Quote from duke_toaster :

Great tool, Ben. Is there any chance of support for intake restrictions? It would be rather useful as restricted cars are becoming rather popular.

Built in support would be messy because the torque and power curves are a simple mathematical model that allows a reasonable estimate of their shape using the peak torque and peak power rpm and values. It's not perfect as it is. Adding a mathematical model for restriction would deviate quite a lot from LFS' results probably. Your best bet is to take the current vehicle and edit the engine specs. You just need to enter the new peak torque and peak power, and their rpm as given by LFS.

Anton's right, I'll look into it but I'm trying to avoid going down the full engine simulation route. I'm assuming most people don't know enough about engines and it's hard enough to get a decent torque curve without having people spending hours trying to recreate their engine.

If you want to know all the things I'm planning on adding, I've just merged my paper and various electronic notes into an HTML file and stuck it on the site. I'm still adding to it and tidying it now as I think things through, but here it is: http://www.vehicle-analyser.com/todo.html

If you have anything to suggest, now is the time to do it, before I start deciding what I want to get in for the next release.

Bob i gotta request / question:

Will/does the .set import export to a csv file? I'd like to be able to import a .set, export it to csv and import it into excel to compare 2 or 3 setups side-by-side.

Doh - could it just export to an excel file?

Hmm, you can't at the moment. What do you hope to gain by comparing the input parameters side by side?

Another thing I need to stick on that todo list is a setup compare facility that would skip most of the number but give you a very general overview of each setup, with all the balance diagrams next to each other, with a column for each set or something. I think that would be far more useful.

the idea is to have two setups w/comparitive laptimes and a notes section

I'll add it to my notes, make a little CSV exportable from the setup reader.

tanks m8

about bump, when u say 60 - 75% do you mean of rebound or, that percentage it says for bump in vhpa?

Of critical, which is the figure given in VHPA.

oki, ty

I would like to request a feature. Often I try to find the right spring stiffness but would like to keep rebound and bump dampening at the same percentage for a different spring stiffness. Would it be possible to add a "lock" to rebound and bump dampening percentage so the values change together with the spring stiffness, but keep the same percentage?

Hi Bob,
Couldn't find if answered before or not.
after installing (admin rights) while trying to run it (with restricted user), shows a popup window saying Error 75 and aborts; tracing the cause it's because the program can't find/create the settings file (or the like)

going back to the admin user it runs, but back to the restricted user now runs, but changing preferences and trying to save them, shows the same popup window and aborts.
Giving the restricted user (or users using it) writing rights solves it

Bob, you know the code, you know what to do with this information

Nelson.

Hmm, not heard of that problem before. Vista I presume? Not sure what I can do about that, I just open a file in a standard way and pass the data to it. I could add some error hanlding I suppose but that wouldn't help you save you settings. I'll add that info to the FAQ later, thanks.

stry90dis - nice idea

Bob , I need your help with this one:
Yesterday I started to use the tool seriously, trying to fix a setup while on CTRA, after many races, not being able to, a team mate asked me why my car was THAT high, back to the pits, OMG yes, both sides 12.x cm (5 in.)!!!
Everytime the tool loads a set it defaults to around 5 in.
is there something in the settings?
Thanks.

Seems fine for me. Just checking you have the latest version (3.1.0) and LFS compatability mode is enabled? Other than that I don't know what it could be. Anyone else having this problem?

Yes, it's the 3.1.0 with comp. mode enabled.
I'm using FZ50 GTR, so I open any setup, put both sliders for spring length to 0 (far left), save it; and when opening again it shows 5.1 cm in both. Will try reinstalling, let u know if fixed.
Thanks

Hmm funny I'm testing at home now and it won't load the ride height in correctly. Worked fine with the copy I've got at work though. Thanks for the report, I'll have a play.

Quote from flyby3d :

Just a little bug report I haven't seen mentioned before:
- if I open your program and LFS is already open, than your program will be EXTREMELY slow, moving sliders happens with huge delay, practically unusable.

I'm bumping my old post just to say that I finally found what was the problem and to share the solution.

My problem was apparently related to my CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2

with LFS and WHPA open at the same time, for some reason VHPA would slow down, almost unusable.

installing the utility AMD Dual-Core Optimizer from AMD website, solved completely the problem!

Hi!

I just discoverd your tool and play around a bit. Now I´m not sure wheather I´m doing something wrong or if the programm is just not meant to do that: when I select a vehicle and change the engine specs, than save the setup and run lfs with that car/setup, nothing has changed. I must confess I didnt read the whole manual, but maybe some of you can help me. What do I have to do to import the engine changes to lfs (if possible)?

thx a lot and btw very nice tool!

That is not possible. Only the settings, not the car data, are used by LFS.

flyby3d - Aha. That won't solve anything for single core users though. There's not really much you can do when you run two CPU intensive programs at once. For the next release I'm going to add an option to allow the automatic calculations to be turned off, and you'll be able to perform then manually with a keypress. That should help users of slower systems.

Ok I thought so. Very nice work anyway

Quote from Bob Smith :

Thanks for the report, I'll have a play.

Thank YOU for the tool!!!

It is a great tool, however my problem is that I am still learning about car physics and how to create good solid setups. My problem is not lack of information, my problem is too much information. It would be really useful if someone can post an example (Tutorial etc) for one track setup using this tool in a simplified way. This will give a good example of how to effectively use this tool with LFS to create an analyze setups. I know there are very capable guys around here who can probably help guys like me to learn and understand LFS and use tools like this in a much better way.

Thanks

I'm starting to rewrite the LFS advanced setup guide on my lunch breaks to use the this tool rather than the (now very outdated) tools that were about at the time, and update explanations and tips in general. I've learnt a lot since in the 2 years since I last updated it.

That may well be too much for you, and isn't going to be available anytime soon. I understand the information overload problem. Basically with the option to adjusting settings you are entering the world of vehicle dynamics, of which VHPA really only scratches the surface. It's a whole profession to understand. I'm not sure if there could be a beginners guide to this, I'll have a think about it while I'm rewriting my guide.

I agree with you on the fact that it require lot of knowledge to understand this, however there is always a start. I have read your old advanced setup guide that you made avaiable to us and it is a fantastic guide, I learnt a lot from it.

It is music to my ears that you are already working on updating it, I will eagerly wait for that to be updated. In the mean time I guess can experiment and try to learn more from the already avaiable information.

Thanks