SimRacing School

[Blunder]

I have been meaning to start this type of post for a while but as it has come up again in the Tuesday post then thought I'd start a seperate one...

Prompted by amoungst others this....

Regarding setups...  The likes of Mr Kerr and Mr Richards will always be top 5.  Forcing them to share their set ups is NOT going to help the rest of us.  Loose equals fast, and only they have the skills to get the most out of such set ups.

Unfortunately there is no instant fix/set up that will turn a slow driver into a fast one.  For people to improve they need practise. They need to learn to adapt the balance of the car to suit their own driving style, not try to change their driving style to suit the setup of a faster driver.

If anyone needs help to set up a car, just ask...  There are plenty of knowledgeable people here that can help.

Ok, so on to my points...  

Been racing here for 4 years now... I know I'm slow! Sometimes though lack of practice but mainly lack of talent but also lack of knowledge ....
I was laughing with Picnic on teamspeak this week and apparently he has been slow for 11 years...

So what I would like to suggest / bounce off you guys is some way to give slower drivers like myself a clue how to drive particular car/track combinations..

Set up points...
Set up training - I got this from Legzy and although I am still not good at it, I at least understand some of the principles.... some!
Give me a fast set up and I will still be slow! I know that!
Paul T brought it home to me resently, after season 4 he now knows how to set up the Radical etc. that is obviously down to hardwork and fair play to you Paul.
I on the other hand have just begged borrowed and modified it 'in a fashion' and still have no clue!

What might be helpful for me and other 'normal' folks would be guidance such as....
Radical: keep spring pressures front and back similiar, don't go extreme on antii roll bar set up, softer set up will help it do this... use the ride heights to fine tune...
See what I mean... just help me with a starting point and an understanding of what type of car it is...

Could also add a little of, slow in fast out with this one, need to be very smooth, turn in off the power if possible!?

Car/track combo's...
I also find that an odd comment off Oily, for example, has helped me hugely.. such as, need to get a good exit to turn 4 to get a good laptime... attack turn 7 again will help!?

Hope this makes some sort of sense... good idea?

[Fred Basset]

Martin, I think its an excellent idea. If it helps to give us all better racing then I'm all for it.

Have you tried Mu and Motec that would be useful too to compare your traces to others.

Regards
Gary

[Paul Thurston]

Very good idea Martin.

For the Glen I actually used Gary's which is diametrically opposed to my usual setups but it's a funny track.  I actually regret not using mine in the race though but I'd run out of development time and I was quicker with Gary's.

I wrote a a post in one of the earlier race threads detailing my basic setup philosophy on the Rad but can't remember which one it was in now.  There are a couple of places to start though.

Firstly, before you do anything else read the iRacing setup guide in the resources section, it's actually very good.  In it there are some useful cheat sheets which tell you what should happen if you change each parameter.

Secondly try and understand the car.  As soon as the decision was made to move to the radical I started to learn about it.  I downloaded the user manual from the Radical site which has basic setup details and tried applying them to the iRacing version.

I noticed a couple of oddities, like the absence of the standard 400lb front springs so I emailed support and got a reply from Shannon explaining they'd missed them because the US drivers use stiffer springs because of the bumpier tracks.  They added them in the next update.  Other things were the way they measure the ride height is different from real life and the iRacing damper model is simplified.  Most of this wasn't greatly useful but it was great for familiarisation and to understand how the car is put together and where the iRacing model is limited.

The basic setup I developed for Philip Island has pretty much lasted me all season with minor tweaks.  The tyre damping change in the the last update brought the car to me a little which is why I was quick at Brands.

My determination to stay close to realistic settings does hurt my pace, with Gary's Glen setup I immediately went 3 tenths quicker.  I find mine more stable though and I can drive it all day.  I can brake, turn and power out without worrying it'll bite me.  Yes, I still crash but they've been pilot error rather than because of an unstable car.

I'll try and do a little write up with explanations of how I got to the various settings.  It'll probably take me a couple of days though.

Paul

[Darren Seal]

I'm probably not the best qualified to give advice here, but as you quoted me in your post, here goes....

This may sound obvious, but know the track you are racing.  Study the track map.  Any corner that leads onto a long straight is important, because a decent exit will gain you the most time.  Prioritise the corners based on the length of the following straight; the longer the straight the higher it's importance.  Like anything in life setting up a car is all about compromise.  You won't be able to set up a car to suit all corners.  However, if you concentrate on only the most important corners and then spend most of your time tweaking your set up for them, you will be able to gain more time, faster.  

To achieve the best possible exit speeds you need to rotate the car as quickly as possible, so that you can get back on the power as early as possible.  To help achieve this goal you will need to find the right balance between oversteer and understeer that will provide good rotation, but at the same time won't try to kill you.

Some people tweak the ARBs and Springs to do this.  Take the Radical as an example....  The standard alien set up is soft front ARB with a firm rear ARB.  The springs are also a lot firmer at the back of the car.  I'm not knocking this approach.  If you are skilled enough to handle such a pointy, oversteering set up, then go for it.  It's proven to be fast!

I personally prefer a more neutral handling car where both ARBs are set the same (Radical - both ARBs set to Medium).  I tend to choose stiffer ARBs and then run the springs as soft as possible to try to give me maximum mechanical grip.  I then adjust the dampers, ride heights and tyre pressures to achieve the rotation that I'm looking for.

Generally speaking, stiffer rear dampers, higher rear ride heights and firmer rear tyre pressures will all help the car to rotate better.  But like everything else, too much can have a negative effect.  When adjusting settings like these, always concentrate one one setting at a time and only make small adjustments each time.  If no obvious improvement is felt revert back to the previous setting and then move on to something else.

I'm sure there will be many here that will disagree with the above.  Therefore I'll wait to see what the initial responses are like before posting any further advice.

[Fred Basset]

Martin,  I'll start from a different place than Darren and Paul although the advice they have given is very good.

To me the first place to start with your setups is your physical hardware. How do you setup your wheel and pedals, rotation, ffb settings both in sim and in the control panel and do you short calibrate your throttle and brake. Also what sort of brake do you use, pot or loadcell?

Regards
Gary

[Kerr]

As I posted the other night in another thread, it's amazing how different the opinion of drivers can be with iRacing.

Simon thinks that FFB does not connect with him, yet I'd say it's one of the finest features of iRacing. How can there be such a contrasting opinion?

As for setups helping, this is a tough one. I'm sure everyone downloads setups to see if they are any good as it's one of the top guy that has posted it. Like me you often find these setups are completely undriveable for more than a few laps. Really loose and very on edge.

My own personal setups vary. Certain cars like the Star Mazda don't have many setup options and it's usually easy to tweek the setup when you know the problem. Cars like the F1 the setup options are a huge and often I just try things to see how the car changes before getting to an end product. I'm not sure how to tackle problems as yet.

Again often it's difficult to call how another driver is dropping time. Usually they brake earlier with less force, carry less speed and don't get the power down as early as they could through a corner.

It really is a case of putting the laps in and pushing yourself. I usually find that when I'm practicing I get faster and faster although I never feel I'm doing much different.

[Ken Murray]

Usually they brake earlier with less force, carry less speed and don't get the power down as early as they could through a corner.

You mean they are just slow everywhere Brian!!

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Again often it's difficult to call how another driver is dropping time. Usually they brake later with more force, carry less speed and don't get the power down as early as they could through a corner.

Fixed that for ya.

Fast in slow out is alive and well in the simracing world.

[Paul968]

Fast in slow out is alive and well in the simracing world.

 

[Kerr]

Again often it's difficult to call how another driver is dropping time. Usually they brake later with more force, carry less speed and don't get the power down as early as they could through a corner.

Fixed that for ya.

Fast in slow out is alive and well in the simracing world.

Many drivers especially in the faster cars like Indy car, F1 and even the Mazda get on the brakes too soon and don't apply enough presure as they are afraid to lock up.

It means they are off the power too early and drop time. They could brake later and harder to get their speed down to the correct entry speed.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Many drivers especially in the faster cars like Indy car, F1 and even the Mazda get on the brakes too soon and don't apply enough presure as they are afraid to lock up.

It means they are off the power too early and drop time. They could brake later and harder to get their speed down to the correct entry speed.

Whilst I don't disagree, a lot of the slower drivers (as in, even slower than me) would be better served by getting their corner exists sorted out before trying to improve their braking. You don't gain much time on the brakes, you gain shed loads by being on the throttle early. Early and soft braking only loses you time for the short braking phase; late throttle application loses you time all the way down the following straight.

[Brendan]

I'm one of those who tends to 'beg, steal and borrow' when it comes to setups, and only make minor adjustments to suit my style.  Building a setup from the ground up proves too time consuming and I get lost very easily.  Simple adjustments such as roll bars and tyre pressures can make a significant difference to how the car behaves.

For me, the best way to get quick (relatively speaking) is practice, practice and more practice.  Only then will you begin to understand the nuances of a track and how to adjust your setup/style to suit.  My best performances have come when I've put in a lot of track time in the preceding days, and so when I hop on the server on race day, I'm already within my best times straight away.  The PBs then usually come in qualifying as the adrenaline kicks in.  Take this season in the Mazda for example, at Barber I was very close to Brian because I'd done a lot of practice ie > 150 laps.  At Road Atlanta (a similarly undulating circuit) I was miles off the pace because I only starting preparing the previous day.

For me, practicing on race fuel allows me to find my race pace and then dropping the fuel down brings the confidence to push the car and the satisfaction of seeing your sector times drop.  On that subject, I've found that if I run the splits on 'optimal sector' rather than 'optimal lap', I can better judge where time is lost or gained.

As I said earlier, I won't pretend to be some sort of set-up guru, I'm more of a get-in-and-drive type of guy, but you can get a much clearer picture of what works for you by putting in the laps, and lots of them.

[mr_oily]

if I run the splits on 'optimal sector' rather than 'optimal lap', I can better judge where time is lost or gained.

So much great advice in this thread, thanks a million guys - we should have done this a lot sooner! Even the stuff I've heard before is really useful to read again and I'll be back to re-read no doubt.

Great little nugget about optimum sectors there Brendan - suddenly that info becomes useful instead of just frustrating!

I don't think I can add much value but one thing I will say is that it would be great to have some kind of shared folder (www.dropbox.com) for Motec logs as having Gary kindly let me take a peep at his helped quite a bit at Watkins - our braking patterns were night and day!

[Fred Basset]

It was no trouble James.

I have to agree with the slow in fast out comments here, whilst acknowledging Brian's comments too. The single biggest thing I've changed since I started racing with you guys last year was the braking I now do it much early and make absolutely certain I don't compromise the corner by going in too hard. I knew all of this from reading many books but I'd clearly never got it anywhere near right.

Reiterating Brendan's point I've learned to stick with a setup and practice to get better rather than thinking a new setup will make me quicker.

Regards
Gary

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

For me, the best way to get quick (relatively speaking) is practice, practice and more practice.  Only then will you begin to understand the nuances of a track and how to adjust your setup/style to suit.  My best performances have come when I've put in a lot of track time in the preceding days, and so when I hop on the server on race day, I'm already within my best times straight away.

On a related note, don't practice to boredom. Do half an hour - or until you stop gaining time consistently - and then take a break for at least that long; let your subconcious absorb what you've learned, and let your concentration levels recover.