@ThomasJohansen Thank you for such care, gauges are already on the model. I am keeping interior detailing to the minimum, only what is necessary, nice gauges and steering wheel hopefully will be enough for immersion. @vava74 But it is good question though. What impact such engine position could have had on chassis via vibrations and torque. And that engine was chassis structural member. The effect probably was small in most cases. iRacing is chasing clout these days @Art_Pereira Thank you for the knowledge. I am personally not aiming to replicate any specific chassis. So there might be couple details mixed up from different ones. I have read there were six made, but they were also continuously changing through time. And thats a lot of years. 1954-1955-1956 and little bit still in 1957, then Ferrari 801 was mostly D50 still. I think Ferrari 246 F1 car also still held quite a bit of D50 in it.
Technically there is still a long way detailing the car, and I do have lots of polygones in budget. But perhaps it will be good as this. If not then we will spot that. I do have rendering problem. Sometimes I am impressed how small distances are big distances on cars. For example I bet you can see that rear wheel spokes goes in deeper. Try to guess by how much.
Couldn't help myself, I tried to make some needles... Dont know if they are usable, its TGA 64x256. it's made the same way as for my P935 and R8gordini. If the transparency dont work as it should its because its made in gimp, and then it needs to be converted in paint.net or photoshop. Also included png's in the zip.
Unfortunately, Scales like the lowest one (30-120) won't work properly in rF2, due to the "linear" Needle Rotation and the different Angles between the Values.
I actually thought there were some sort of "incremental" way of setting up the gauges but cant find anything on it. But it then have to be closest to where it matters most, 80-110c I guess. Or making a linear one.
Yes, will just aim for decent values at top temp range. And I think it might be possible to skew it a little. Maybe by having it to start above zero. I prefer originally looking gauge.
@mantasisg No problem. I have a book from Chris Nixon about the rivalry between the Lancia D50 and the Mercedes W196, and some more than may include information about this car. If you need some info, let me know and I will see if I can find it here.
Just make it shake constantly around the correct values...this way, I believe it will bypass any perception of linearity versus incremental...
@vava74 Is there a needles shake feature in rF2 ? Anyway, for me it is not a huge concern, only important that it shows well around normal value. Everyone is looking at the hud for info, especially as it also shows brake temps. @Art_Pereira Almost guaranteed I will have some physics related needs. Thank you for the offer. Current progress. Setting up model for porting turned out to be bigger work than expected. Especially due to UV mapping body. I don't remember having anything this difficult to UV map. Fortunately skins for this car are expected to be very simple. I am not planning to do detailing through skin texture (rivets, seams)... How am I going to sort that further...
Getting the car in game was relatively very quick success. Only still have to do skins, gauges, improve shaders, and hopefully improve sound. Physics however turns out to be tough with this. It really isn't easy car to drive, I am looking for ways how can I improve it without dumbing it down and scrubbing the spirit away. Already got it quite a lot more drivable. It is just not there yet. Some of that must be how it should be - car is does slide, and when it wants to slide it begins to do it quickly, and then ends sliding quickly just the same making it difficult to be smooth and increasing risk of spinning out when driving over the limit. It does feel like it is on the limit almost at any speed, that reminds me Mercedes C9. The way I have it right now makes it want to understeer much more than I think real car would have done, but I am getting better two steps forward and one backwards. Balanced setup seems to be best, at least in Drummond Long circuit. I would like to shift more grip forwards, because understeer quite badly tends to snap into oversteer. But if I shift more grip to front by stiffening rear, or by softening front then the oversteer itself gets worse obviously. I am still looking if I could get chassis to be better, few potential sources of problems there. Making steering faster helps quite a lot, I don't have data for that, but looks from videos like it should be around 2rotations from lock to lock. So to sum up, car doesn't drive badly. But to be happy with it I would like it to be more planted on the front and be smoother at in/out oversteer, to be less sudden. Otherwise driving such car on the limit for three hours will be too exhausting, I don't think it could be done even by best drivers. On the other hand, it is a fact that this car was like that, still there is a challenge to get it handle as best as it can. I feel like there is a lack of proper videos of this car being driven hard. In video where Fangio drives around Monaco it can be seen that car was indeed twitchy, short slides, quick to start, quick to end, and hard to get out of them perfectly straight without any wiggle. In pictures it is observable how much chassis would have moved. Here is the squat when accelerating, pannier tanks makes it look more dramatic, and perhaps more of the squat might be influenced by soft front suspension drooping easily, than actual rear end compressing: Wheel droop at rear is small, maybe 5-6cm ? Makes sense though as there is not super long distance from rear suspension longitudinal arms to the axle. Here reardroop seems actually bigger. Amount of It is influenced by suspension stiffness, so might just show much softer rear suspension setup for Reims. Interesting how front right wishbones goes upward, must be due to body roll, which is not so apparent otherwise. Understeering through the apex with minimal body roll. Looks like it would be following inside curve nicely despite large understeer. Big oversteer/neutral steer with some larger body roll. The dip on Raidillon (unfortunately not modeled in whet we have). Provides some clues about aerodynamic lift, as well as stiffness of suspension. Plenty of body roll (slow turns usually ones that should grip better). I can't quite tell if this car has front anti roll bar, or not. Doesn't look like there is arb on this one, note the grille masking. Simply huge body roll. Ascari must have liked soft chassis. How much of front right droop there is due to roll and pitch adding up. I am having hard time finding how this would look from rear. Break. Just really kool picture lol, which makes me think that this might have been been best front engined F1 car. And perhaps Lancia D50 could have been with few more years with Lancia. Although Mercedes also could have continued past 1955.
There were almost no pictures of the D50s doing a 4-wheel drift, except the 1956 model, a Ferrari D50, at Silverstone in the hands of Fangio. This is what Dennis Jenkinson wrote after the 1955 Naples GP when comparing the D50 and the 250F handling:
Looking at the car in the museum, it seems that the gauges had a different style back then.The Ferrari D50 probably was different in some details. Also, the two small instruments near the bigger one were closer to each other compared to the 3D model. My guess is that the cars that we can see running on circuits today were restored and modified during the years. Lot of stuff is new and adapted to modern standard or to the modern equipment mounted in the car. So details can be different from car to car. @mantasisg What kind of reference do you need for the car?
Inspired since yesterday and with fresh ideas and a bit of luck I've had rather good day for D50 development. At first I have found that I can improve handling a lot by improving rear pushrods positioning, they were slightly off, and too short, not exactly sure how it messed up handling, but they do change a lot the way suspension oscilate. It is not the first time I am noticing that pushrods positioning is influencing the handling by a great deal. Then also lowering differential preload was quite helpful. In general car feels good with very small amount of differential locking. Car now is still same, but it is way smoother now the way it breaks into and out of the slides, and it makes significant difference for pushing it to over the limits. Besides that it really does seem like the way springs are set up car feels good with equal stiffnes F/R, or with slightly stiffer rear, which is obviosly a little unusual for racecar, I think it might be due to cars sensitivity to snap oversteer from understeer. Apparently front TGM tires were little too large in diameter, reducing it also made good impact for handling. Understeering feels more natural and more useful now, but in general car likes to be driven without much slip front or rear. Overal very happy with car now. I have approached the level of physics, where while testing I am doing enough laps to get to know what I need, and then I don't want to stop driving it Then I also was quite lucky with gauges set up. @ThomasJohansen now I have full picture with gauge faces and needles, it looks great, I only think now that I have chosen too small resolution for gauge faces and steering wheel mesh. I had trouble at first of needles not being visible, but it somehow got fixed, I don't even understand how. Great thing is that it turns out non-linear oil temp needle movement is possible, there are parameters for that @redapg , although in skipbarber example there are only params for speedometer showed. It was very hard to understand how to set it up, and I still haven't properly understood how it works, but I have the needle moving in game almost correctly - starts too fast, then lags a little at 70C, then moves correctly up to 100C, and then starts going little too fast, and then lands on 120C pretty much correctly. Thank you, thats great read. Great observations, it does go along very well with pretty much there is to be heard about the car. I also think that they might have had trouble at seting up these cars s othey drove well, not only drivers having to learn how to addapt to different kind of handling. Maybe it was meeting half way situation, they were trying to get car closer to their liking and skills, and their skills also were growing into the car. There are some slowmotion footage in first half of the video. It is hard to observe four wheel drifts, especially on smaller angles, but drivers feel them very much haha @gianluca Thank you this is great material. Although I should perhaps have better knowledge, but I don't know that much about the chassies of D50 and their sories, I only begun making this car twelve days ago. I prefer to model after original cars, over replicas, I might have taken refrences from non original car at some point. It is very difficult there were six cars, and they kept changing so much through every year, even before they stopped racing, and then after that god knows how many restorations. I think I like the one Fangio drives in Monaco in that wonderful video. Eitherway not aiming at high detailing right now, I am not even sure if to do riveting. Perhaps in future I would know better what could be helpful, not sure now. I can tell that while modeling at first it was hard for me to find references for drum brakes, that would show their detailing well. Also I think it would be nice to see the caps on pannier tanks better, although they seem to be rather simple objects, something about them the way I do is not right. I have also just found plenty of great pictures there: https://azetamotori.com/2024/02/07/lancia-d50-unica-monoposto-f1-marchio-ultima-ascari/ These are probably of same car as yours pics ? @Corti Thank you ! This is pretty amazing reading material, some nice drawings too, I know what to read in the morning. Just briefly looked at the text - wow can you imagine it being 4WD ? I am currently unsure, but I think Mercedes also had plans to go 4WD if they would have continued racing. The history of motorsport would have been so different.
One thing that could be very important if we talk about the handling. In 1954 and 1955 Lancia used Pirelli tires, while in 1956 Ferrari used Englebert. Also the 1955 car had radiators installed between the external fuel tanks and the main body of the car. PS: I was part of the team that made the 1955 F1 mod for Grand Prix Legends (in fact of the GPL mods Team since 2003) so I have more information about some items of the physics of the D50 in that year. I will post this tomorrow.
Thank you thats great help, and helps me to organize and manage everything. I guess I am doing 1955 to early 1956 car, before it was more modified by Ferrari as they continued to deinnovate it lol I've also read that Pirellis were superior tires at the time, and there was something related with how teams were paid that made Ferrari to use Engleberts. I guess it would be interesting to provide both tire options through upgrades. Engelberts being less grippy, but perhaps less demanding to handle ? First of all, I have to know what was different about them haha Those radiators on the sides were oil radiators right ? I wonder, did Ferrari really remove them, or did they just made them hidden with covered top. Edit: I guess those three reels at front now was for oil for Lancia-Ferrari D50 https://petrolicious.com/articles/lancia-d50
I know almost nothing about the 1956 car since we focused in the 1955 season, so I don´t know how the Engleberts worked in the 1956 D50. To make it simple: I would focus in the 1955 car. According with the data we had for GPL, it was close 2nd to the W196. And who knows how things would have evolved if Ascari wouldn´t have died after the Monaco GP. I know the 1955 car didn´t like to do the 4 wheel drifting so you have to drive it in a very polite way, so to speak. The W196 handled in a very similar way. The car to drive sideways was the 250F, though it was in a very different league. I will check what I can find about the oil radiators.
I tried to get that working Years ago in rF1, but gave it up after some Tries, because (as usual) it was not documented/explained by ISI and i was tired of wasting Time with "Try and Error" Testing. If that System works properly (i doubt that a little bit), you should be able to let the Needle move precisely following the Scale Values.
@Art_Pereira I am also fond the most of 1955 car, and it still was somewhat the same at the beginning of 1956. Shame there is not much footage from 1955, especially for high speed turns, where four wheel drifts would happen. There is little footage from Valentino Park, Pau, Argentine and Monaco. But mostly for slow-medium speed turns. In Pau footage some nice little powerslides-rear twitchy step outs can be seen - very quick and short, nothing lasting for lots of meters. I think it is also overblown how much 250F was driftign and sliding, it was doing that a lot more definitely, but it als owasn't like sideways at huge angles all the time, just sometimes and drifts also was not that huge as from apex to apex at massive slip angles. @redapg Yes to me it is also unclear if it works well and I just can't get it absolutely correct, or if there is somethign that is not working fully correct in rF2. The way of doing it that I have sorted it so far is that you need at first to get needle moving so that it is correct at the start and at the end of course. And then use "xNonLinear" parameters to slow it down at slower end (although speeding up may also be an option, but super confusing in my case). It seems like there needs to be set a particular beginning where scale is 1:1, such as at 30 degrees (30,30). Then if my needle shows 70C, when in fact it is 55C, then I set it to be (70,55), and it seems to be matching up from then. I have also experimented a bit on skipbarber with tach. Accidently I have got tach to jump from 3000 to 4000 instantly when I set first nonlinear parameter line as (3000,4000) instead of 3000,3000. Out of interest I have tried to get such jumping effect for oil gauge in D50 too, but it didn't act that way, so probably they do follow little bit different functions. I wonder if it is possible to make a jumpy tachometer.
