I'm just starting to get into tweaking my settings, but is there a tried and true order that it should be tweaked in? Should suspension be tweaked before final drive? and so on. And lets say suspension gets tweaked first, which suspension setting gets tweaked first? Ride height? Stiffness? Damping?

Man I've got a lot to learn. Thinking about it makes me feel like this. --> :faint:

PS- One other thing, is negative toe on the rear wheels represented as a positive or negative number? I read about it in one of the tweaking guides, but no matter how many times I've read it it doesn't make any sense to me.

Thanks all.

I'll always do these in order when making a new setup for a track and car:

1) Suspension, Camber, Antiroll
2) Tire pressures and camber if needed
3) Fine tune gearing for corners and track specifically
4) I usually don't bother with the toe unless I feel I want to make the car a bit more stable (usually I only put toe in on rear for RWD cars)
5) Then I usually find myself back at editing antiroll, tire pressures, and cambers a bit, just to make the car more responsive and tuned for the track. Maybe even some suspension adjustments the faster I get, because starting out I'll have a fairly soft set, but gradually get to a stiffer feel depending on how the car reacts to bumps on the track or whatever.

BTW, most settings are really just dependant on what you know already. Like differential is something you rarely want to touch once you know what values you like. I usually always go 50/60 in the LX cars for example, and that rarely changes. The same goes for some tire pressures and steering settings. I'll rarely touch those just because I know they can drastically mess up your setups. Having those values figured out beforehand can make setup development a lot easier... since those are left out of the process, it makes making a setup a lot easier and faster.

There ought to be a complete tutorial for understanding what everything does so people aren't so confused.

But there really isn't a proper order, it is just up to what you experience with the car on the track, and you make adjustments according to any problems you encounter.

Quote from Tweaker :

3) Fine tune gearing for corners and track specifically

Here's another thing I'm having trouble with. The further you move the individual gears to the left results in more acceleration? How do you tune your gearings to be track specific? For example, on Blackwood, how do you know what the proper gearing is? Is it just a feel thing, or is there more science to it than that?

The higher the number for a specific gear or the final gear ratio, the more acceleration you may have, but lower top speed in a sense.

When I tune gearing for tracks, I usually let my gears max out at high rpms before I either need to brake hard for a corner, or for having a stable gear while in a corner (you wouldn't want a gear that maxes out while accelerating mid-way through a corner).

Basically, as most race cars are setup for tracks, the principle is that you want to have your car max out JUST before you brake. So if you were on a track's fastest/longest high speed straight, you would want your top gear to max out just before you brake for the upcoming turn.

Just use gearing from other setups and just edit the Final Gear ratio to suit the track properly.

Quote from Stinkfinger :

One other thing, is negative toe on the rear wheels represented as a positive or negative number? I read about it in one of the tweaking guides, but no matter how many times I've read it it doesn't make any sense to me.

Thanks all.

Toe in is positive, toe out is negative. Hope it helps

Quote from Stinkfinger :

PS- One other thing, is negative toe on the rear wheels represented as a positive or negative number? I read about it in one of the tweaking guides, but no matter how many times I've read it it doesn't make any sense to me.

the easiest way to figure out what some of the setting mean is to mess with them (dragging the slider all the way trough its range) and watch what happens on the car (ahhh the beauty of the oh so arcadish setup window)

a good way is (like tweaker already said) to have a set of stable base settings for the options on which the outcome of a small change is hardest to predict (mostly tyre pressure and also diff settings)
after setting those to where you prefer them its time to set the aero settings (if the car has them) to a value that seems to be appropriate for the track and the type of setup (hotlap/qualy race or endurance)
after those are set you can work out the max speed youll achieve with the drag youve set and adjust the final drive accordingly (id go with a good base for the individual gears like the race_1 sets)

after that its time to get to the interesting stuff ... youll have to decide if you want a soft setup a setup that rolls a lot if you want a oversteery or a understeery setup and also how much stiffness youll have to add to the springs to keep them from compressing to much when downforce comes into play
when youve decided on where you want to go with your setup set the spring frequencies accordingly (id go with about half the fuel youll need for the race/lap/stint)
then set the rebound damping to critical damping and the compression to about half or 0.75 times critical dpending on the track and car combo
last setting you can adjust in the suspension menue for now are the stabilzers ... since you already have adjusted the steering bahaviour of the car with the frequencies id set them symmetrical for now

then its time to go on the track and adjust camber until the tyres either sit flat on the track while cornering (qualy and hotlap) or have an even temperature after a few laps (endurance)

Good advice here guys -- thank you.

I was curious to see that several people mentioned having a standard tyre pressure setting and trying not to mess with it except for detailed fine-tuning at the end of the setup process. This is something I certainly do with diff settings, but I think I end up farting around with tyre pressures too much and don't have a good intuition for where they should start. If any of you more experienced people could let me know the default front and rear pressures you'd normally start with on a road car and on a formula car it would be much appreciated.

Cheers,
--J.

I think Tweak has it pretty much sorted there.
When i make a setup (rarely do cuz i dont got the time) i try and keep toe-in and toe-out dead straight for as long as i can. Once you have a fairly good setup at that then worry about toe-in/out, tyre pressures, gears and so on.

General tip:
FWD are quicker with a little oversteer

To get a base number for tyre pressures, just drive the car for a few laps and (so long as you're not spinning/drifting) make sure the tyres aren't overheating too much, or aren't underheated. If they are, increase/decrease as necessary.

Stick to equal front/rear tyre pressures to begin with, then look at weight distribution to decide which should be higher. On the FXO GTR for example, I need a couple of extra psi at the front otherwise the rear end is very loose. On the RAC on the other hand, I'd run the front a couple lower (but not too much, the RAC has loose enough handling already).

Later on, once you're used to a track, you can drop the pressure of the inside tyres (if the circuit is dominantly either left or right corners) to help get them up to temperature.. too much of a L/R difference can make the car pull though.

Depending on what track your on can sometimes effect teh setups in strange ways (Which will probs be made defunct in the next update) e.g. Oval racing with the nose running high. I only got that when someone sent me a setup . . . . made all the difference.

I make my own sets, have done from teh start. Got it really wrong to start with, didn't know what was what. But I learnt. I read the manuals and guides and above all just played around. I have got to a point where I have some good sets for some good stable times that I now know how to adjust for unique racing conditions. I sometimes consult fellow racers and they often will send sets (whether asked for or not) and I use them for comparisons. Often their set just doesn't match my style but occasionally I will see an idiosyncracy that I can utilise or a gear set that looks better. I assimilate, make adjustments and most time put everything back to my own settings anyway.

I think what I am trying to say mate is that all the advice in teh world can't substitute time on track. Just start with a car. Adjust one thing. Go out, do a lap (If you can) get an understanding for how just that one thing can change the feeling of the car. And work something out from there. I get much more enjoyment from a fast time knowing that I have got that car there, and at the same time all that testing has developed my driving skills.

It takes some time to do, so if your impatient for racing action then you may be more inclined just to poach a good set from someone willing to give you one. But to me testing and experimenting is just as much an intergral part of the 'sim' as is the racing itself.

Just play mate. Just play.

Quote from Bob Smith :

To get a base number for tyre pressures, just drive the car for a few laps and (so long as you're not spinning/drifting) make sure the tyres aren't overheating too much, or aren't underheated. If they are, increase/decrease as necessary

Cheers, Bob. Appreciate it.

the way the gearing works in a car is how many times the prop shaft and rear axle turn.. lets just use this as a example..

1 ... 3.710
2 ... 2.181
3 ... 1.621
4 ... 1.203
5 ... 0.940
--
final - 4.488

with this, the prop shaft rotates 3.7 times if the final was set to 1.000, second would be 2.1 rotation to 1.000 and so forth.. but with this, the final is actually 4.488, the rear axle is turning 4.488 times to the single rotation to the prop shaft..

or thats what ive learnt from my experinces.. hope that helps with how the gears work in a car..

(hope that makes sense to some of ya.. :P)

Quote from shim :

with this, the prop shaft rotates 3.7 times if the final was set to 1.000, second would be 2.1 rotation to 1.000 and so forth.. but with this, the final is actually 4.488, the rear axle is turning 4.488 times to the single rotation to the prop shaft..

sorry dude, ur pretty close tho. the 1st bit is perfect, but with the 4.488 diff ratio, the prop shaft turns 4.488 times for 1 revolution of the axle. it gets confusing i know

You know somebody did make a calculator so you didn't have to worry about those sort of things.

TBH, how does that aid a begineer to calculate Gear sets. Just punt for the highest revs at the end of the longest straight and go from there. If you are after more Acceleration raise the Final drive ratio, if you want longer gears lower the Final Drive Ratio. Adjust individual gears to track conditions or certain aspects. I know you can go into all the ratios and work out the best power output for each gear etc. etc. But if you want a quick method of working out, the above is as good as any. Not to knock the guys above with their hard work and calcualations as far as I can work out they are in the Uber league of racers. To learn and to start your setup career just stick with the easy stuff. Then as your skills and understanding develops go crazy and work out all the ratios etc.

Yes, but without a calculator, you don't know by how much you might need to alter final drive, or individual gear ratios. It's simply a more advanced method rather than trial and error (which works perfectly well), and should be a time saver.

maybe I should give it a go . . . . I've just used the tried and trusted trial and error system before now. I have dwnlded the calcualtor, but can't understand it. (Only glanced through it, will spend some proper time on it at some point).

But then as a mouse user you could argue that to go into so much detail would be false economy. But then you could also argue that I would need every ounce of help I can get . . . . Still AS National at 1.44.something can't be too bad for a mouser from what I've seen . . . .

This SHOULD be STICKY!

This info gives that little extra something on top of bob's setup guide on lfswiki.