Personally, I think the clutch heats up wayyy to quickly, but I digress.....

Maybe someone (a bit more knowledgable than me) could post some information of how and why the/a clutch would overheat (I know the basics, but I am just very suprised how easy/quickly the clutch overheats in LFS), and the best way (if any) to deal with an overheated clutch, and the best way to avoid it happening in the first place.

Also is the way to deal with the new clutch temp different for autoclutch and manual?.

Although I embrace any realism updates, I can't help but think this update is going cause a great many issues with people racing.

yea i agree, i dont think the clutch does overheat that quick IRL.
my experience with manual transmission is limited since ive only driven one like 4 times (no drivers license...doh).
but i remember at the beginning ive been pretty bad to the clutch but didnt get that much (if any) slip like i do in LFS.

also, road, race and single seater cars should have different clutches, so different results, no?

Yes, they should, the clutch in the racing cars should be quite a lot different to ones in road cars.

Road cars with engines that can't generally pull the skin off a rice pudding, rarely (infact, I am sure I have never heard of it) overheat their clutch, the only time a clutch in a road car will/should slip is if it's warn.

Also, race cars have uprated clutches that are built to withstand the rigours of racing conditions, and I find it strange that you can easily overheat a clutch in 2 laps just by shifting "slightly" off.

I personally have never heard of someone retiring from a real life race because of clutch overheating........

I am more than prepared to be proven wrong, because I have never raced a single seater, and my experiance is mainly from driving road cars (which I can say I have never encountered an ounce of clutch slip, even with a chipped TDCi with nearly 400nm of torque on a standard clutch), but this clutch temp thing seems iffy at best to me.......

I didn't test extensively yet but the LX6 didn't heat up its clutch during a few laps, if there is no slip there is no heat and proper blipping and lifting avoids slip..

I embrace the idea of 'nursing' your car during a race because it is one of those big areas where sims haven't punished us enough until now.

I did notice you can't do a lot of starts in the new BMW, but I did a few laps, even spun and had to do two clutched launches, and it was still fine, even cooling down a bit during the next laps.

Still, not tested thoroughly but I haven't encountered heat issues yet..

you have to cut of the throttle in FZR totally, if you do it like you can in FBM, you are dead in like 5-6 laps...(70 shift ups or something) dunno why is this made like this, it's really pain in the ass for me to drive FZR like that. FBM is ok in that area for me.

In this regard, I'd even like it if its not quite realistic, as long as there is a way (nursing / carefull lifting) to make it last a long race. Its about time we treat our cars as if we owned them!

I managed to get a slipping FBM clutch to cool down whilst racing by only using 70% max throttle. Okay, I was 5 seconds a lap slower than usual, but it did eventually cool.

Having never had a hot, slipping clutch in real life, either in cars, bikes, trackdays, single seaters etc I still feel that something isn't right in that regard. But it does make races more... variable... just not very realistically.

I don't know if the bite point in the clutch changed or anything from X10, but the clutch felt slightly different than my limited half week of experience. Probably just because of the stalling and engine inertia is why it felt different.

I have 0 experience in the FOX (or other open wheeler) and my first try with the FMB resulted in not making it the entire way around to complete a lap. A result from the bite point when starting from a stop after 2 spins, or failed braking I should say.

That was the only single time I had the clutch heat up. I ran the FZR, FMB, and XFG all evening and not once did I see anything more than a single pixel of color on the F11 screen. I did not baby the cars, I spun and stalled quite a bit (brakes seem to different to me), and I used the clutch with every upshift. I used the clutch exactly the same way I would have in my everyday driver. No heating of the clutch at all except for the very first lap done in the new car.

I would like to take the XFG or a TBO out and just drive around, letting the clutch slip a bit on upshifts and doing many start/stop sequences to see how the clutch handles normal driving in a normal road car.

I've done a few trackdays before with my AE86, similar to XRG in LFS
I have a stock clutch, and never had any problems on track.
The slipping part feels kinda real, it slips the same way in my Hachi if i just kick the clutch while shifting.
The only time i could overheat it was on a drift practice, that means i kicked the clutch about 10-15 times a minute, but i think thats normal.

I think the devs will realize this clutch overheating is too much, it will shurely be corrected by Y...
Maybe you remember the same issue with the tires at first...
It has been fixed pretty good, don't worry.

It does need some work, it seems abnormally harsh, maybe to try and "punish" bad shifting more than bad shifting IRL would cause.......

I can't help but think that it has been made too harsh on purpose, I really can't imagine that clutch heat would ever be a problem in curcuit racing.

I drove the FBM for probably an hour this afternoon and I never suffered from clutch slipping once.

I don't think this is an issue in real life, brake overheating is a more common problem especially while trackuse

Didn't have a single problem with it overheating.
But that might be because I was already used to blipping and lifting the throttle manually.

I've watched quite a few V8 supercar races and those cars can burn the clutch with a single bad start. It'll recover, but will take some time.

Don't know how fast the clutch should cool down, but it seems a bit slow in the patch now. It'll take minutes even if you're sitting still on neutral.

Quote from teaz-R :

Didn't have a single problem with it overheating.
But that might be because I was already used to blipping and lifting the throttle manually.

I've watched quite a few V8 supercar races and those cars can burn the clutch with a single bad start. It'll recover, but will take some time.

Don't know how fast the clutch should cool down, but it seems a bit slow in the patch now. It'll take minutes even if you're sitting still on neutral.

Yeah same here I already lifted off the gas when shifting, so I don't have any problems with it

I think it's pretty good how it is...

I've cooked a clutch in a road car before doing autotests. When you've only got 89bhp, and thats only at the top of rev range, you find yourself clutching out a lot slower to keep the revs up. That was a nasty mazda...(not that Mazdas are bad, just this one) while there's no power to spin the clutch, the clutch is much weaker, so the whole process kind of scales down

This is twenty times more apparent in 125 2 stroke motorcycle racing. When I wanted to launch my 125 I'd have to rev it up to about 11k, and clutch out progressively over the course of about 5 seconds without letting the rpm drop untill you're all the way out, whip it up to 13k and grab second. The no clutch it (it's a constant mesh sequential gearbox) for the rest of the race.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85xywDoqfPI - this video gives a rough impression of what I mean about clutching out on low powered vehicles.

I've also had the clutch go funny on the bmw once (much harder to do, its stiff enough to need hydraulics), after driving at half a mile per hour having to slip it a lot to negotiate a field in a car definately not designed for it. Took ages for it to feel normal again, it felt like I'd glazed the plates, but they were probably just VERY hot.

I guess this is because there is no real cooling going on, its sandwiched between a hot piece of metal and a gearbox which is warm, and even though I've got a fan on there, its not necessarily enough. I'd say how long it takes to cool is about right.

I'm suprised they didn't whack in a preliminary brake heat simulation for this patch though, I've cooked brakes so much more often than I have clutch! I guess it doesn't matter which order they get worked on in really, I just figured once you've got a "heating and cooling" simulation, changing values for when to be hotter, when to cool down and at what rates, plus the effect of the temperature of the item in question, much of it would be code re-use.

Yeah, but you are talking about stop/start driving, where the clutch has to deal with all the torque tranfser trying to get all that weight moving, of course, it's going to be MUCH easier to overheat the clutch in these situations.

I am talking about clutch overheating just through shifting.

Quote from danowat :

Personally, I think the clutch heats up wayyy to quickly, but I digress.....

Maybe someone (a bit more knowledgable than me) could post some information of how and why the/a clutch would overheat (I know the basics, but I am just very suprised how easy/quickly the clutch overheats in LFS), and the best way (if any) to deal with an overheated clutch, and the best way to avoid it happening in the first place.

You drive differently in your normal roadcar. If you keep your foot on the gas changing rapidly through the gears you will burn your cludge too.
If you drive normaly there is no damage (i did notice a little when you drive away in the new formula BMW but i think that is normal and you only do that one or two times in a normal race).

To me, the clutch in LFS now seems to be like a really worn out clutch..

Maybe the heat is correct (should be easy to calculate, power loss=heat) but the effect must be wrong..

There should maybe be a "green" part of the temprature gauge that doesn't affect slip.

I have driven manual cars since '88 and never ever noticed any problems like this except with really worn out clutches..

I just tested the new patch and well I really dont drive in real life, I had a few clutch overheats (I think, can you tell when the gear starts sticking).

There is a problem with all this though, I switched my autogear on, and it throttled down and changed gear both up and down with perfect timing. I have yet to have an overheat problem and/or stall when autogear is on.

I think the system is too easy for people, as we all know autogear/autoclutch doesnt mean you change your car to an automatic, it means the computer shifts for you.

On a sequential gearbox with autogear selected, you can get some monster times, without really worrying about the condition of your car.

Quote from z3r0c00l :

I think it's pretty good how it is...

I've cooked a clutch in a road car before doing autotests. When you've only got 89bhp, and thats only at the top of rev range, you find yourself clutching out a lot slower to keep the revs up. That was a nasty mazda...(not that Mazdas are bad, just this one) while there's no power to spin the clutch, the clutch is much weaker, so the whole process kind of scales down.

I think that many folks don't know how to drive with a clutch. I bought my first car in 1989 (after driving parent's hand-me-down automatic trans.) and it was a 75 hp 1985 Ford Escort. Test driving the car at the dealer was the first time I'd ever driven with a clutch. I never overheated the clutch.

I've had a clutch slip on me once in 19 years of driving. It was with my 1988 Toyota 4Runner with 160,000 miles. It was due to a worn clutch, not over heating. I've had my share of slipping the clutch in my 500,000 miles of driving with a clutch (starting on very steep hills, boot sole getting caught in the carpet mat, etc.). I let my wife drive 2 of my manual transmissioned vehicles when we were dating, and she was quite hard on the clutch. Never has the clutch overheated to where it would slip.

Quote from teaz-R :

I've watched quite a few V8 supercar races and those cars can burn the clutch with a single bad start. It'll recover, but will take some time.

Here's an example of that (first 40 secs, watch Skaife on the front row). But, there was no chance for it to recover.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... qKuVw&feature=related

Honestly if your having problems then your doing something wrong. I just spent another couple hours racing the bmw online and the clutch is coolest at the end of the race and this is pushing hard. The only time I've got it to slip was when deliberately abusing it just to test what some of you are saying.
I've used a clutch in LFS for a long time and it's finally just about right, coupled with the other engine/gear shifting improvements this patch has lifted the level in terms of realistic racing in LFS

my guess is that lfs is either mssing some slip elsewhere in the drivetrain/contact patch or the engine inertia is a tad too high now
on a car like the xfg you can happily dump the clutch with almost no slip and heat buildup on a shift and after a jolt going through the entire car the revs match just fine without the tons of slip you currently see on the xfg (not that this will be easy on the clutch either but still)

Most of us doesn't have any experience with race cars like V8 supercars or formula cars, including me.

But I do have experience with cars with manual gearbox that could be looked upon as XF, XR or RB4.
A simple test to check if the clutch is worn is to keep the engine at 3k rpm, and "drop" the clutch (and floor the pedal) in 3. gear. If the clutch is worn you have the same effect as in LFS, a good clutch will stall the engine.
In the XR you cant even get wheelspinn in a stright line without overheating. Don't tell me that a burnout isn't possible in a road car.

Quote from danowat :

Yeah, but you are talking about stop/start driving, where the clutch has to deal with all the torque tranfser trying to get all that weight moving, of course, it's going to be MUCH easier to overheat the clutch in these situations.

I am talking about clutch overheating just through shifting.

I drove the RB4 and the FBM yesterday and the only way I could get the clutch to slip during shifting is if I used the clutch and refused to let off during the shift.

I would slowly wear the clutch during normal shift, which is different than the heating, but never had a problem with heating during normal shifting unless I had missed some shifts and shifted improperly.

There are two components in the clutch bar graph in F9 and F10. One, the yellow area is the actual clutch wear. The second bit, which is red is the wear happening because of overheating. When the bar is red you do not have 100% connection to the driveline through the clutch and the clutch is always slipping.