Setup Questions

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by green serpent, Jan 16, 2017.

  1. green serpent

    green serpent Registered

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    Hi all!

    I'd like to get some opinions on the way I've been tweaking car set up. I'll jump straight into it, sorry if it seems a bit scattered, these things can be hard to explain!

    I've been doing loads of testing/hot lapping with the formula ford and formula bmw lately, and one thing I've noticed with the default setups, is that they run too much camber imo. (ISI and 397 cars also seem to have too much camber for my liking).

    With the 3.5° default front camber, when I corner hard, the outside of the tire is completely cold on the tire overlay. Even after a few laps, the outside of the tire is still cold. The car feels very under-steery and nervous, and I'm not able to push the car very hard at all without the front breaking away. Even after dozens of laps, I can't manage to get anywhere close to my PB lap times.

    So what I've been doing as far as setup goes, is keeping a very close eye on the tire overlay during hard cornering, and continually tweaking camber/tire pressure/spring rate etc, until the front and rear tire appear to be heating up evenly mid corner (inside of tire/middle of tire/outside of tire). I am only looking at the side of the car that is loaded up, not all four tires. I'm not exiting to the pits and looking at temps, I'm looking at the color of the tire overlay in real time. Ideally the entire tire from left to right should become pink at roughly the same time through a corner (wheres with default the inside/mid would be pink, and outside still blue/purple).

    The more I fine tweak the temps to get them even across the loaded up tire mid corner (and therefore I assume maximize contact patch), the more grip I'm gaining. After making these adjustments, the difference to me is night and day. I can push the car very hard, there seems to be loads of grip, and lap times are much faster.

    Thanks for reading this far... on to some questions!

    1. In my opinion too much camber (i.e around 3.5°), makes cars very hard to handle and quite slow. Almost annoyingly so. By dropping the camber and making adjustments to maximizing contact patch, the cars handle great and feel amazing. So why are so many cars in rf2 set at a high camber by default? Does anyone actually use this much camber and have success with it? Would it make more sense for mods to have a grippy default set up, so newbies who don't bother with set up aren't turned off by overly difficult handling?

    2. Is the way I'm adjusting the setup using the tire overlay common knowledge? I was considering making a tutorial video about it (it was quite the ah-ha moment for me, and seems to work well), but I don't really want to waste my time if I'm just stating the obvious. Is there something I'm missing or a better/easier way to optimize mid corner contact patch?

    3. If you feel like giving the above method a go, it'd be great to get some feedback as to what you think. I've been running the formula BMW at mid ohio, and with default set up (i.e high camber), I couldn't get better than a 1.27. Just by observing the tire overlay and trying to even out the heat, I was able to get a 1.25 fairly quickly (I'm sure there is loads more time to be gained too).

    Cheers everyone,

    Nick.
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2017
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  2. Comante

    Comante Registered

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    Many default setups are not so "racey", having the car understeering is a good way to let inexperienced people try an unknown car and not have it spin at every turn. I too like more "direct" front, but usually I just make some swift adjustment. Another thing to consider, is if you drive the car how it is supposed to be driven.
     
  3. MikeeCZ

    MikeeCZ Registered

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    Well, there are few presumptions that need clarifying.
    The tyre should not have equal temps.. at almost any time.. Because on straights you basically ride just the inners, you use the inners to brake and accelerate and the outters are basically exclusively for turning, outters will always have lower wear and also temps. That is how it is in real life too. That said it is indeed common for the cars to come with too high camber.. the reason is (to my knowledge) that that is how the cars race in real life, but rF2s tyre model is still not absolutely perfected and the tyres tend to require lower cambers to compensate for it. But dont take my word for it i only THINK thats what it is.
    Probably good idea would be to have a sterile absolutely flat piece of tarmac, and see how many Gs are you pulling using which camber.. as you said your goal is to have the largest contact patch possible whilst cornering.. but the problem is that it differers with speed, wether you are coasting or powering, with setup (weight transfer) etc .. So there is no perfect camber for every corner. Also Toe affects this beacuse of slip angle and of course your steering input aswell. Also bear in mind that higher the caster, the higher the camber when steeering lock is applied. So another thing that changes that. Also Ride height changes camber, so again setup and weight transfer will affect this. There are just too many situations, and your perfect setup is not perfect at any of them, but the best overally.

    I personally also use the little tyre temp HUD, i dont dig into it more. I like to think that my driving is rather tyre friendly, majority of my races i tend to finish with one of the lowest tyre wears in the field so I guess it must be.
     
  4. Emery

    Emery Registered

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    Count me as one of the "clan of less camber". I usually test with the skidpad for static condition and then end up going a notch more negative under dynamic conditions.
     
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  5. Lgel

    Lgel Registered

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    To make a car beginner friendly, the last thing I would do is to put too much camber (it requires advanced knowledge to get it right again), I would stiffen front ARB, front springs and dampers, lower rear ARB, advance brake balance, reduce brake strength, put a higher rear wing value than absolutly necesary, and too much diferential on coast and power.

    Cheers.
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2017
  6. Lgel

    Lgel Registered

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    I agree with your post entirely, I would just insist on the fact that you don't exit of a taxing long curve, with surface temp of outer rubber half of inner, as it is the case on many cars on default setup (which is close to what real teams use on their cars).

    Cheers.
     
  7. Ronnie

    Ronnie Registered

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    Hit me on priv so we can talk it out on skype or other means of communication. :)
     
  8. patchedupdemon

    patchedupdemon Registered

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    Where is this skid pad that is mentioned,sorry for the dumb question but I'm still very much a noob
     
  9. green serpent

    green serpent Registered

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    I appreciate the responses! I realize that camber is very complex, and dynamic camber can change dramatically due to speed, type of corner etc etc. I guess my goal here is to find a kind of 'short cut' to getting approximately the correct camber/car setup quickly.

    My assumption is "even temps across the tire during corner results in maximum contact patch and grip". That is all it is - an assumption. I might put it to the test at the skid pad - try to even out the temps across the tire during steady cornering, and see what the g-forces are telling me. Does anyone know of a plug-in that displays G force in real time?

    Cheers!
     
  10. green serpent

    green serpent Registered

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    Thanks for the offer, however I don't own a skype!
     
  11. Ronnie

    Ronnie Registered

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    What do you own, then? ;)
     
  12. boblevieux

    boblevieux Registered

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  13. Boldaussie

    Boldaussie Registered

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    How is tyre temp/grip/wear over 20 or more laps in comparison with default setup? What is the average lap time over that period, same criteria?
    Core temps will rise over a more extended period leading to more grip and/or overheating. Many tyres on mods ( vehicle and track mod dependent and track temp ) fail to get to temp easily which may also be clouding perception....some don't get grip until they have 5- 10% wear...... many don't lose the grip they should when they massively overheat, just saying.
     
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  14. patchedupdemon

    patchedupdemon Registered

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  15. green serpent

    green serpent Registered

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    Honestly I don't really know, as I've only been doing hot lapping while doing the testing (I struggle to do longer race distances due to some old injuries.) I've done many hundreds of laps in the formula ford (in about 5 lap stints) at Oulton Park International, and I was unable to get remotely close to my PB with default high camber set up. Default set up: 1:49s. Low camber (0.2°): 1:47s
     
  16. green serpent

    green serpent Registered

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    I own a facebook, but that's about it.
     
  17. Ronnie

    Ronnie Registered

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    Good enough for me. Send me link to your profile on PM. :)
     
  18. MikeeCZ

    MikeeCZ Registered

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    I wish i owned Facebook.. wouldnt have to work no more, sry for OT i had to
    :)
     
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  19. jjcook

    jjcook Registered

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    1. i dont know why defaults are that way but i usually have to decrease camber non my sites to get the cold outside edge of the tire working

    2. i use a graphical too but its tack map and has temps on it too - its a better graphic- more details imo
     
  20. Lgel

    Lgel Registered

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    Sorry "try to even out the temps across the tire during steady cornering" is not the goal, unless you are looking to optimise your setup for oval racing.

    Skidpad is not the best tool for this (would induce you to excessive camber for tracks with shorter curves), just run on the track you want your setup, and have a look at your temps (surface temps) after 7-8 laps with Motec.

    You should aim to have a quasi even temp on exit of corner for the loaded tire (exterior to the turn), on entry of turn, temp of outer part of the tread is lower than inner (due to camber) and should rise faster than inner under cornering load, to reach even at exit of turn and give maximum grip on exit. Outer part of loaded tire too cold, means excessive static camber - reduce it - and test again, as simple as that.

    You won't find a spectacular improvement in lap times, due to the fact that many ISI cars don't behave correctly on this aspect, so the sim didn't punish to harshly incorrect distribution of temps when cornering, or reward correct by better performance.

    At the moment only the two most recent cars released by Studio-397 run correctly on default camber.

    But for testing purposes you can use the ISI C6R GT2, you'll see that around -1º front and -0.8 rear, you reach this behaviour.

    Cheers.
     
    Last edited: Jan 18, 2017
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