get 600 bhp down on worn softs in the rain  :o

Anyone talking laptimes yet ?  ;D

Not done any laps yet.. I can do a practice server tonight if anyone is interested? Well i'll put one up anyhow from about 7pm onwards.. maybe see you at there using patch 1.4 and usual ****fprac password.  :)

If I can make it I'll join thanks.
I had a quick go last night (couldn't get going in the GTL race) and I couldn't beat my NGT time LOL  :-[



..wont be online til about 9 bells, you racing the GTL later Rich?

No i'm not doing TC65 races, I like other classes.. TC65 bit sluggish for me.

I'll start server at 8pm.

Gonna try the GTL to see if my fps issues are sorted.
If your still around after I'll see you then, cheers

It's up using v1.5 and no password.. !

1.5?

I thought we were sticking with 1.4?

I'm looking at the race announcements for GT and NGT sprint, but there is no mention, what version?

Fozz

I copied 1.4 folder and installed 1.5 so I can run either..

Well I did a few laps and it was farkin rediculous.. too much oversteer, lot of short shifting, lot of power!! Didn't really put a good time in but got a setup to work on tomorrow. I'll do a server around 7pm tomorrow with 1.4 and usual password..

The league is running 1.4 for all GTR events. We will make sure everyone knows if/when that changes.

Yep it's tough alright. I tried to join last night but I dont have 1.5 installed.
Did a few laps offline but still couldn't beat the NGT time , too tired after work - commute - gtl

later.........

Did a bit of practice/testing last night, bloody hard work.
F550 : Forget it, nightmare in the wet, hats off to anyone who manages to be competetive in it.
Saleen : Easy to drive, 2:23 in race trim but tyres die after about 10 laps.
Lister : Again easy to drive in comparison to the 550, 2:24, less tyre wear than saleen.
So its a field of Listers for tonights race  ;)

Interesting stuff Greg, I've only tried the 550 and your right - it's insane :o

Nice times btw with the Saleen and Lister, you on soft or mediums or would that be telling ?  ;D

Not a problem mate, softs on the front and hards on the rear, I dont have an option for medium wets, do you ?

As for the times, well i'm hoping to be competetive but I fully expect a few guys to be 2 or 3 seconds faster.  My biggest danger is spinning off on the first 2 laps with cold tyres, really twitchy stuff.  After that the car seems ok until the tyres start to go off towards the end, need to be careful at this stage as you dont really get any warning before the rear lets go.
Should be an interesting race providing everyone survives the first lap.

No sorry I mean meant hards or normal or what ever its called in GTR. Anyway I'm trying the 550 with softs/monsoon on the front and hards/wet on the back.
Think I'll set my throttle sensitivity to 2% though  :D

dont suppose anyone has a wet set-up for the lister they could pm me?

Ive had about 15mins practice in 2 weeks :(

Well what a disaster, real basic error, smashed the front up and lost a wheel on lap 5, end of race.

Grats to Jon and all the guys who finished.

Bugger me that was slippy :(

Did a pb of 1.28.4 in qual, only 8secs behind JonM, so no chance there LOL

Started OK tbh, Fozz went straight on at the end of the 1st lap, so upto 11th, Mark Jonzon went off, upto 10th then FliBri spun, upto 9th, then Aagramn who I had been close to all race spun and I chose to do the right thing and spin with him ;)
Managed to get going again just behind him and MJ only to lose it a lap later at the top of the hill just after the pits.
Checked my pit crew and they said Aero damage, but I appeared to have lost a wheel :( limped round to the pits again, but then couldnt find my pit board to repair. BUGGERS.

Never mind, it was fun while it lasted.

Well I made one big mistake on lap 1, going straight on at La Source. Which put me down nearly last. After that I backed off slightly and just moved up the places with attrition and dodging stopped cars, quite hairy at times really, particularly as I'm not one to lift the throttle if I see a way through :-)

I thought I was going to finish 7th, but on the last lap I somehow was shown as 6th, which is pretty much my target finishing place for races. So I'm pretty chuffed.

Fozz

Amazing times Jon, and congrats on the win.

That was hard work. Haven't played GTR for ages, and found no time to practise. Wasn't too bad for most of the lap, but couldn't get the power down after the bus stop, cars were zooming away from me there. Didn't have a proper wet setup, might the suspension have been too stiff?

Didn't have many offs, but there was one nasty incident where I spun at the final hairpin and was left facing the wall on the exit, blocking the racing line. Autoclutch wouldn't let spin turn out of the way, and I had zero visibility. Think I got in the way of two or three cars trying to do a three-point turn, sorry about that.

That was bloody hard work...its not even 'fun' :(  

Still got a wet PB of 1:25 and qualied 6th or 7th ? so was happy with that. First few laps went well with me staying with the lead pack in tippy-toe convoy for about 5-6 laps then car just inexplicably decided to just slide off at the bus stop even though i could not have gone any slower thru it without stalling  >:(...put me nose against wall and couldnt move until everyone crept past.

Then fought me way back up as others did formation spinning in front  ;)  Had a great second half battle with aagram who was always hovering within a few seconds behind me as i struggled more and more with worn tyres. Then got two 'Tyres worn' warnings from my pit crew as car descended into 'ice racing' mode, spinning the wheels in every gear including 4th :o
I was really fighting the beast by last lap and aagramm closed right up on me again, i saw he was lining me up for a last go on the very last hairpin so took a defensive tight line and just out-dragged him to a photo finish  ;D
Tough work for a handfull of points to finish in 7th/8th?? :P

That wasn't as much fun as NGT last week, very low turnout again so was a bit lonely after Mo's chase of me ended :-[ 15 at race start, only 8 made it to the end. Was really hard work and there was something really up with the frame rate. Others said the same thing so wasn't just me. I normally have very high fps in GTR but it was down almost to 20-25 near the start and was making it really hard to drive, was having to be very careful. I checked the server afterwards and there weren't any rogue GTR servers running in the background or anything that I could see nasty so very odd as NGT was fine last week.

Qualified 2nd in my comeback GT Sprint race, 2 secs behind Jon, but pretty decent time, was pleased as hadn't practiced at all again. Took it easy in race, stayed with Jon for the first few laps as he warmed up his feathers, but no way to stay with him once those penguin wings were in full flap. Mo then chased me for a bit, but under no real threat (or were you being polite?  ;)), I seemed a lot faster through Eau Rouge and getting the power down much better than his F550 (the Lambo is still the best for that in the wet imho). Eventually Mo lost is somewhere (sorry cant remember where) and I poodled to the end (another 15 mins I think).

Only scares were really - had a sideways moment out of bus stop where I slammed on brakes and caught it sideways letting TT get to within 3 seconds. Also had a big moment through Eau Rouge where I kissed the barrier at the top with quite some vigor. That was one of those "end of race moments" if the god's had been against me.

Was fun watching the MarkJ and Aagramn last corner / start line battle and well done to Jon on the win!

Lol, forgot about our photo finish Mark. I knew the Saleen is bad for tyre wear, so was hoping to stay close enough to keep you under pressure. Saw you run a bit wide at the last corner and got alongside, but couldn't get the power down quickly enough. Well raced.

Great drive from pole to flag Jon congrats.

Tough but enjoyable race for me, enjoyed chasing Shark for the first half but fried my tyres trying to keep up.
After that it was all downhill and I ended up hitting my favorite wall at Eau Rouge - broken suspension race over.
Plenty of battling the ridicolous bouncing Ferrari handling along the way .....mmm starting to really dislike the Ferraris now  :-\

Thnks all see you next time

Replay and provisional results are available from the usual ;)

Agree with you, guys, hard work.  :-\

But rewarding! Qualed 5th, and gained two placed due to mistakes of Greg and then Mo. Tried to close on Shark, especially gained morale after his mistake, but I wasn't close enough, I realized I was just eating my tyres. Good decision, as last 4 laps were critical, was spinning all over the place. Fortunately had enough time to slowly let the 4th (Rich) come closer as the end of race was not far away. Finished 3rd, and happy, another two podiums for The Penguins!  ;D

Tried to drive fast after finish to pits, to test the remaining rubber - I was right, lol, tyres were at the very last layer, all four were spinning.  :)  Nevertheless, I'm satisfied I decided for soft/soft, wet 40 minutes in a Lambo can be done this way.

Grats, Jon, you're a good swimmer.  ;D

Found that really hard, slid off, fooked my suspension- end of race

"C'mon the Penguins"

I've notice this before Shark, especially before I upgraded my system.
I'd race the NGT race with excellent fps and arrive for the GT race only to find I could barely see it was so bad.
And the rain into the mix tonight and its a real CPU strain.
I cured it by limiting the number of sound samples to 8 (because there is more concurrent samples in GT than NGT) and setting VBStrategy=0 in the .plr file (something to do with weather dynamics and how system handles changes in clouds, weather etc, cant remember exactly)
Definitely made a big difference on my system and I had 40fps tonight on the grid with 6x AA



No chance m8, I couldn't catch you. Your right about the traction - the 550 is a joke, but you seemed to be struggling a bit too, some good catches there in Eau Rouge  8)
. The only part of the track I could have passed you was on the long straight but you had better traction from La Source and it tookall the way to Pouhon to catch back up. By the bus-stop we were nose to tail again each lap only for the same to happen alll over again.
In the end I locked up a brake and slid off, got stuck, burned the tyres and then it was a case of ice skaing as Mark says.

Ah the four wheel drive mod?

Fozz

Wasn't too bad tbh until the tyres went off. I wasn't quite full throttle in 1st/2nd out of La Source but almost (when the tyres were ok at the beginning). Glad I chose soft wets even if they were shagged at the end and like driving on ice. Hard wets would have been awful whole race I reckon.

Yeh Lambo on Softs was good.

It def has its good moment on lap 2-3 but doesn't seem to descend into a mush. Of course Shark is a little quicker than me tho :-)

It was a nice change to race in the wet. Well except for when I s**t myself at the bus stop, eau rouge and prolly every other corner on everylap  ;) Good result for the penguins, we got ourselves a shark sandwich too  :D

I was at my Grans, doing some painting  :o, Can't really say I'm sad I missed it tho TBH  ;D

How come a Penguin is faster than a Shark around a wet Spa?  ;)..........................

<picks up coat, walks away quickly>

Believe it or not... Penguins are quite fast in real life too, by which for me I mean the racing ie. TrueTom and JonM, for other more geared towards real life people I mean that in real life Penguins are quite fast as well...

Get it?  ??? ::) :o

Neither do I, but when I started to type this I'm sure it had a meaning, a goal and an end... LOL!

GG ZiPpers! Soz I missed it, fell asleep an hour before race or so, trying to mentally prepare me for the 'wetness'!  8)

T

Yep they sure were, I used Hard Hard and it was difficult.. even on the first few laps the eight cars infront slowly pulled away. But then I got some pace and slowly started catching Nikano [is that right, not sure]. Anyhow, he spun off as did four other cars to give me an easy fourth. I had only one spin so there was some grip but really not enough round the turns..

My car wasn't too great either, understeer on braking and lot of oversteer on exit.. so had to nurse that to the finish.

Surely, it is a glitch/bug within GTR that the tyres have such little grip in some instances, like low speed complete loss of traction or a set of wets not even lasting 40 minutes ? I have watched quite a few GT races and havent noticed cars having to change tyres every half hour just to get through the race !
Also, whilst i havent driven a GT car on slicks or wets, i dont believe that its right that the car has so little traction no matter how slowly you go through bus-stop or other slow speed turns...i was almost having to go walking pace through bus-stop and still the car lost complete grip and gave me 3 low speed spins, which i find infuriating when i have just wrestled the car around 2km laps of fast twisting turns without dropping it on any lap.
But then again, you alien types dont seem to be suffering the same thing so perhaps there is something fundamental in your setups that prevents the low speed loss of traction?...any pointers chaps? I find the GT3 the worse for this (slow speed spin) phenomenom.

ps,...is there a reason why you dont use 'changeable' weather in the championships as opposed to pure 'rain'? Surely changeable would be more appropriate for Spa where it can be raining one minute, dry the next or even raining on one part of the circuit only. Plus it could really mix the grids up ala F1 if it started raining/drying during a race.

There's a definite problem with low speed grip in GTR (or lack thereof). I don't think the fast guys will disagree with that but are  just better at driving around the flaw!

Low speed grip is a historical ISI thing I believe. Although I think the problem is quite small in GTR, I have nothing to compare it with really.

As for rain, if you set the weather to changable its totally random, the first Endurance race was destoyed by it, dry practice, dry qualify, dry warmup, monsoon race, no forecasts, no nothing, it just rained. This is IMHO very unrealistic, as I've never seen a race when they had to change to a wet setup in 30 seconds with no warning what-so-ever. Most people just banged wets on and prayed, I did, it destroyed my race.

In Endurance we use the dice method, its probably explained in the rules somewhere. Sprints run dry everwhere, except Spa.

As Fozz says in more eloquent fashion than me, yes the reason is that Changeable weather is a f***ing nonsense feature in GTR multiplayer. The dice are much more amusing to use than it anyway and although it doesn't change during the race it gives us a little variety in weather in endurance racing.  :)

Yes I think the low end grip is a bit funny in GTR, better in rFactor and GTL. There isn't too much of a secret in wet weather compared to dry, basically my setup changes for wet are:
1) Increase wing a notch or two to give more grip.
2) Increase both coast and power differentials a few notches to help keeps wheels spinning at same speed both braking and accelerating.
3) Increase ride height one notch.
4) Reduce gearing a little to cope with more wing, BUT, where 1st is very low in the first place, increase 1st gear so that it's nearer 2nd gear as you don't want a very short 1st gear in the wet. Luckily the Lambo's gears are set to start quite long anyway (if you're using the Lambo)
5) I believe making the car a little softer helps with more grip in the wet, but I don't tend to change the suspension just for wet as you risk losing the good general setup you might already have.
6) Decrease brake pressure. I usuall put it down to 90% for wet as it helps to make it harder to lock the wheels under braking.

Other than setup, it's common sense stuff really:
1) Use less throttle.
2) Only apply full throttle when the car is pointing in straight line.
3) Use less brake, if you hear or feel it lock under braking use "modulated braking" to get yourself out of going straight on.
4) Try to avoid the curbs they are slippery.
5) Drive more smoothly and slower than the dry.
6) Pack an umbrella and waterproofs.

As for Penguins being faster than Sharks, if you had a Shark chasing you you'd probably drive faster to stay away from thuse razor sharp teeth too!  :P ;D So you have to thank Team Shark for providing you with a reason to keep ahead!  8) :-*

Sharks can't chase me, I'm a land creature. Penguins look small, I think they should be quite kickable!

Fozz

I had an idea about weather a while ago that I totally forgot to share with you....

Instead of the dice, how about we use the actual weather conditions from the venue, say 5 mins befiore the server goes up, the Admins check weather.com (or whatever) and set the in-game weather to the real weather at the time.

This could add an extra layer of interest to the race as you'd have to check the weather conditions in the days coming up to the race to decide whether to practice in the wet or the dry! Or gamble on a last-minute change  ;D

Of course, there's a lot more potential weather conditions than 'dry' or 'raining' but I'm sure it would be fairly easy to sort out.

Pops

Interesting idea... I'll look into it. ;)

Yeah there is something funny about the low speed cornering but I'm not sure it's a flaw. Modern racecars are not just setup but actually designed for running in the dry.
If a designer makes a car that blows evryone away in the wet then you can be sure that they'll be left behind in the dry. It's a big hint to engineers when this happens and points them in the right direction - chassis  rigidity.
Too rigid and great in the dry but crap in the wet and vice versa.

Shark's response is excellent , very similar to what I did last night with the F575.
Other things to try are :

Most importantly imo are the anti-roll bars, reduce these to take the rigidity out of the car allowing it to dig in. This allows the camber and castor to vary slightly depending on load giving you more of a flat contact profile when in sharp bends.

Increasing the diff preload - makes the car more stable when not accelerating or decelerating, but when in the 'no peddles pushed' part of the corner like in La Source.
So if you find you're hovering (as if the car weighs nothing) in the middle of chicanes or hairpins then increase this.

Also increasing castor will get rid of that horrible mid corner washout understeer in the wet but doesn't really affect corner entry or exit.

Personal pref but I find that increasing the bump and spring settings improve braking and stability. Last night I ran the 575 on max slow bump (which is stupidly unrealistic) and notched up the spring also. This allows better braking and I was able to catch Shark's Lambo last night under braking which shoudln't have been possible in the Ferrari I think.


OK setup rant over


Good idea but would it mean that alot of the races would be wet at this time of year and all be dry during the summer?
It would be a bit like having a winter season as they do in various formulas.

Thanks for the input guys, but reading thru sharks 12 points, i did all of them !!

There was a couple of points mo raised that i didnt have, ie castor increase. Also the slow bump being maxed?..is that a good idea at Spa?...i actually lowered my bumps and rebounds to accomodate the kerbing thru eau rouge etc after some tips from JonM (Rain-meister)

Depends on driving style imo, just as in real life where two drivers in the same car and same team will have different setups
Softer bumps mean the car absorbs the kerb shock nice as the wheel hits the kerb and moves up and therefore does not upset the car balance too much.
Harder bumps makes the car jolt more from kerb shock and unsettles the car more.

You've also got to think about the landing back down off the kerbs bit though.
Softer bump means the ssupension gets compressed more on landing which can unsettle the car.
Harder bumps means that the suspension remains more static on landing and gives more stability.

Softer gives faster entry but slower exit (in teh 550 and GT3 anyway), and harder gives the opposite.

However the spring and rebound settings all come together with bump to give an overall effect so again for me I use stiff springs so need to increase bump accordingly.

Sadly the bump and rebound settings are not given in real pressure units in GTR. Does anyone know if these settings are time related or just an easy scale to remember or something?
Also, does anyone know if GTR auto selects a bump/spring and rebound/spring ratio when you change the springs? the physics are a bit wishy washy but it appears that it does not.


Anyway Jon's prolly the man to listen to on this as he clearly outclassed us all at Spa, although I screwed some decent laps out of the 575  after making the above changes.
I chose higher bump setting for braking not for kerbs btw.

The weather idea is really neat. Love the idea of checking the weather in the days preceding a race :)

I've always believed bump and rebound are according to time, but I can't remember if I read that somewhere, or its something I invented to get my head around how the settings effect the car.

Had spring set to Min. as always. Set bumps about the same but rebounds about 2-3 lower, diff power and coast set 20% lower brake balance down to 53f 47r the car seemed to take a balance set more to the rear in the wet which was good for braking further into bend. Thought it would slide the car round more but it seemed to suit the rainy conditions. I was suprised at the amount of grip on the curb sections, I really hammered it at places but the rears didn't spin like I was expecting. Don't know if that's a bug or not  ???

Hi Guys real world shocker valving is calibrated in what used to be redwood seconds  its some new fangled thing now. Basically the time a known quantity, of a known viscosity fluid ,of a known temperature takes to flow throuhg the valves. Last night F***k though I had a god set up for race half way round pace lap Mary(my step daughter) slipped and threww her dinner at me , straight in the barriers end of race . bye for now.geral;d

Lol Gerald, I'm always asked at some point if I want a cup of coffee, I've spun off once and scraped a wall once because of it, usually its OK tho :-)

Superb idea  8), all we need is a game that can replicate weather/grip good enough to feel realistic. :(

The joys of domestic racing.

Thanks for the clarification about shock resistance Gerald - GTR's measurements may be in redwood seconds that you mention.
Do the numbers make sense if that's the case?

Springs are measured in newtons/meter now but I'm not sure about dampers.

From http://www.carbibles.com/viscosity.html, we have some units measuring oil viscosity:

And here (http://www.kimble-kontes.com/html/Viscosity-254.html) we have more generic units:

Never mess with a man who can wield the awesome power of Google. :D

Some nice links too cheers  ;D

Question though (well off orig thread topic I know) : the redwood seconds and all the other units mentioned are all relating to the viscosity of the oil, how to measure and which units etc.

So now we know the oil in the shock has a certain thickness which can restrict/dampen its flow and the piston movement.
But there are different settings for bump and rebound (which both use the same oil) so there has to be a secondary measurement relating to the valve or blowhole pressures inside the chamber, to allow the oil to flow freer in one direction to the other.

I suspect that it is this that is adjustable in GTR rather than the actual viscosity of the oil, but cant find much online about it without getting to complex.
I obviously haven;t harnessed the awesome power of google yet  ;D

Hi The shocker valves are spring loaded, in some cases the springs being adjusted by a screw these have a ratcheting action that clicks. We would say set it on 2 clicks.Thats where the numbers come from I think. That would then relate to the more complex parameters the race engineers and designers work with. As you all know one can set the ride height with the rebound setting . A light spring in most cases cannot push the suspension up to its resting position with a high rebound setting, a point not missed by some race engineers. Car measured in pit lane passes over 1" CUBE , OUT ON TRACK BUMPS REDUCE RIDE HEIGHT(we now have better ground effects) , back in pit lane car rises up to 1" . To good to be true , set like this my car would spin like a top if it even smelled a kerb , keep it on the track lots of grip. This is how I killed the turner at Snetterton, on for a lap record time touched kerb at flat out kink , straight into barriers, body over armco ,etc etc.cheers gerald

Sounds not good Gerald, glad your still here!

Gerald,
         Can you now explain all that in laymans terms  ;D

Seriously though I really struggle with suspension setups and as we're now teamies any advice or guidence would be greatly appreciated

Cheers Gerald that would make sense alright, so ratcheting up the valve a couple of clicks creates more resistance in the cylinder, which is the same in GTR.

Sounds like a serious accident Gerald glad you've still got the racing spirit.
The turner's a very small light car isn't it?

1=short time 10=long time.

So a 1,1 setup will move up into the bodywork quickly and return to its natural height quickly, a 10,10 will move up slowly, and to its natural height slowly.

If you had 1 bump, and 10 rebound the wheel will move into the body work fast, but will return to its natural height slowly. so if your thinking of a curb, it'll move the body of the car a small amount on the way over the curb, but may not be recovered for the trip back to the road, although it will not bounce as once its on the road, it will not excert much force thus not pushing the car into the air again, if you were to hit a second curb very soon after tho, you'd have no suspension left to deal with it... This is the way I go at Enna (my take is that Enna has no corners at all, only curbs with kinks), combined with very high power diffs, really sorts out the landing and bouncing of the car.

Generally set up the bump first and then tune the rebound afterwards.

The ratio of bump:rebound in reallife racecars is about 1:3 or 1:4
This is a fairly constant ratio and does not change from track to track, even though the actual bump value wil be different at each track.

Dont really know how realistic GTR is in this area though.

Sorry Mo, don't quite understand what you mean by "the ratio"  :-[

That implies (to me) that the rebound setting is always larger than the bump setting by a factor of 3-4  ???

I'm sure that's not what you were saying though!

I'm sure that's what he was saying.

Its time based remember :-)

Well I think that's what I'm saying LOL
I think the scales in GTR only allow for a 2:1 ratio (from memory) when both bump and rebound are at max so the 4:1 ratio may be extreme and apply only to ovals.
The greater the ratio the more oversteer at corner entry and exit (handy entering turn 1 at eg Michigan where the turn in speed is about 230mph!!!!)
I do however run the car often with max rebound and bump at about 6  -- a 3:1 ratio more or less.

You can melt your brains here

http://www.smithees-racetech.com.au/theory/shocktune.html

and if the heasdache hasn't got too bad check this too

http://www.smithees-racetech.com.au/theory/shocktune1.html

OK, I clearly had NO idea what you were talking about  :D

If rebound and bump are both at 6, how is that a 3:1 ratio, surely that's 1:1 ???

running the car at max rebound (which is 18 I think) and bump at 6.............

3:1

Now I'm confused again. Surely it would give oversteer or understeer only if the ends (front & back) of the car were set up as opposites?

mo your swapping your numbers around,



Which makes it hard to read.

bump of 3, rebound of 9 = 1:3
rebound of 9, bump of 3 = 3:1

Lol

Anyway Rebound is always bigger, at least I cannot think of a reason why it should not be.

Fozz

Thanks for your patience Fozz & Mo, I understand what you were saying now  ;D

I'm definately lacking in any understanding of this stuff!

Yeah not clearly written sorry, you're absolutely correct Dave - I was only thinking about the rear of car.
Any adjustments to all four wheels should retain the car balance, increasing the rear will cause oversteer at corner entry and exit.
Increasing the front will cause the opposite.



I'm not trying to make it confusing - it just is LOL, but yep its the other way round as you point out :)

I remember from somewhere that the ratio should allways be at least 1:2 and I was really confused with Sharks setups where bump was sometimes of higher value than the rebound...

But I don't know much about this and so I google setups and try them all to find which one suits me best. I then fuddle with it until the car behaves as I want it, though that's not allways the fastest setup, but I try to make it stable (for me) at the highest available speed (for me). With this I at least (mostly) finish my races now.  :D

The dampers are in clicks but 1 for bump is not same as 1 for rebound. You know this already right?

Look in .plr and find this line...

Damper Units="0" // Show damper settings as (0)clicks or (1)actual force units

Set to 1 gives actual n/m/s newton's per meter per second I assume. So if it's set to 4000 n/m/s then the damper when under a load of 4000 newtons, would move one meter [if it was allowed to move a meter but of course it isn't] in exactly one second. So they are purely all about, weight, distance and time..

This probably why you find some guys using 5 for bump and 1 for rebound cause in actual force units rebound is still higher than bump, so it's a much norrower ratio 1:1.5 or something. This ratio is important, I tend to think of it as launchieness vs bunny hoppyness lol. You can either launch a car over a bump or curb and hope it lands ok but it usually won't because tyres lift more easily off track. Or you can bunny hop over it and weight longer for car to settle but at least tyres stay on track better. What you say mo about before and after is very good, I think about that one more..

For this strange lack of low speed grip. This is very difficult to judge especially in 911 RSR cause the rear is heavy and tends to be a bit sluggish so once it does something it takes a while to get it to change again. The brakes change the balance of the car the most at lower speed because there is less forward momentum, so as you get further into braking zone the cars balance will change more and more quickly. And it's same for accelerating, low speed acceleration disturbs balance more easily than when accelerating at a higher speed - so the slowest part of the track is where things will be most difficult.

What can happen is the front dips too far and the rear gets very light. It's no problem the rear going light braking in a straight line but as soon as you want to turn rear will want to overtake front and also the engine revs will drop more quickly because the rear tyres have very little resistance. So many things going on it's not easy knowing what actually happening!!
 
An increased rear slow rebound will keep the tyres closer to the chasis on braking. This means that the chasis requires more 'upward' weight before the rear tyres lift off the track. So stiffer rebound keeps weight on the rear therefore keeping tyres on track for longer. But what then can happen is very sudden loss of weight, there's more weight for longer but also it will go more suddenly. A softer slow rear rebound allows chasis to rise in relation to tyres and so keeps the tyres on the track better and is less likely to lift tyres off track but there is less overall weight because the chasis is more in the air as opposed to on the tyre.

Also stiffening front slow dampers or springs can help keep the rear down under braking!! It's good idea to make setup for slowest turn.. so then I know if I can brake hard and confidently into slowest turn, all other turns it's only matter of figuring out braking points and handling. But if I get good handling and grip through slowest turn it gives me good confidence for all other turns.

Excellent Rich!!!

Very good explanation of things there

Good stuff Rich -  think I';ll try setting that in the .plr file :)