Quote from Shotglass :

in case you guys havent noticed the fzr was more than competitive in the 24h race which is what gtr racing is about

I'm not sure, most of the FZRs that were near the front were there because they had few disco's and insta-pits compared to some of the other teams. I do think the XRR should have been a lot more competitive too, teams didn't really make the most of it's ability to do longer stints.

Quote from joshdifabio :

I'm not sure, most of the FZRs that were near the front were there because they had few disco's and insta-pits compared to some of the other teams. I do think the XRR should have been a lot more competitive too, teams didn't really make the most of it's ability to do longer stints.

hm im not sure if i interpret the tracker data correct (if i do the only way to tell if any of that happened is looking at how many laps were driven prior to a pitstop) and judging by that you guys seem to have had a whole lot more discos and instapits than the zt winner

Quote from Shotglass :

hm im not sure if i interpret the tracker data correct (if i do the only way to tell if any of that happened is looking at how many laps were driven prior to a pitstop) and judging by that you guys seem to have had a whole lot more discos and instapits than the zt winner

No, we just had one disconnect, and I broke the suspension once and drove back to the pits (no instapit). We were one of the few teams that did a lot of practice for this event though, look at the other FZR teams up there, very few problems. Inferno 2 had 0 disconnects. Also bear in mind that there were only a handful of XRR teams.

Also, look at the length of SK's stints at the start of the race, 26 laps. The XRRs could have driven longer stints than the FZRs quite easily.

And I think it's rather definite that, at KY3R at least, the FZR was the slowest over 1 lap. I think at the moment, because of it's easy handling, the FXR is the best car, but at least the XRR has the advantage of longer stints if the setup is good.

Edit: There is the disadvantage with the XRR that it rolls over easily, I'm not sure how significant that is though.

Quote from joshdifabio :

No, we just had one disconnect, and I broke the suspension once and drove back to the pits (no instapit).

hm k then looked to me like you had a whole bunch of very short stints which i took as an indication of instapit or disco

Quote :

And I think it's rather definite that, at KY3R at least, the FZR was the slowest over 1 lap. I think at the moment, because of it's easy handling, the FXR is the best car, but at least the XRR has the advantage of longer stints if the setup is good.

either way the impresion i get from these results is that for endunrance racing at least at ky3r the class is much more blanaced than it was before and that there is no totally dominant car in that class right now
so whichever adjustments need to be made to nail it they have to be subtle

Quote :

Edit: There is the disadvantage with the XRR that it rolls over easily, I'm not sure how significant that is though.

at the level of skill thats required to compete for the podium in endu racing i suppose the answer is 'not very'

Im not sure how important this might be. But remember this event is four years old now, some FZR teams have had setups refined for KY3R for years now (with tweaks for 100kg), while people who switched might have never driven FXR/XRR and had to create a setup from scratch.

Quote from srdsprinter :

Im not sure how important this might be. But remember this event is four years old now, some FZR teams have had setups refined for KY3R for years now (with tweaks for 100kg), while people who switched might have never driven FXR/XRR and had to create a setup from scratch.

wasnt the xrr the winning car in the first moe season ? at least ptm and sk should have a lot of experience with making the xrr fast over a longer distance

Quote from Shotglass :

hm k then looked to me like you had a whole bunch of very short stints which i took as an indication of instapit or disco

Yeah, I forgot to explain this . The tracker went down a few times, so lots of the stints were only partially recorded. If you look at the bottom of our extended statistics, there are 58 laps which have no lap-times associated with them. These were part of the stints which appear to be very short.

Andreas, it was just something i was wondering, please calm down. i made no claim it was fact.

It seemed that there were more % of FXR's than I could remember seeing in any GTR race. Again, i'm not claiming to know the car's usage percentage.

My current thought is 0/40/80 will be a good balance, as the FXR appeared very forgiving to bad driving habbits. KY3R has lots of curves than have no exit curbs. The FXR's were able to regularly and (apparently) easily push over the edge onto the grass without loosing speed. While possible in the XRR and FZR, putting 1 or 2 tires onto the grass exiting a turn was a much more dangerous thing to do.

Making the XRR and FZR 10/20 kg lighter (the current 0/40/80 balance) will make them a little quicker, but the FXR can be driven over the edge more easily.

My cousin give me an idea. We're able to move with ballast forward and backward, but not to left or to right. I think this would be good, because we will be able to move with ballast to any place in car and make better setups for handicaped cars. What do you say?

Quote from Kid222 :

My cousin give me an idea. We're able to move with ballast forward and backward, but not to left or to right. I think this would be good, because we will be able to move with ballast to any place in car and make better setups for handicaped cars. What do you say?

IMO if anything there should be no choice on where to put your ballast, it can be used to cause the FZR less issues by countering it's massively bad weight distribution.

Quote from Kid222 :

My cousin give me an idea. We're able to move with ballast forward and backward, but not to left or to right. I think this would be good, because we will be able to move with ballast to any place in car and make better setups for handicaped cars. What do you say?

Great idea. Like most FM drivers I have most to do on the oval and a left/right balance would be cool! Driving on the left/wrong (hrhr) side of the car makes a significant difference on oval, too.

Quote from duke_toaster :

IMO if anything there should be no choice on where to put your ballast, it can be used to cause the FZR less issues by countering it's massively bad weight distribution.

What a load of absolute garbage! FZR has "bad" weight distribution? You've got to be kidding me!

No other car in the GTR class has a better match of aero center of pressure and center of gravity than the FZR, so what on earth are you talking about? Oh wait, you don't.

Quote from Jamexing :

What a load of absolute garbage! FZR has "bad" weight distribution? You've got to be kidding me!

No other car in the GTR class has a better match of aero center of pressure and center of gravity than the FZR, so what on earth are you talking about? Oh wait, you don't.

calm down. He's refering to the F/R weight bias.

IRL, 911's are known punish mistakes like sudden mid-corner braking, not braking in a straight line, etc, with sudden snap uncorectable oversteer. For the most part, this isn't seen in the FZR. With a decent setup in LFS, you can drive the FZR with (mostly) disregard to its engine location.

Quote from srdsprinter :

calm down. He's refering to the F/R weight bias.

IRL, 911's are known punish mistakes like sudden mid-corner braking, not braking in a straight line, etc, with sudden snap uncorectable oversteer. For the most part, this isn't seen in the FZR. With a decent setup in LFS, you can drive the FZR with (mostly) disregard to its engine location.

True, the unforgiving nature R/R does show itself really well especially in the non GTR version of the FZ series. The same could be said for the FZR at speeds low enough to make aero downforce relatively insignificant.

But since the FZR has the benefit of WIDE rear slicks and moderately wide fronts to match, added with the fact that it's aero matches so well with its F/R weight distribution, has rendered the R/R flaws relatively insignificant whilst preserving all its wonderfully positive traits. In fact, this aero synergy alone makes it light years ahead of the other 2 GTRs that suffer from horribly mismatched aero, with the FXR being the most obvious and crippling example. A front heavy car with extremly REAR BIASED downforce?

If F/R downforce was much better matched for all 3 GTRs, there won't be such a huge need for weight and intake restriction to balance them. The fact that the FZR needs 80kg just to balance the class just goes to show how fundamentally superior its performance really is to the other 2 since its fundamental characteristics such as F/R downforce ratio and mass balance are just too well matched.

Look at it this way. If an FXR driver wants to match the overall grip of his car to the FZR, he would of course need very similar amounts of downforce since the 2 cars weigh similarly. To use the downforce properly, center of pressure must be closely matched to center of gravity. The FZR could easily achieve this whilst maintaining excellent overall L/D ratio. The FXR, on the other hand, magically possesses the same rear biased aero as the FZR with its VERY front biased mass distribution.

Though possible to achieve the same downforce overall as the FZR if the FZR was set on relatively low downforce, it still loses out since this can only be achieved with severely compromised overall L/D ratio as the front downforce is cranked REALLY high whilst the rear wing remains underworked. If the FZR was set up for maximum downforce, the other 2 cars would have no chance in hell of matching their amount of downforce and hence overall grip to it whilst still suffering from mismatched aero induced L/D inefficiencies. This is especially severe with the FXR. Everyone seems to blame its 4wd drivetrain efficiency losses as the main contributor to lower track performance, but this aero issue seems surprisingly neglected. Of course more 2 more differentials and more driveshafts and rotating parts do sap a bit of power, but that alone can't explain why the FZR needed so much ballast to keep things more reasonably fair. Even with 80kg of ballast in the FZR, the XRR still needed some reduction of ballast to keep up with it! Wow.

With the TBO class, realistic turbo and powerband modelling coupled with maybe some changes in tire sizes could easily bring much better balance. But with GTRs things aren't that simple. With aero still at this rudimentary stage, there's still a long way to go. I'm just glad that Scawen has wisely chosen to implement this quick, simple and effective handicap band aid solution so things won't just be one FZR display of absolute superiority and domination after another.

well, I hate to repeat myself, but XRR is now really the slowest car of the pack and some fine tuning of the balancing system (like 5 or 10 kgs here and there) would certainly help

edit: I hadn't read Jamexings latest post and I absolutely agree with him

edit2: Sorry, my work with tenses needs serious improvements.

Quote from windmouse :

edit: I haven't read Jamexings latest post and I absolutely agree with him

Now whats that supposed to mean?

He probably means "hadn't".

i completely agree with Jamexing on the aero issues, and would like to reiterate his point about the handicaps being a temporary fix. i really don't understand how the rest of you can whine so much. weight and power handicaps alone will never make the balancing perfect, no matter how fine tuned they are, but they will make racing more interesting while we wait patiently for scawen to fix the problem properly (with better aero and tire physics).

and think about it... plenty of people drove the FXR despite the fact that it got routinely clobbered by the FZR, so why worry about getting the balancing exactly even? people will drive whatever suits their style, and if the cars are closer that's great. and if you think about it some more, you might realize that most of the whining is being done by people who don't want to give up the unfair advantage they have previously enjoyed. is that really good sportsmanship? i don't think so.

ei guys, which is the command for disable the handicap¿
We can't quit 80 kg mass on FZR :/, and the race is only FZR.

Thx!

Well, since this has opened back up I will make a comment, regarding the GTR class.

The class is much more closely balanced, yet the consensus shows the XRR is still the slowest and least appealing to drive.

MaximUK has put together some solid information from the popular CD server in this thread:
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=26451

Perhaps a 20kg break could make the XRR a more competitive and appealing choice to drivers.

The FXR still is a little slower than the FZR, but it is a more appealing choice than ever, as seen by MaximUK's usage numbers. If the XRR was a little more appealing their would be more even distribution of the GTR class.

Quote from noel_cr :

ei guys, which is the command for disable the handicap¿
We can't quit 80 kg mass on FZR :/, and the race is only FZR.

There isn't one. If you want to race multiplayer with the FZR, you get the handicap.

Hello.
Since TBO and GTR seem bearable now I thought LRF should get some more attention. For that sake I summed up all LFSW WR-times and then calculated the "average LFS lap".
Over all 48 combos the cars score on average:
FZ5: 1:36.72
RAC: 1:36.61
LX6: 1:36.03
Note how the LX6 is on average 0.6 of a second quicker than the other two.

For those who want to see how those numbers came about and where each car has it's strenght here is the textfile that shows all WR's as of 25.6.07:
* Those are quite many numbers. I take no responsibility for typing-errors, though I checked everything twice.

Conclusion: The LX6 is superior to the other two in both absolute laptime and fuel usage. In a pitstop it has to stop almost only half as long as a FZ5 and carries fewer additional weight than a FZ5.
There are two possibilities. Either de-tune the LX6 by adding 20kg (*) to it, or speed up RAC and FZ5, which would require an incompatible patch and doesn't mix with the real stats of the RAC (though the current RAC doesn't fit its stats on www.raceabout.fi anyway). My personal suggestion would be to add 3% power (~7bhp) to the RAC and remove 3% (~40kg) weight from the FZ5. That needs testing though of course. 0.6 a lap is the target.

(*) Personally I think 20kg is a very conservative measure. The LX6 will propably still be quickest, but it's margin should decrease a lot since 20kg is significant relative to the car's absolute mass.

[Edit] (**) Alternatively a power reduction by ~5 bhp would also have a significant impact on the car.

Vain

Quote from Vain :

There are two possibilities. Either de-tune the LX6 by adding 20kg (*) to it

absolutely _not_
the lx6 is supposed to be light so if anything add a restrictor

also one thing you havent taken into account is that the lx6 eats the fz5 round the twisty bits so in a race if youre able to drag an fz5 down the straight he wont stand a chance once you get to a corner
on most tracks the lx has a huge tactical advantage

hmm balancing a car class with totally different cars to be just as fast;
I think it will be the end of lfs especially if it is done by making faster cars heavier. Also it might just not be possible to balance cars to be just as fast and have totally different designs.

A race car with rear engine 3.6 6-in-line is simply a totally different to a race car with a 2 liter turbo charged engine in the front. Its just as in real world where some designs in le mans of gtr classes simply never win. Remember for some years nobody could beat the mclaren F1 or in a lower class the dodge vipers.

Instead of making the fzr heavier of even worse to drive, maybe its a better idea to make the xrr a bit more like the fzr. try to give it a 2.5 litre 5-cylinder turbo charged engine with less turbo-lag(less pressure from the turbo). Instead of the 2 liter with a very high pressure turbo, which has so much lag i can drink a cup of coffee while waiting for the power to come in.

Also the gtr cars are already rather slow for a gtr car, making any of them heavier or something like that is a very bad idea. Improve the cars a bit which are a bit too slow and accept for example that the rb4 and fxo cant be balanced to be competitive which each other. Just like the real world. It would be nice though if the xr gt weight would be reduced by about 20-40kg. That might make the fxo and the xrgt very well matched.

Anyway, my advise: Dont try to hard to balance the cars and if you do, only by making slower cars a little bit faster.

Since this is a performance discussion something a bit offtopic: the fo8 needs a bit more power 15-30hp for example, because there is not one track where the fo8 will need maximum front or rear downforce except for the few extreme short and small tracks. Causing the fo8 often to feel like underpowered. For comparision: gp2 cars have 600hp, a1gp cars have 550hp. 550-600hp=bad idea for fo8 though but something like 470-480hp would be perfect without any other changes.

Same for the fox, real world cars like the fox have in the real world 20-30 hp more horsepower. It would make the fox a lot more fun to drive in lfs, because the fox feels currently badly underpowered.

edit:
I noticed with newer testpatch fzr is heavier, now i understand why it was so hard to get into 1:42.xx on as national.
thinking here of quiting lfs.. There are more racesims in this world with proper gtr's.

Quote from Bluebird B B :

hmm balancing a car class with totally different cars to be just as fast;
I think it will be the end of lfs especially if it is done by making faster cars heavier. Also it might just not be possible to balance cars to be just as fast and have totally different designs.

A race car with rear engine 3.6 6-in-line is simply a totally different to a race car with a 2 liter turbo charged engine in the front. Its just as in real world where some designs in le mans of gtr classes simply never win. Remember for some years nobody could beat the mclaren F1 or in a lower class the dodge vipers.

Instead of making the fzr heavier of even worse to drive, maybe its a better idea to make the xrr a bit more like the fzr. try to give it a 2.5 litre 5-cylinder turbo charged engine with less turbo-lag(less pressure from the turbo). Instead of the 2 liter with a very high pressure turbo, which has so much lag i can drink a cup of coffee while waiting for the power to come in.

Also the gtr cars are already rather slow for a gtr car, making any of them heavier or something like that is a very bad idea. Improve the cars a bit which are a bit too slow and accept for example that the rb4 and fxo cant be balanced to be competitive which each other. Just like the real world. It would be nice though if the xr gt weight would be reduced by about 20-40kg. That might make the fxo and the xrgt very well matched.

Anyway, my advise: Dont try to hard to balance the cars and if you do, only by making slower cars a little bit faster.

Since this is a performance discussion something a bit offtopic: the fo8 needs a bit more power 15-30hp for example, because there is not one track where the fo8 will need maximum front or rear downforce except for the few extreme short and small tracks. Causing the fo8 often to feel like underpowered. For comparision: gp2 cars have 600hp, a1gp cars have 550hp. 550-600hp=bad idea for fo8 though but something like 470-480hp would be perfect without any other changes.

Same for the fox, real world cars like the fox have in the real world 20-30 hp more horsepower. It would make the fox a lot more fun to drive in lfs, because the fox feels currently badly underpowered.

YEAH...more power on slower cars..no extra weights