Hi guys, I do quite a bit of research on setup and I feel like I have a pretty good overall idea on how to get the car feeling the way I want... However I'm still left a bit lost with dampers. I have a basic understanding of what they do - they control the ocillation of the spring among other things etc. I also know they are a bit of a dark art and should probably be left alone until other areas like arbs and spring rates are adjusted first. To give a basic example ... If I want to soften up the rear end by softening the springs and/or arb, is there something I need to do to the dampers also? Is there some general rule that if you soften the springs a few clicks, you should also soften the dampers too? I just want to know if there is a 'general rule' or best practice, or if it doesn't really matter and I can adjust the springs and not really worry about dampers too much. Cheers.
Generally exactly what you said - soften the springs? Reduce the damping. Stiffer, increase. You probably know of critical damping, and when the spring rate changes you need to change the damping in the same way to maintain critical damping. In practice people tend to have a theory/preference on target damping ratios (some calculated, some superstition) which would just mean the same thing (to maintain the ratio you need to follow the springs). Then there's alternative theories and specific situations where people might decide to do the opposite. But generally, yes.
Thanks @Lazza! Does this also apply to slow and fast bump? I.e if I soften springs also soften both slow and fast? I assume yes.
Damping is quite hard for me to setup in a methodical way. so far i'm also going by what i read on internet and ofcourse driving consistently to get feel of what setup changes actually did. Here are some of my findings and understanding Slow bump stiffer > •improves response to your steering input, so good for fast chicane and fast direction changes corners •keeps ride height (RH) higher for small duration of time, like 0.100 seconds region. Good for tuning aerodynamic behaviour under braking and turn in. •just a observation, a stiffer damper loads up the outside tyre quickly, so IMO it may increase grip on turn in BUT if corner is too long then a stiffer bump also saturates the tyre faster in terms of grip....so you will hit understeer/oversteer sooner. softer bump damping is just opposite of what i wrote above slow rebound stiffer > •mechanically it works like a stiffer ARB, so whichever end has stiffer rebound will give up sooner (grip wise) so for example,if you don't want to mess with spring/arbs but want initial rotation then you stiffen the rear rebound, it will load both of the rear wheels faster ....so mechanically this should produce oversteer. •aero wise it gets opposite to mechanical, a stiffer rebound will keep RH lower for longer duration on entry, so if your aero setup is bit on oversteery side, then a stiffer rebound might actually increase the turn in oversteer a touch, as front RH is closer to ground for longer duration. soft slow rebound is opposite of above. generally i tune slow bump for •braking and turn via front bump •corner exit via rear bump slow rebound for •braking and turn in via REAR rebound (it also affects corner exit to a lesser extent than slow rear bump IMO,stiffer rear rebound gives more oversteer on corner exit). •turn in and corner exit via FRONT rebound regarding fast damping, i'm lost....i can't really tune that with feel. i generally start with mid values for both fast damping, and tweak them for placebo effect
I usually use page 48 of the advanced setup guide to get around bigger setup problems. Mainly to get neutral curb hopping using the fast dampers... I simply have a screengrab of this page on my smartphone to remember how to use the dampers. Here is the original thread to the Setup-Guide: https://forum.studio-397.com/index.php?threads/rfactor-2-advanced-car-set-up-guide.49984/ David has since build a much bigger guide that you can buy. I'm sure it is still very useful to get into setting up a car with rf2 in mind.
I am going to ask you to take down your post. The guide is a commercial item and you are not authorised to share it for free, Thankyou. I will share an excerpt on dampers later to help the OP but to share my whole work for free is just wrong. David
Did that, thank you for letting me know David. I thought the old guide was abandon as I simply found it online....
@David O'Reilly you might want to edit your own post mate, the link is still in there. You can report on that site as well.
@Flaux it's not always obvious, especially when you just find stuff on searches. Makes you wonder about whoever bought it, or got it off someone else because they didn't want to buy it, and then put it online though... *Oh hey, reporting worked
People still buy both versions of the guide and I am appreciative of that support. I'll share some written ideas later. For now this video goes into dampers quite a lot.
