HI Badblood, i'm please it's not just me wondering how the fast lads do 2-09's, like you I am struggling to get into2-11's. It's a puzzle 'cos there's not that many corners to lose 2/3 second on!!
Do you think it is a setup problem ? if so anyone got a good one for both cars, as I don't know which car I will be driving(if at all).
cheers David
If you are doing 2:11's at Watkins you need to worry! I think (I HOPE) you mean 1:11. It is almost certainly a combination of setup and skill. Until I changed my setup I couldn't get below 1:13 - mostly that was setting the gears and then equalising the tyre temps. It is the only circuit where I have really played around with it. Most of the time though comes from the superior skill in carrying speed. You lose a little time in the corners but because the exit speed is higher they are faster all the way down the straight. Try braking earlier and aim to accelerate from the apex. Although it seems odd, braking earlier speeds you up. And make sure you let the gas go completely while braking - made a big difference to me.
The guys always tell me to use higher gears but I find I lose too many revs.
Good luck and get on to UKGPL3 for a bit of praccy...
One thing that I have not seen mentioned about setups and gearing ( although I suspect that someone has somewhere, and I missed it!) is the setup page on GEM. This offers some extra information and some additional setup variables not available within the GPL setup screen.
It gives you all the same parameters that you get within GPL except they are all on one page so there is no flicking between suspension and gearing. Plus there are more diff ratios available allowing you to find something between 85/45 and 60/45 if you think that only a small change is needed and when you get more confident with setups there are "fine adjust" options too.
BUT, Something that is very useful when it comes to sorting out revs and gear ratios are the graphs for TORQUE and HORSEPOWER.
I guess you will have experienced that moment when you take a slow corner and find that the car just refuses to accelerate for about 30 minutes because the engine revs have dropped out of the "power band". This little graph shows you how wide that optimum area is for your chosen car and helps decide how wide your ratio spacings can be.
The Porsche in GT's has an almost flat torque curve which is why it can pull away from corners in almost any gear without losing pace, whereas something like the 65 Honda needs the gearing to be just right or else nothing happens.
The HORSEPOWER curve has to be treated with a little caution I find. Although we want to use the maximum horsepower available by wringing the neck of the engine at max revs, we have to be aware that some engines will not survive at those RPM's....like the Honda! Although the graph indicates that it will rev to about 14K, max Torque is available at around only 12K-12.5K. We want the engine to be somewhere just below the max torque revs( maybe 10.5K-11K) as we prepare to exit a corner.
That way, the engine will deliver the most grunt (=acceleration) as we floor the gas leaving the corner but, if we try to extract all the available power by revving to 14K the life of the engine will be very short. So setting a rev limit of around 12.5K on the 65 Honda by adjusting gear ratios to hit that figure at the end of the longest straight, means we use the grunt of the engine rather than the ultimate revs to get us to the chequered flag.
Remember to save any setup changes to the correct DRIVER/TRACK directory. It takes a little getting used to after the standard Pappy setup sheet but you might find playing with options instructive.
