Formula 1 teams have plenty of historical data and experience on each track. Arriving on Friday on a track they already know approximate values for each of the car setup variables. This is not the case in rF2. Each player has to build up a procedure to find out the best setup for his driving. What do you guys do? For instance, to tune the wings, I would have to know what's the average top speed on a certain track. I would not put full load on wings in Malaysia just because I need downforce on the 4 very fast corners. Eventually, I would play with suspension height, knowing that I must achieve at least THAT top speed. Furthermore, it's hard to understand how bumpy is a corner and I much I can soften the springs... And so forth... What are your answers to these doubts? Where to find such information? From where do you start to tune and how do you proceed? Thanks!!
I always start with the default setup and see how it feels. I make small adjustments until it "feels" right. Then I make sure the gears are correct for the track. Once it "feels" right and the gearing is right , I focus on tire temps. That's about it.
Usually I use a sim car that is close to a known RL counterpart. (i.e. The F1 car would be a good example but I find the current handling a bit off.) Find a video of the the real car lapping e.g. Sepang and try to duplicate. Lap time should be very close. If you can't carry the same speed through a set of turns or can't use the same gear, top speed down the straight isn't right, then you know something is off. Too much or too little downforce, etc. Slow corners help with suspension checks since aero is less involved. BTW - FR3.5 on Sepang is brilliant! Not sure how close to real life it is but it is a lot of fun.
1st: Gearing. 2nd: Tyre temps. Revise gearing if applicable 3rd: Stability. Revise tyre temps and gearing if applicable. 4th: Aero. Revise stability, tyre temps and gearing if applicable. Just my way of going about it.
We have an advantage over F1 teams in that we have unlimited testing and track time and it's free too. Established F1 teams make better use of the time they have because they have that baseline knowledge. You have to know whether you are setting up for a hotlap, short race or enduro too. You have to set up differently for different races. I usually pick an old setup for that car that's from a track similar in nature to start with. Generally I categorize tracks into rough, hilly, flat, sweeping corners, long straights, city courses, alpine courses. If I have no old setup, I make certain adjustments that I know I'll need- default setups are usually bad. So I adjust brakes, steering angle and guess at the top gear and aero based on what I know of the track. then I do a few laps and get the top gear sorted and also try to work out any serious underlying issues that make the car undrivable or really slow. This is not a fine tune. this is very rough tuning. Work on the suspension. Get this down first. Work on the dampers and get the feel of the car and balance in the corners right. For springs it's tough. You want to go as low as possible but not bottom out. Carroll Smith says to start as soft as you dare to go, get the rest of the suspension down then go softer and softer with the springs until you go slower then dial it back a couple clicks. Your camber depends on the track and your tire temps. You want the inner part of the tires about 5C-10C higher in temp than the outside, but you have to consider the length of the race too. More camber=more wear. The shorter the race, the more aggressive you can get with the camber. Then I dial in the aero and further stabilize the ride. If I can't control it, I can't drive it. Ideally with an open wheeler, you want to just barely bottom out at the very end of the longest straight when you have the highest DF. If the track has a huge compression zone, you may need to compensate for that. After aero, comes gearing adjustments. Always. For gearing, if I'm not happy with the torque, I may stack the gears differently too. Some tracks and cars like the gears stacked on the low gears, some high. Experiment. The suspension is the first to get the fine tune. Dial in the springs then use the ARB to fine tune the balance. Dampers generally dictate mid-corner balance, toe balance helps with turn-in and track out, caster works hand-in-hand with camber and toe to provide more front end grip, balance the car and give the car greater or less turn radius. I like (again, Carroll Smith says this) to use as much caster as I can. The gearing can really change your lap times. I've seen guys blow me away because they have better gearing. Work on this and this is where Motec can help also. Look at your gearing traces and compare your slowest laps to best laps. If you have to pit for tires and/or fuel, practice this and set up your pit strategy. I try to set up my fuel so the fuel warning comes up about 2 laps from the end of the race. Nothing sucks more than to run out of gas when you are 20+ secs in the lead and come sputtering to a stop and watch the others drive by while you are sitting at a dead stop on the 6th row of the grid and you come in dead last at Laguna Seca. Yeah that happened to me.
Great thread! Since I'm one of those guys who have absolutely no clue about car setups I honestly appreciate this thread. I just ask myself why I've never come up with the idea to post something like this before. My main setups are basically the same for every track. Full downforce on the wings, front low and hard as possible, rear not so much and front toe all the way negative, rear again not so much. That's about it. I know it's not optimum but it keeps me on the track at least. Lol Well mostly that is.
http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Win-Essential-Guide-Driving/dp/0965160009/ref=pd_sim_b_5 http://www.amazon.com/Tune-Win-scie...F8&qid=1339453588&sr=8-1&keywords=tune+to+win these two books will help you learn about setting up a car. Don't pay too much attention to stuff you read online (including what I wrote!) because you don't know if the guy is slow; fast; fast but slowed because he doesn't know how to set up a car; or fast in spite of his set ups. Very few are fast AND can set up a car.
Thanks Guy! I will definitely give these books a try. I got the feeling, my setups can only improve as of now.
Let me add another book that I found to be useful, and then I will put my 2 cents in. Going Faster: Mastering the Art of Race Driving. It is written by Carl Lopez who has been teaching at Skip Barber racing schools for more than 2 decades. Quoting Road and Track: "This book will fit you lik a custom-tailored Nomex driving suit. Going Faster is the most complete, most compelling, best-illustrated look at the technique and science of race driving seen to date...." I picked my hard cover copy up at www.abebooks.com I generally start with the gearing (near redline at longest fastest portion of the track) Braking, steering, dampers, ride height and camber are next. The most important part is time on the track... Start at a reasonble pace and learn the track... (online place to learn in an F3/rFactor 2) F3's for Fun (fixed set up) is a good place to learn Spa, learn to set up an F3, gain confidence in driving.... there are some very good (fast) drivers that frequent the site, and they will help you get a great start and learn some of the basics... have fun! It is run primarily for beginning drivers.
Above all, thanks for the book tip. I'm hardly a beginner at sim racing but unlike some other folks here I'm not very committed to it. It's more like an on/off relationship to me. Sometimes I love it, other times I hate it. Before rF2 beta was available, I didn't race for about a year except for GT5 occasionally. Anyway, I'm sure those books will prove very useful to me in the future. Thanks again guys!
Yes thanks a lot... as usual if you want to master a certain art, what ever it could be, you have to study. Me I'm also into WW2 combat flight sim and if you want to compete with the aces you have to spend time on the books...
At the new Monza 10k- it's all about the gearing! I was running the F3 the other day around there and someone shared a setup (OK- it was Bryan Birtwell who runs the F3 Fanatics server) and he had the gearing almost perfect. I set my car according to his gearing (I did change 3rd and 4th slightly) and gained 2 secs/lap. Gearing only! Thanks Bryan! So if someone is blowing you away at a track that is very high speed, see if they will share their gearing.
That book is a remedial guide to beginning with sim racing. It doesn't talk a lot about set ups but when you first begin with sim racing, this is a REQUIRED read. That book began my path to finding some speed in sims. I'm still discovering speed all the time, but without Going Faster I'd be at the back of the grid still.
