From when I last dug into LFS tyre physics (around 2009 or 2010) I concluded they heated and cooled too slowly, but lost too much grip when too hot or cold. These factors average out during racing, to give reasonable amounts of grip change, but fall apart in extreme conditions, like drifting.
Project Motor Racing
Formerly GTRevival, Ian Bell's first title from Straight4 Studios just had a bit of an update announced:
- this was filmed better than I expected
Expecting more details on the title to be shared next month at Gamescom 24.
Thought this may be of interest. I think it's shaping up well from behind the scenes.
- this was filmed better than I expected
Expecting more details on the title to be shared next month at Gamescom 24.
Thought this may be of interest. I think it's shaping up well from behind the scenes.
That file on my machine is located in C:\Windows\SysWOW64
20 years of playing LFS for me as well, though I didn't register for an account until I decided to pay for S1.
It is nice to see people keep relatively normal cars alive to live a long life, and not just exotics or special editions.
What is the appeal to you personally in this car?
That's using the smaller US gallon. The Imperial gallon works at 16.1l/100km, so on par with your AMG experience.
It's the coupe version of the 3rd gen Holden Commodore, which was one of only a few models under the GM lineup to be manufactured in Australia. It has a few upgrade parts from a donor HSV (Holden Special Vehicles) model, such as the seats. 800 were imported here back in 2004-2005 but nowhere else in Europe got them.
Top Gear's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr_yQeWekgY
Top Gear Power Lap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf7zyCzXOfo
For a daily A to B car I've no objections to electric, but I don't see how they can sell sports cars like that. The shifting of gear and roar of the engine is the main appeal to me, I don't even understand the appeal of automatics or paddle shifts, outside of track days.
Last edited by Bob Smith, .
I picked up a 'VZ' Monaro back in October and finally got around to getting a nice shot of it in the daylight.
The whole fuel price thing is clearly my fault, just my luck that prices would rise just after I start running a V8. I'm averaging 17.5mpg (yes I'm lead footed) which led to a £500 fuel bill last month.
I'm now looking at getting a boring but vaguely economic car to run alongside it as the money saved in fuel should cover all the extra expenses of a second car.
Engine is stock for now but hoping next year I can let it breathe a bit better. Gains of 100hp are pretty common for an NA setup, which would suit me. Another 250hp possible if I pop a supercharger on but I don't feel the need to liquify my rear tyres.
The whole fuel price thing is clearly my fault, just my luck that prices would rise just after I start running a V8. I'm averaging 17.5mpg (yes I'm lead footed) which led to a £500 fuel bill last month.
I'm now looking at getting a boring but vaguely economic car to run alongside it as the money saved in fuel should cover all the extra expenses of a second car.
Engine is stock for now but hoping next year I can let it breathe a bit better. Gains of 100hp are pretty common for an NA setup, which would suit me. Another 250hp possible if I pop a supercharger on but I don't feel the need to liquify my rear tyres.
It's a pretty reasonable suggestion, though I'm not sure the bin files contain all the necessary data to accurately create a vehicle. The torque curve, for example, I think we used some acceleration data to work back from. I'm not sure if I'll ever do another update though, and while I'd like to rewrite at some point, time is very much against me.
The process is not automated. There was never an expectation of mods, I used this once for the default cars and never looked at it again. You may need to do some maths to get the rest of the values that VHPA needs. Weight distribution is reported directly in LFS though.
Go to Tools, LFS Vehicle Data Output Reader
Go to File, User Vehicles, Save Vehicle Data. Once saved, press Ctrl-A to bring up the list of vehicles loaded on start-up. From there, find your freshly saved vehicle file and add to the list so it will always be present in VHPA.
LFS used to support exporting data dumps to give me all the information I needed to model a car in VHPA. Scawen added this feature at my request back in 2006 but I forget the key combination to trigger it now. The files format (extension: BIN) is not even listed in the manual: https://en.lfsmanual.net/wiki/File_Formats
Edit: found it, still listed on the main site: https://www.lfs.net/programmer/carinfo - press O whilst in the garage
I've not tested with the latest versions of LFS to see if that is still present and working for modded vehicles. VHPA will not need updating though until the new tyre physics come out, at which point I would need to update the hardcoded tyre data.
I'm not sure if I'll be doing that when the time comes, it's been so long since I wrote this, I'd need to install a virtual machine just to install an old operating system (XP) necessary to load the ancient version of Visual Studio that lets me program VB6. I'd love to rewrite the program in a more flexible way but really can't see me having the time for that.
Edit: found it, still listed on the main site: https://www.lfs.net/programmer/carinfo - press O whilst in the garage
I've not tested with the latest versions of LFS to see if that is still present and working for modded vehicles. VHPA will not need updating though until the new tyre physics come out, at which point I would need to update the hardcoded tyre data.
I'm not sure if I'll be doing that when the time comes, it's been so long since I wrote this, I'd need to install a virtual machine just to install an old operating system (XP) necessary to load the ancient version of Visual Studio that lets me program VB6. I'd love to rewrite the program in a more flexible way but really can't see me having the time for that.
Last edited by Bob Smith, .
Just seen this, please you posted here as I disconnected from him on Facebook in a big clear out years ago. I think I did only meet him in person the once but I quickly warmed to him; handsome, approachable and charismatic. I believe he organised the first LFS UK meet which led to so many more and thus all those good times with so many of you. We all have those memories as his legacy.
A great character from the sim racing world. Gone but not forgotten.
A great character from the sim racing world. Gone but not forgotten.
This all looks SO good 
Thanks for doing these again, always great to see the changes.
Thanks for doing these again, always great to see the changes.
They are very spoiled! Great looking room.
If you come up with a bunch of dimensions, it would be useful for you to share the figures to save the next person the trouble. 
The worrying thing is I'm far more ancient than my G25.
Good to see some old faces in this thread. I'm literally twice the age compared to when I signed up and have fond memories, but that's mostly all it feels. I even replaced my Live for Speed engraved hip flask this week, it was finally too battered to be useable. It got me through many nights out in my twenties!
It is to help you tune setups by offering numerical analysis to give further insight into the settings and how they combine to influence vehicle handling. The learning curve is a little steep but it's much more powerful than simple staring at lists of parameters and using trial and error. The idea is you can predict the changes you are making so you'll make adjustments much closer to what you want to get in the first iteration, and you'll also be aware of side effects.
The original plan for the Tesla vehicles was a two speed gearbox, but this was changed to two different fixed gears running at the same time, possible due to the multiple engine layout.
Some further reading: https://cleantechnica.com/2019/07/22/ev-transmissions-are-coming-and-its-a-good-thing/
Some further reading: https://cleantechnica.com/2019/07/22/ev-transmissions-are-coming-and-its-a-good-thing/
That's a nice exploded diagram, thanks for sharing
Did you come back from the dead just to post that?
If so; well played, sir.
I'm always interested about the tyre modelling. When I wrote a thermodynamic model for NASCAR 2011, I used a weighted average of all the material properties of the 'ingredients' of a typical tyre, and it seemed to work really well. The tyre temperatures came out very close to the real cars, though I did note that the tyres warmed and cooled a lot faster than LFS. As such, the temperature vs friction curve I made up was much subtler than has been derived from LFS.
I know you're not really thinking about this topic now, but when you are, always happy to be a sounding board for ideas.
That makes a lot of sense. Many ways to design a car, and especially a tyre.
Now I'm having memories of you taking me down those Wiltshire back roads in your M3.
Do you still have that?Yeah I still use VHPA with Windows 10. I thought the instructions for installing the VB6 runtime components covered Windows 10 as well.
I'd love to make a new version of the tool at some point, that is much more generic (ie not so tied to LFS), supports way more vehicle types, and is written in C#. I'd likely need to be out of work for six months again for that project to start! Sadly I didn't get furloughed during the lockdown so I've been kept busy.
I'd love to make a new version of the tool at some point, that is much more generic (ie not so tied to LFS), supports way more vehicle types, and is written in C#. I'd likely need to be out of work for six months again for that project to start! Sadly I didn't get furloughed during the lockdown so I've been kept busy.
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