In the process of setting up, a lot of times I have to wonder about how I can modify the mechanical grip on my set up to corner faster after verifying that the setup finally has both good stable balance around corners and best top speed with RPM reaching red at the end of straight. In terms of the top speed, I know I can not squeeze any higher speed at that point because I have dialed down the wing angles without loosing too much grip yet I am still 3 or so seconds down from the lap leader. So my attention turns to mechanical grip in order to squeeze more time out of corners. How would you start modifying the suspension at this point? Would you start by making the springs softer? Your ideas are much appreciated.
I would be looking at cornering tire temps to decide whether camber & air pressure are correct for the current springs & swaybars & downforce.
If you're 3 seconds off "the ring" for example, sure you could look at setup. If you're 3 seconds off from a 90 second lap time, look at your line, brake points, entry and exit speeds etc and don't worry too much about setup.
Thank you for the replies guys. Emery: If tire temp is optimal, what would be your next step? Jamie: Are you saying that default set up will get me on par with people who has good custom set up? A lot of times, I find myself 3 or so seconds off with smooth trail braking into all the corners or exiting turns with just a little bit of torque steer. I can beat A.Is at 120% with the setups I have worked so far but still behind by 3 seconds behind the lap time leaders of league races.
Look at softer springs and anti rollbars (within reason) to increase cornering grip at the expense of nimbleness/agility.
Thanks, Squeekmo. Should both spring and ARB be soft or should I stiffen ARB to control the roll caused by soft spring?
Typically a setup will not gain you any more than 1-2 seconds. This is obviously not always the case, very long tracks (think Nurburgring Nordschleife) or tracks that require very tall gearing (think Monza or Daytona) would be the exception. If you are 3 seconds off the pace from the leaders there is something they are doing as far as braking, corner entry and exit, and getting back on the power that you are not doing. Most fast guys will be able to put in competitive lap times even with a default setup (unless it is a mod with an especially horrible baseline set). A good setup either gets them those extra few tenths (or possibly a bit more), or just tailors the handling characteristics of the car to be more in line with their particular driving style (i.e. more 'comfortable' on the limit, better tire wear, engine temps, etc...). Also AI times are not a good benchmark for judging how you will fare against other human drivers due to the wildly varying levels of AI speed at different tracks (especially Mod tracks).
Sadly I think you need to spend more time on the track than in the garage. I say sadly, because finding seconds lost on the track is very frustrating. Probably you are losing something like 2 o 3 tenths every turn. So I would say that is driving style related. I'm quite sure it is because is my very same problem. Probably your faster opponents can make some turn way faster than you,maybe even sliding all fours but keeping enough control to stay on the line. This is not "natural" but sometimes you can turn earlier, and if angles and timing are right, you will see the car just making the turn, you enter faster, exist faster or at least you can floor the gas earlier.
What is your lap time consistency like? Can you drive within 100-200ms of your best lap time lap after lap or is it more sporadic with a variance of something more like 500ms (if not more). Depending on your answer, I may have a solution for you.
I would agree that 3 seconds is a tad too much to be found in the garage. Thread with similar topic and possibly some good pointers for you Syrus, http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.php/28303-Some-trick-to-braking-in-RF2 (spoiler: he found out faster guys where braking earlier then him) Also check my sig rf2 wiki, very bottom are some articles on this topic. Also I would double check if your wheel/pedals are 100% and not slacking due to dust or anything. could be a simple as that
from my experiences, the biggest lap time difference is always braking.. rump up the brake pressure to 100% and learn to threshold brake and trail brake in the respective car, that makes the most time always, and than make sure you dont overshoot corners... follow the rule "slow in, fast out"
I agree that this has propably nothing to do with setup. To confirm this and to avoid setup-fiddling, train with a car that has a good setup by default. Megane Trophy is such a car (and one of the best/most enjoyable sim cars of all time imo). ISI open servers with Megane/toban is frequently good visited. At the right time of day you get people there who give you a good reference laptime.
Make sure your ffb multiplier setting is not what's holding you back. When i finally realised that my ffb was clipping and fixed it, after about a week my fastest lap-time per track in the megane had improved by at least 2 seconds (in some cases by 3 seconds) and my consistency went from +/- 0.5 seconds to +/- 0.1 seconds around my mean lap time. I highly doubt that the observed improvement in my lap times and consistency was simply a coincidence with when i optimised my ffb because my lap-time had plateaued at my previous best for months prior to this ffb change (the details of which if you're interested in can be found in my forum signature below). Do not underestimate the negative affects that poorly setup ffb can have on your driving performance.