hi,

first off i just started with lfs2.

i had some enlightening moments watching crospy doing ridiculously fast laps in a fxo-gtr on aston national recently. he generously sent me his setup which didn´t really improve my laptimes. what i did of course notice was his amazingly consistent lines, brake points, etc. so, more than ever i am convinced that proper driving has a much greater effect on laptimes than a chnage in setup. but i might be wrong

attached is the setup i used on aston national. so if anyone would like to try that and post his laptimes i´d be most interested to see what fast guys can do with it. the best i managed was 1:47:7.

cheers,

roland

From what i have found, as long as the setup isnt rediculously bad, you can get within 1 second or 2 of the pace, the setup really starts to count when gaining the last few tenths.

Matters even more in long races for saving tyres and ease of driving etc.

Lines and smoothness help more than set's , when you really learn a track you know where the bumps are , and when you can break a little later ect , Driving style plays a big part too some fast drivers cannot get on with each others sets using all of the track is very important too if you want to get maximum apex speeds and of course look after your tyres!


SD.

u always need a good combination of setup and driving line. in my team a friend is using my setup but hes always 2 seconds or more slower as me cause his line sucks

Yeah, lines are very important, also when and how hard you squeeze the loud pedal.

Sets certainly make a difference though - put more and more understeer in for example and you've got almost no choice but to get slower times. The set should be matched to your driving ability though.

Basically you need a reasonable knowledge of the track and car, plus a decent setup you're comfortable with helps alot.
I tried your setup and I couldn't complete a lap (like I said online, I can't drive the FXR unless it has a locked diff). I don't think the setup is really built well for the track, I couldn't take T1 as fast I can with Flotch's setup (100-102mph) and the rear end wasn't very stable when it came to braking before the hairpins, but maybe that is just down to my driving style...

thanks everybody for the replies.

cropsy, funny because i thought your setup was very agile and unstable but you are right with corner speeds. i noticed that wr-setups have lots of forward wing and very little rear wing.
anyway, i think i´ll spend some time with your setup and just try to rearrange my driving style.

regards,

roland

ps: what´s the benefit of locked diffs?

Locked diffs provide too much of a benefit if you ask me. Their advantage is that spinning a wheel becomes harder, since you HAVE to spin both at once. This brings advantages to putting down the power, and under braking. However, it should make turn in awful, with massive understeer. And it does... up until the point you apply some throttle, and then it goes away. That's the inaccuracy between a locked diff IRL and LFS (as I see it). So as long as you remember to keep a little throttle on, a locked diff is faster. I still hate the handling though, so I refuse to use it.

Setups can't make a slow driver fast, I have proven that fact many, many times LOL, in fact, using someone else who is faster's setup can infact make you slower, as the person you got it from might like a completely different driving style to you.

Dan.

I'm not the fastest driver around (did a high 1:46 on AS National), but I'm very consistant mostly. I also manage to create setups that works good for me, that are balanced and burn the tires as equal as possible.
On some occasions I've been asked to share a setup, and I gladly do so. And then I almost always get this back:
"Is this really the setup you used? I can't drive it".

This can only mean one of two things. Either my setups stink, or I am very strange driver

My XR GTR setup for Aston National attached for you all to laugh at

Quote from X-Ter :

This can only mean one of two things. Either my setups stink, or I am very strange driver

Heh, I get that all the time in the FXR. People just don't understand that it doens't have to handle like a FWD. Plebes.

Quote from Bob Smith :

Locked diffs provide too much of a benefit if you ask me. Their advantage is that spinning a wheel becomes harder, since you HAVE to spin both at once...

Interesting point Bob. Getting the diff right in GPL used to make a lot of difference for me, so I have started experimenting with the diff on the Formula XR (my favourite LFS car I suppose) to try to find a sweet spot. I agree with what you said about a fully locked diff. Assuming a clutch pack diff, what sort of power/coast settings do you find to give some of the advantages of a locked diff without all the disadvantages?

Note that I would guess I'm having more trouble than you are with wheelspin on applying the power out of a corner. Not that I am slipping and sliding everywhere, more that I am so nervous about doing so that I get the power on too slowly.

Actually it shouldn't be a huge task to code up a program that would show the affects of the diff on handling. Maybe I'll do that later.

But sorting the diff out isn't too difficult (for the 2WD cars anyway), just requires some time:

Power side: start at the minimum (10%), then slowly increase it. You should find that you can put more and more power down (less inside wheelspin) without making the back end step out too much. At a certain locking, you'll almost never be able spin the inside wheel, and setting the diff higher than this will just cause more power oversteer with no benefit. So drivability may suffer (it depends how you like the car to handle really). I suspect you'd want minimum power oversteer, so unless you're having problems with rear tyre temps I'd set the diff so you can get just a touch of inside wheelspin in the slower corners.

Coastside: two issues to play with here, firstly it helps prevent the locking of a single drive wheel under braking, although you'd have to have it set really open for this to actually happen. So, you only really need worry about the second issue, and that is how the car handles off the throttle. This is also why people switching from a locked diff might not like the handling. Basically more coast locking makes the car more stable (understeer) when off the throttle. If you car has been setup to give lots of oversteer (likely with a locked diff), then you might struggle to keep the car from spinning. The problem is not that the diff isn't locked enough, but you've buggered up the rest of your setup to try and get the car to turn in with a locked diff. FWD cars need lots of oversteer in the setup to be fast, so you'll always want high coast locking values anyway. RWD cars need a medium setting to provide some stability, but too much will give too much understeer (assuming you have some understeer elsewhere in your setup, which would be normal (for road cars at least)). I only use low coast lock values for the AWD cars, since it helps turn in, so maximises cornering speeds, and shows up any oversteer in your set (for AWDs you only want some oversteer, but not much, and the torque split should give reasonably neutral power handling).

Hmm, this post is getting a bit long, so I better stop typing. But the main disadvantage of the locked diff is the lack of configurability, particularly on the coast side.

Thanks for that diff explanation, Bob. I've been wondering about the coast side of the diff locking. Any setup I pick up whether from Inferno with the WR sets or in the servers, it seems like everyone runs 80%+ on the power differential locking (RWD cars). The first thing I usually do is reduce this down to 30% or so. I had no idea about the coast setting, so I usually left it alone. Now I can play a little bit with that number.