You guys with a load cell, how do you brake? Having switched from the G27 pedals to the CSL Elite I find myself still slamming down hard with force. Having just watched some alien dude on Youtube, he rests his heel on the base and pivots forward gently and uses the ball of his left foot to apply pressure. This is 100% different to how I'm doing it! I don't have strong legs so should I be using the light dampeners and lowing the sensitivity and use this technique?
@Nortski your braking technique should be determined by the car, not your equipment. The same principles apply either way. Any car with strong aero will respond well to a hard initial force (depending on the car you can still hit it too fast, and that is perhaps easier with a load cell because you don't need the physical movement like with a sprung pedal) and easing off as you lose speed and downforce, while light aero cars need a steadier input. I think you need enough resistance on the pedal to allow good modulation, but not so strong that you struggle to hit full braking through an entire session. I wouldn't place too much importance on what aliens do - there are aliens with all sorts of equipment and using all sorts of techniques, I think too often people see one and think the difference to their own technique/equipment is a large part of the time difference, when it's probably just coincidence. Let your self-analysis be driven by how the car is reacting to what you're doing, and modify accordingly.
@Lazza I think you're probably right. Just trying to work out where that extra 1.5s is to the aliens. I think generally; my pedal probably is too resistant as I need to press quite hard for 100% braking. Brake and throttle modulation is certainly one area for me to look at. Having just watched Michi Hoyer's feet cam, he dances around like Fred Astaire!
I found it surprisingly tricky moving from a potentiometer type brake to a load cell brake. I'm still not quite good at it. But things I think are worth trying: Make sure you can get to 100% without ridiculous effort, so make it easier to compress with the adjustment. Then look at your replays to see if you are getting to 100%. Your seat needs to be secure too. Play with brake force level in the cars setup to get it where you can confidently brake to 100% (on warm tyres) without locking up. As Lazza suggests, regressive braking is important on cars with a lot of aero, as the speed drops the aero drops and the grip drops, so you cant maintain the same level as at first. I was studying on Replay Office the winner of Friday nights casual Formula Pro Indy Race compared to me. His braking was just like that, mine wasn't. Need to try harder.
The CSL Elite LC is a tricky set with which to get a consistent braking force. The LC is measured off the pedal arm, so where you place your foot determines how much pressure is applied. It acts like a lever in that regard; If you push from the top of the pedal, you'll get full force much quicker than if you push from the lower part of the pedal. Modulating a consistent pressure on the car's brakes means keeping a consistent placement on the pedal face. I found it really hard to adjust to these pedals when I first got them, but looking at pedal readouts on various HUDS ingame showed me just how just how much fluctuation in force there was in my braking when I moved my foot around in heel-toe right foot braking situations.
One little tip I'd like to add to this: Practice hitting a predetermined brake force consistently. Say you start with 100% . Hit it quickly but smoothly with just one push on the pedal. You don't want to first hit, say, 70% and then adjust the pressure to reach 100%. Once you can get to full brake force cleanly, aim for maybe 80%. Then 70% and so on. This is trickier and you also need to be able to hold that pressure steadily and bleed off the brakes evenly. If you're trail braking you also want to be able to back off to the right amount of pressure.
Some people (given time and persistence) can make any gear work and do great using them. I on the other hand am not one of those. I also don’t drive with ABS (braking assist). I found the CSL elite extremely difficult to be consistent on, for the reasons other have mentioned. I did better when I made sure that I always wore the same shoes and I always aimed for the top edge of the pedals. I sold them after 6 months of weekend use. It required more conscience effort than I was willing to exert. Just a friendly tip: What I did notice is that when I was viewing my braking in telemetry playback, as gradually increased or decreased braking, the actual amount registered was quite jumpy. If you’re feeling discouraged, view the telemetry and it’ll give you some insight into the difficulty of getting those pedals to brake consistently and smoothly. What I’m saying is that you’ll realize it’s not so much you as it is the pedals. Once you have that in mind you’ll be more aware of what you need to to to make those pedals work.
My experience, I modded my g27 pedals with a 20kg loadcell. really had to start over learning my braking "feel". Before modding I slammed the pedal and used about 80% force in game setup. After loadcell mod, I changed to 100% force, and then relearned to brake hard and slowly letting go. It took me several weeks to get back to a good braking feeling. Once there it makes a huge difference in control, but there are room for improvement. I also have pedal rumble, which help me in feel brake slidings and wheel spin. If you have simhub you can have speeder and braking meters to show you when you react the limit.
I had the same problems with these pedals, I found left foot breaking helped, in the end I inverted them, this enables me to use the top of the pedal more consistently, I have also had the V3 pedals and actually think that I preferred the CSL over them It does take a little time to get the brake resistance and elastometers how you like them but I found them fairly predictable in the end.
I have a G29 modded pedals, in my case I did the hydraulic mod. I also recommend starting by setting the brake at 100% force in all your cars; also see in the rfacto2 configuration screen that if you push the brake as hard ad you can you reach the 100%, else adjust sensibility; and re learn how to brake applying force and not foot travel; it'll take a week or two. You'll learn how to brake without any assist or ABS and not locking your wheels; also after the mod, for me has been a lot easy to use heel toe braking technique and the trail braking technique; braking using force and not toe travel allows to effectively use those techniques. Also get your self a stable and rigid driving seat, else you'll be move each time you apply force to the brake pedal.
