UKGTR Season 10 Upper Endurance - Road America (Full) - Sep 20

[goldtop]

No GTC times yet so to start the ball rolling: mid 2:13s in race trim. Z4 feels nice and quick, but I found getting the optimal gear settings tricky.

I reckon it should be a good car/track mix here, with plenty of long drags for the GT1 guys to make passes without GTCs having to compromise.

Another one to add to my growing list of favourite tracks

[ginsters sponsored]

I think it's gonna dominate in the good hands, i.e. driven by sbg for example

So, no pressure then  Hopefully we get same the same four/five, more would be welcome, on the same pace cause last time out was a cracker. Like the track, especially seat of pants fast right handers.

The road is very spangly on some areas of this track for me, just before T2 especially. Its a little offputting so is there anyways to tone it down?

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

I'm doing a rain dance!

And, no, you can't have a video!

[Jure]

The road is very spangly on some areas of this track for me, just before T2 especially. Its a little offputting so is there anyways to tone it down?

I find having a car 0,5mm above minimum height (front, rear 1,5 above minimum) + front 0.6 and rear 1.3-1.4 packers do the trick. A bit higher car also helps in attacking the curbs, minimum height is too risky, front end bites the curb and into the gravel you go. T2 - my bet is (check telemetry) u're scraping the floor with the front part of the car, not the rear.

[Legzy]

+ front 0.6 and rear 1.3-1.4 packers do the trick.

What does a 'packer' do? I always have it set at the default minimum (or one click above that), as I have no idea what effect it has on the car?

[Jure]

The faster you go the more springs compress.
Sooner or later car starts to bottom out.
Packer's a rubbery thingie put on top of the spring, preventing it to compress to the max (actually, spring can still compress to the max, but ride height isn't compromised since packer can't be compressed and that ensures desired minimal ride height).

Keep in mind once you're riding on packers springs aren't doing their job anymore (since they're compressed to the max) and that makes the car ride on (very hard) packer itself. What you want is the least amount of packers possible. Ah the joys of compromise.

Car on packers= twitchy car to say the least - you'll recognize it in a following situation: you enter a very fast corner, start accelerating and once you reach the speed where spring compresses to the max packers kick in. That's when your front end (or rear, depends where the spring reached its limit) tends to suddenly snap/lose grip. Reason is simple - you went from a soft sprung (springs) to very hard sprung car (packers).

Effect is much more noticeable in F1 racing (where aero downforce does it job much more thoroughly than on this washing machines of ours).

Also: the lighter you are the less you need them (obviously), so you can ignore sparks from under your car if they only happen for first few laps only - before you burn enough fuel.

Anyway, you do not want to bottom out, especially under braking (front packers, soft springs, heavy load on full fuel, for instance. T2 @ Road America). Same goes for climb towards S/F straight, there's two two bottom-out parts right there (mostly on the left IIRC).

[Legzy]

If I felt my car was bottoming out, I always just raised the ride height. So would putting packers in be better/same/worse?

(& thanks )

[Jure]

If I felt my car was bottoming out, I always just raised the ride height. So would putting packers in be better/same/worse?

(& thanks )

Well... depends. Welcome to the world of trial&error. 

In principle you want to ride as low as possible, hence the packers. Fast moving air below your car is where the grip comes from (at high speeds), packers prevent scraping the floor.

But packers will ruin your day on very high speed corners (they're too hard and you'll bounce off the track if it's bumpy).

Being too low (packers or no packers) will result in plowing into kerbs and that's a no-no.

You can also use them if telemetry shows your car gets too low at the rear end while in 6th gear. Rear end must ALWAYS stay higher than the front end, if not - think if u ever got a feeling you're riding a powerboat down the straight in Monza - steering becomes very light and lazy - that's when front end was in effect higher than the rear. Big no-no. Slows you down to begin with (car's gulping air at the front end) and, more importantly, completely ruins the balance of the car (especially when u eventually slow down and front end bites again).


Black art, this setup stuff. I love it.

[Legzy]

A few of us starting to gather on the server...


Got down to 2:14.0, but a 13.2 or better is just sat waiting for me 

[goldtop]

The road is very spangly on some areas of this track for me, just before T2 especially. Its a little offputting so is there anyways to tone it down?

I have a cure for this. I think we used it at Zandvoort in GTL or something similar. Anyway, it worked for me. Just unzip to your Roadamerica folder.

http://www.nogripracing.com/forum/showthread.php?t=157810&highlight=sparkly

It's the nosparky zip

[Mark J]

what times are you fast gt1 boys doing?

i managed 2:01s and 2':02s with race fuel and meds...any good ?  JonM was my only other benchmark on the server...yeah right! Not sure if he was on qual or race fuel ?

Hope to make this one after a several week lay off from GTR2. Will probably be driving the splendid looking Legends Maserati 

[Stewprovo]

Well, after some set-up genius from SBG, I'm now happily into the low 2:02's in race trim, so I'm happy with that, should be a fun mid pack battle for me, just been online with Gazza, and he's running low 2:01's!!! Nice tracl though.

[lazlow]

Managed to get my time down to a 2:09.3 in the Z4

[Stewprovo]

Yay!!! Low 2:01's in race set-up, looking forward to a possible top 10 tomorrow.

[JonM_uk]

Hoping for race pace of 1-59 to 2-00's and 1-57 something for qually