I see smoke puffs from my car in my rear mirror, what is it?
I think it looks silly...
Engine broken?
I know that you can get the "popcorn" sound but havent heard that lately...
But I see the smoke very often on straigths... illepall

regards mike

You probably lock up your front wheels a lot, and have HUGE hot flatspots on your tires. Don't lock up, and you wont see smoke puffs

badly flat spotted tyre I believe does this.

Dan,

Thanks for the answers, not that weird then...
I have problems with locked wheels...

Just to confirm what Tweak and Dan said
Massive flatspots and obviusly overheated tires smoke alot.
Once you see it next time, press F9 and you'll see that you overheated your tires .

Edit: Well, no real need for my post as you allready saw theirs (not that was any more point for my post anyway lol)

i have the same problem but i find it hard not to lock up

Quote from 11SuLLy11 :

i have the same problem but i find it hard not to lock up

Don't brake so bloody hard then (either that or turn down the brakes in your setup)

Dan,

Just to clarify the points above:

Flatspots DO NOT cause smoke, it is ONLY hotspots that do. It is possible to have a flatspot without excess temperature (i.e. it cools down), and it is possible to have a hotspot without a flatspot (it got hot, but didn't wear the tyre excessively).

Please don't confuse the two, as they are very different.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Just to clarify the points above:

Flatspots DO NOT cause smoke, it is ONLY hotspots that do. It is possible to have a flatspot without excess temperature (i.e. it cools down), and it is possible to have a hotspot without a flatspot (it got hot, but didn't wear the tyre excessively).

Please don't confuse the two, as they are very different.

Explain how you get a hotspot without flatspotting the tyre.

The reason why you get a hotspot is due to localised heating of a small area due to excessive friction, i.e. a locked tyre, which inturn causes a hotspot.

Dan,

dab the front brakes light the rear tyres and smoke them out (Especially if they ruinning smoke mod, really annoys them then!)

Well, I often get hotspots, but I've only had a couple of flatstops in LFS ever. Possibly something to do with normal load.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Just to clarify the points above:

Flatspots DO NOT cause smoke, it is ONLY hotspots that do. It is possible to have a flatspot without excess temperature (i.e. it cools down), and it is possible to have a hotspot without a flatspot (it got hot, but didn't wear the tyre excessively).

Please don't confuse the two, as they are very different.

So if I got this right, I don't need to worry about it...
I always get this after last chican on AS2... couse I lock the right front tyre alot there...
Can I see/feel/other if the tyre has a hotspot or flatspot!?

/Mike

I still fail to see the distiction between a hotspot and a flatspot, IMO, they are one of the same, the only time you can have a flatspot that isnt a hotspot is when the tyre has cooled down.

If you are locking a wheel, you are creating both a hotspot and a flatspot.

Dan,

In that case then, LFS isnt very realistic in its representation of tyre physics, IRL its pretty easy to flatspot a tyre.

I suspect that flatspots arent picked up in the force feedback system as yet, but if you are locking your wheels, you are flatspotting the tyre, even if its only a little spot, it (should be) happening.

Dan,

Yes you need to worry , because you are creating flatspots and overheating your tire. In long races you may blow your tyre (flatspots) or suffer understeer (overheating).
Try to be more gentle with breaks. Once you notice the wheel locking, lift off break foot and break again. If you find it to extreme, reduce break power in setup or break bias more to the rear wheels.

Kev, i can feel flatspots but only huge flatspots all over the wheel. FFB works with flatspots. Cant feel it racing, only when playing aroud

I don't think a real tyre has a linear correlation between flatspots and heat. If you had a hard compound it might not wear away, but would still be generating similar friction, and therefore similar heat.

A discussion for another thread? Todd? Axus?

To the original poster - you still need to worry about it. The hot spots will generate less grip, and as such will be the place where the tyre locks in future, causing more wear/heat (even before the effect of the flatspot comes into play causing re-lockups more likely). Also, your braking distances WILL be longer (although not quite as markedly as in real life), so without locking up you can be faster.

The latest nKP patch doesn't have the FFB shaking. It was removed for beta-testing, and Kunos forgot to put it back in. Quite why it needs to be in if the beta testers preferred it without I don't know. Hopefully he'll make the effect tunable, or I'll be billing him for a new G25 every month.

what you gotta keep in mind is that the braking pressure you put on in 6th gear, top speed at the end of a straight, wont lock up where as if you keep that same pressure on all the way until 2nd gear, 20mph it will start to lock up because at slower speeds you need less braking power... damn im not very good at explaining stuff. be careful about downshifting too, dropping down a gear too fast puts stress on the tyres under braking too. i sometimes lock up but i have my sound turned up so i can let off the brakes a bit and let the wheels regain grip for the cornering. in my XFR i tend to stomp on the brake when im in 6th gear but i will gradually let off as the car speeds get lower and i go down the gears. sure ive read about that here somewhere.

Trail braking helps, especially in FWD cars, also locked diff helps avoid locking the wheels.

You will also notice the rear wheel locking on the FWD cars as they tend to "pick-up" the inside rear wheel under braking.

Dan,

Quote from danowat :

You will also notice the rear wheel locking on the FWD cars as they tend to "pick-up" the inside rear wheel under braking.

Dan,

and the opposite for RWD's

i always hate that one front wheel of the RWD cars (usually XRT and FZ50) locks up, but i cant do much bout it (mouse, when i lower the power i need a mile to brake lol).

I have had smoke from my car without flatspotting, usually its after some form of contact with another car. I have had it in the fox and xfr, on closer inspection it looked like bodywork rubbing on the tyre...but thats not possible is it?

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

...but thats not possible is it?

its possible. just not implemented.

does the wheel smoke if the suspension is damaged, like say you hit a wall lightly and got a small orange bar on F10 then would it change the alignment enough to cause smoke?

Sometimes yes and
Sometimes no.

It would be cool if there would be 'real' flatspots, as in you can feel the flat spot with FF or that your tyre just isn't round anymore...

They "puff" much less now than they did in the early versions of S2. It's something quite a few people complained about, because it looks daft. It still does, how could a tyre burn by rolling normally, no matter how hot it is? Still, at least they don't look like steam trains anymore

Quote from sinbad :

They "puff" much less now than they did in the early versions of S2. It's something quite a few people complained about, because it looks daft. It still does, how could a tyre burn by rolling normally, no matter how hot it is? Still, at least they don't look like steam trains anymore

Because after crashing or something, it isn't 'rolling normally'.