I dont really find this take very logical to be honest 
let me explain....
In a corner all four tyres have a lateral force on them due to tyre slip angle. When the rear tyres break away the fronts still have that lateral force whereas the rears clearly dont (well they have less anyway). So in order to bring the car back to a non sliding state, that lateral force either needs to be regained at the rear or lost at the front, agreed?
Now this is where this technique confuses me.... clearly regaining grip at the rear isnt an option and as people have said the only thing left is steering. So in order to reduce grip at the front there are two options:
a) a normal counter steer technique - only a few degrees of steering in the opposite direction before the slip angle of the tyres is reduced sufficiently so that the lateral force from the front and rear tyres is balanced and grip regained.
b) the 'understeer' technique - turning the wheel further raises slip angle above what is optimum and therefore lateral force decreases and the tyres begin sliding. However, no matter how much steering input you apply and therefore however much the tyres are sliding, there will still be a lateral force keep the front end turning.
So WHY would you CHOOSE to turn the wheel a lot - say 180° minimum to achieve the same affect of turning the wheel maybe 5° or 10° maximum for ANY type of oversteer situation???
Now what happens if the rear has broken away big style. With a conventional technique you carrying on applying opposite lock in the direction you're already turning the wheel until there is little or quite probably no lateral force on the front tyres and the control is regained.
But with this understeer technique you cant do that. even if you apply full lock to give the front tyres the biggest slip angle possible and they are sliding across the road, they're STILL going to have a lateral force on them accelerating them towards the corner and that's not going to help regain control at the rear.
So what im saying is, although this technique does work (im certainly not arguing that), it requires far more effort and leaves nothing left to cope if the initial reaction doesnt generate suffcient understeer to cope with the oversteer!
But finally, talking of this being used in an LX6, there are some Caterhams that have been prepared for track day type instruction lessons where a brake pedal for the instructor has been installed. When the pupil loses loses control of the car (which is almost inevitable!!), the instructor simply stands on the brake pedal to lock up the front wheels in order to make sure the front slides instead of the whole car spinning! That would be an interesting one to test in LFS.
let me explain....In a corner all four tyres have a lateral force on them due to tyre slip angle. When the rear tyres break away the fronts still have that lateral force whereas the rears clearly dont (well they have less anyway). So in order to bring the car back to a non sliding state, that lateral force either needs to be regained at the rear or lost at the front, agreed?
Now this is where this technique confuses me.... clearly regaining grip at the rear isnt an option and as people have said the only thing left is steering. So in order to reduce grip at the front there are two options:
a) a normal counter steer technique - only a few degrees of steering in the opposite direction before the slip angle of the tyres is reduced sufficiently so that the lateral force from the front and rear tyres is balanced and grip regained.
b) the 'understeer' technique - turning the wheel further raises slip angle above what is optimum and therefore lateral force decreases and the tyres begin sliding. However, no matter how much steering input you apply and therefore however much the tyres are sliding, there will still be a lateral force keep the front end turning.
So WHY would you CHOOSE to turn the wheel a lot - say 180° minimum to achieve the same affect of turning the wheel maybe 5° or 10° maximum for ANY type of oversteer situation???
Now what happens if the rear has broken away big style. With a conventional technique you carrying on applying opposite lock in the direction you're already turning the wheel until there is little or quite probably no lateral force on the front tyres and the control is regained.
But with this understeer technique you cant do that. even if you apply full lock to give the front tyres the biggest slip angle possible and they are sliding across the road, they're STILL going to have a lateral force on them accelerating them towards the corner and that's not going to help regain control at the rear.
So what im saying is, although this technique does work (im certainly not arguing that), it requires far more effort and leaves nothing left to cope if the initial reaction doesnt generate suffcient understeer to cope with the oversteer!
But finally, talking of this being used in an LX6, there are some Caterhams that have been prepared for track day type instruction lessons where a brake pedal for the instructor has been installed. When the pupil loses loses control of the car (which is almost inevitable!!), the instructor simply stands on the brake pedal to lock up the front wheels in order to make sure the front slides instead of the whole car spinning! That would be an interesting one to test in LFS.
Don't let all these responses about cost put you off! Only you know how much you can afford but I assure you that you can race on even the smallest budget! I know I certainly do! 
Your best bet is to check out the forums on www.karting.co.uk or www.karting1.co.uk. There is plenty of advice on there for newcomers to karting just make sure you search for older topics as just like here no one appreciates people posting without searching for a top that answers their questions first.
A lot of people will tell you how much it costs them for x amounts of rebuilds and racing etc etc but don't take their word as final... there will be something to suit you!!! When you look at all the information that you will find it will all seem very complicated and difficult to know where to start. Don't rush any decisions, take your time and decide what is right for you or it could end up being expensive.
And just remember to have fun.... it is very unlikely that you'll turn out to be the next Schumacher so dont take the whole thing too seriously!
Hope that helps!
Your best bet is to check out the forums on www.karting.co.uk or www.karting1.co.uk. There is plenty of advice on there for newcomers to karting just make sure you search for older topics as just like here no one appreciates people posting without searching for a top that answers their questions first.
A lot of people will tell you how much it costs them for x amounts of rebuilds and racing etc etc but don't take their word as final... there will be something to suit you!!! When you look at all the information that you will find it will all seem very complicated and difficult to know where to start. Don't rush any decisions, take your time and decide what is right for you or it could end up being expensive.
And just remember to have fun.... it is very unlikely that you'll turn out to be the next Schumacher so dont take the whole thing too seriously!
Hope that helps!
i thought of that but isnt the warranty only a year? if so mine ran out just before christmas 
Sorry to hijack this thread for a minute but im in a bit of trouble. i havent played lfs for about 7 months or so due to various reasons but have finally got my setup back together again. only thing is i've lost the power supply cable for my g25!! im desperate to play lfs again so if anyone could point me in the direction of where to get one it would be most appreciated!
pm me if you know of anything!!
im desperate to play lfs again so if anyone could point me in the direction of where to get one it would be most appreciated!pm me if you know of anything!!
Im at Brunel University although im currently doing a placement year down in kent. Why dya ask?
+1
only played it extremely briefly but seems a massive improvement over X. I've been out of LFS for 7 months for various reasons and have missed it loads. This patch is making me more and more excited to get back into LFS in the new year!!! Whoop!
only played it extremely briefly but seems a massive improvement over X. I've been out of LFS for 7 months for various reasons and have missed it loads. This patch is making me more and more excited to get back into LFS in the new year!!! Whoop!
dragoncommando, please stop this senseless arguing now! There isn't one thing you are saying that is correct, myself and others have taken the time to try and explain what happens, or what should happen, during a downshift and you are just stubbornly ignoring us.
I have done autotesting, karting, track days in a single seater (admitedly a non winged car), ridden a lot of different motorbikes and am doing motorsport engineering at university. I therefore think i know what the f*ck i am talking about. whilst i dont pretend to be an expert or know half as much as some people on this forum, this is not a difficult subject to fathom.
I am also quite happy to have other people correct me when i am wrong provided they use a logical and well formed explanation. I suggest you take a hint from that statement as we have tried to explain to you why you are wrong but you are blindly ignoring us. I am not looking at this thread again as it is p*ssing me off and I don't fancy wasting anymore time on it.
I have done autotesting, karting, track days in a single seater (admitedly a non winged car), ridden a lot of different motorbikes and am doing motorsport engineering at university. I therefore think i know what the f*ck i am talking about. whilst i dont pretend to be an expert or know half as much as some people on this forum, this is not a difficult subject to fathom.
I am also quite happy to have other people correct me when i am wrong provided they use a logical and well formed explanation. I suggest you take a hint from that statement as we have tried to explain to you why you are wrong but you are blindly ignoring us. I am not looking at this thread again as it is p*ssing me off and I don't fancy wasting anymore time on it.
engine braking will also help stop your wheels locking up. if you push in the clutch and brake just a fraction too hard your wheels will lock. simple. if you brake with exactly the same force but this time without pushing the clutch, the wheels will just begin to lock which brings the engine revs right down. at this point, the engine works against the brakes as the enginge will be trying to idle and still be producing some, albiet a small amount of, power which helps to keep the wheels turning. this stops the wheels completely locking but gives you a good warning that you are at the limit of braking potential. this point of very low slip is where the most grip is obtained anyway.
this effect can be heard whilst listening to an onboard of a motorcycle without a slipper clutch. under braking (once the bike is in the right gear) you will hear the revs stutter and not really rise or fall until the bike approaches the turn in point. the same thing is quite easy to experience in a two stroke kart as well.
this effect can be heard whilst listening to an onboard of a motorcycle without a slipper clutch. under braking (once the bike is in the right gear) you will hear the revs stutter and not really rise or fall until the bike approaches the turn in point. the same thing is quite easy to experience in a two stroke kart as well.
When done correctly heel and toe will make you faster, i don't understand why people are saying otherwise.
Imagine this, you are braking really hard using all available grip from the tires from top speed into a hairpin. Your total braking force is a combination of brake force and engine braking effect. Since most of your time while braking is spent with the car in gear, your brake balance should be adjusted to achieve maximum braking effect at all four wheels. As soon as you dip the clutch to change gear you lose some engine braking effect from whichever wheels are driven. To compensate you could press the brake harder but whichever wheels aren't driven will then obviously lock. So while you change gear you are therefore not achieving maximum braking effect from all four wheels.
by matching the revs using h&t the gear change can be completed very quickly and you will be back to maximum braking. if no h&t is used it is still possible to achieve the same engine braking whilst slipping the clutch but to do this perfectly is so so much harder and so much more risky. Not to mention increased clutch damage from doing so. When slipping the clutch it wouldn't take much to release it a fraction to quickly causing a torque spike which the tires can't handle (due to them being at their limit of grip already) then before you know it you've locked up and are either spinning out or are going to run too deep into the corner. therefore the majority of people who slip the clutch on downshifts are leaving a bigger margin for error than someone who h&t's.
in the time it takes to complete one down change without h&t, someone with it should have been able to complete two, that is the difference. if you are able to simply dump the clutch on a down shift without blipping the throttle then you aren't using all the available grip from the tires during braking and the brake balance could be adjusted to give better braking.
yes h&t is much harder when you haven't had much practise but that is the same with everything!! Im not exactly a god at lfs but it doesnt take much thinking to figure this one out. Spend some time practising braking on the drag strip exeprimenting with setups and techniques and you'll see what i mean.
and at the arguments of 'it doesn't make you faster it makes the car more stable'..... surely better stability will allow you to push harder and therefore be faster!?
Imagine this, you are braking really hard using all available grip from the tires from top speed into a hairpin. Your total braking force is a combination of brake force and engine braking effect. Since most of your time while braking is spent with the car in gear, your brake balance should be adjusted to achieve maximum braking effect at all four wheels. As soon as you dip the clutch to change gear you lose some engine braking effect from whichever wheels are driven. To compensate you could press the brake harder but whichever wheels aren't driven will then obviously lock. So while you change gear you are therefore not achieving maximum braking effect from all four wheels.
by matching the revs using h&t the gear change can be completed very quickly and you will be back to maximum braking. if no h&t is used it is still possible to achieve the same engine braking whilst slipping the clutch but to do this perfectly is so so much harder and so much more risky. Not to mention increased clutch damage from doing so. When slipping the clutch it wouldn't take much to release it a fraction to quickly causing a torque spike which the tires can't handle (due to them being at their limit of grip already) then before you know it you've locked up and are either spinning out or are going to run too deep into the corner. therefore the majority of people who slip the clutch on downshifts are leaving a bigger margin for error than someone who h&t's.
in the time it takes to complete one down change without h&t, someone with it should have been able to complete two, that is the difference. if you are able to simply dump the clutch on a down shift without blipping the throttle then you aren't using all the available grip from the tires during braking and the brake balance could be adjusted to give better braking.
yes h&t is much harder when you haven't had much practise but that is the same with everything!! Im not exactly a god at lfs but it doesnt take much thinking to figure this one out. Spend some time practising braking on the drag strip exeprimenting with setups and techniques and you'll see what i mean.
and at the arguments of 'it doesn't make you faster it makes the car more stable'..... surely better stability will allow you to push harder and therefore be faster!?
Im in and can't wait to get a desk in my new house and my wheel setup after 6 months away from LFS!!
My mate was sat next to me when i read the list of changes and now thinks im quite wierd by how excited i got!! haha
My mate was sat next to me when i read the list of changes and now thinks im quite wierd by how excited i got!! haha
sorry to hear that i know how you feel dude! I crashed my bike last wednesday got my wrist in a cast and my foot and knee bandaged up due to cuts. a bus came round the corner on my side of the road so i had a choice between the tarmac or the bus... i chose the tarmac but still didnt come off so great! no lfs for me for about 6 weeks
my bike wasnt too bad, it was a tdr 250 and now needs new fairings, wing mirror, handlebars (i bent the handle bar and clutch with my left wrist, hence the cast!! and the right hand end is severly worn down) and new rhs exhaust. oh and a new master cylinder!
hope you get your bike sorted s and back on the road soon!!!
my bike wasnt too bad, it was a tdr 250 and now needs new fairings, wing mirror, handlebars (i bent the handle bar and clutch with my left wrist, hence the cast!! and the right hand end is severly worn down) and new rhs exhaust. oh and a new master cylinder!
hope you get your bike sorted s and back on the road soon!!!
i work at a kart track during the summer which has very similar karts to these just without the stupid roll bars. They are stupidly heavy due to the batteries but they still accelerate quickly to a top speed of 40 mph. Whilst they are by no means 'proper' karts they are a good laugh if you've never been karting before and are easily a match for single engined 4-stroke hire karts that a lot of places have. give it a go but they arent worth wasting too much money on. i only like them because my job is to maintain our fleet and i get to drive them around all day testing them! 
Yes thank you for your hard work GF it was an awesome race, can't wait for the season to start!
Brilliant! I can't make the first round of the championship as i'll be at le mans 24hrs but hopefully i can make the others... i say hopefully as saturdays are a bit difficult for me :-/
Thank you for this change!!! Makes testing for league races so much easier for me!
Keep up the good work!
Yep the SimRS events are great fun as although you *know* the tracks the fact you dont get to practise makes it difficult. I think having real life co drivers would be great but quite hard to get enough people to want to do it tbh. We'll see how the first SimRS championship goes but i do think its natural progression will be to create layouts on current tracks so that its even more of an unknown
This isnt a new thing, it has been like this for as long as I can remember
a lot of people are forgetting that this is an OPTION!!! you are not being forced to pay ANYTHING extra it is still exactly the same as it was before this test patch.
however, some of us want this option and do not mind paying a few quid for it so please do not have a rant at the devs for 'ripping us off' or anything like that... its entirely our choice as to whether we use it or not and i assume that the purpose of this thread and poll was merely to find out the proportions of people using it and not for people to whine about spending any money. if you think its expensive fair enough but do you seriously think the devs are using this new option to rake in the cash and sit on their backsides for the next year?? .............Didnt think so
apologies for the rant
however, some of us want this option and do not mind paying a few quid for it so please do not have a rant at the devs for 'ripping us off' or anything like that... its entirely our choice as to whether we use it or not and i assume that the purpose of this thread and poll was merely to find out the proportions of people using it and not for people to whine about spending any money. if you think its expensive fair enough but do you seriously think the devs are using this new option to rake in the cash and sit on their backsides for the next year?? .............Didnt think so
apologies for the rant
I've paid but i've got it turned off atm because my laptop won't be able to cope! but hopefully i'll be getting a new computer soon so i will then.
I dont really see how people can call it expensive because in the 18 months or whatever it is that i've played LFS i've had about 6000 skins downloaded into my skins_x folder. Thats only £3 by this system and if it carries on at roughly the same rate then a few quid is absolutely nothing for the amount of enjoyment i get from LFS!! I mean that's the price of a pint in some of the places round where I live at uni, and just under the price of two anywhere else... not exactly much is it.
but hopefully i'll be getting a new computer soon so i will then.I dont really see how people can call it expensive because in the 18 months or whatever it is that i've played LFS i've had about 6000 skins downloaded into my skins_x folder. Thats only £3 by this system and if it carries on at roughly the same rate then a few quid is absolutely nothing for the amount of enjoyment i get from LFS!! I mean that's the price of a pint in some of the places round where I live at uni, and just under the price of two anywhere else... not exactly much is it.
I read an interview the other week, (will try and dig up the link in a minute) in which the developer said the map is going to be roughly the same size as San Andreas but will be A LOT more detailed i.e. almost enitrely city based compared to the wide open spaces of SA.
EDIT: Go here for the latest info on GTA IV The interview i had seen was nearer the bottom of the page.
Last edited by andy_bonjon, .
Sounds kool I'll look forward to the Championship then!
Next Event??
Just wondered if there was any idea when the next event will be or what plans there are for the near future?? I miss having these rally's to look forward to as an alternative from the usual racing!
I got a pm for Day and Time voting, but not for track!? Was that just a typo?
I've just got myself a summer job as kart mechanic at our local track. i've only done one week due to uni so not sure about tyre life etc, but in my first week i had six bent axles to replace! and that week was a quiet one, apparently it gets a lot worse in the summer. all of them were bent through someone spinning and then getting hit by another kart on the rear corner.
sorry i cant be more helpful but just another thing to think about
sorry i cant be more helpful but just another thing to think about
FO8 for me
please please dont mix the grids though... the two cars arent close enough for it to be worthwhile. i raced on a combo yesterday with fo8 and fox and it was absolute carnage... the fo8's are just so much faster!! and if you get loads of entries (which looks likely) split it into two servers, one for fox and one for fo8
jusst my 2p
please please dont mix the grids though... the two cars arent close enough for it to be worthwhile. i raced on a combo yesterday with fo8 and fox and it was absolute carnage... the fo8's are just so much faster!! and if you get loads of entries (which looks likely) split it into two servers, one for fox and one for fo8
jusst my 2p
FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG