Hello there!

I have got a question.

I've just tested a long run with the BF1 on Aston North. But, on some fast turns and especially in that little downhill chicane, the car gets suspension damage. I think because it bottoms out.

In the beginning of the stint I just went through the chicane as fast as I could. Later, when I saw the damage, I went through it a lot slower, but it still kept getting more damage.

I attached some screens as an example.

I don't care if it gets a little damage, as long as it's possible to finish race up to 310 km.

Is there a way to prevent getting the car so much damage, setup-wise?
Now, the suspension was already fully damaged (red) by lap 18.

Thanks in advance.

Increasing ride height and Stiffening the springs will help.

OT: How did you manage 4.3G there!?!

Quote from J@tko :

Increasing ride height and Stiffening the springs will help.

Hmm, I tried that. Even with full stiffness and height it gets damage, although it's less.. Still not there, but it's something. I'd have to run a full stint to see if it really helps. Thanks.

But how can I increase the stiffness without screwing up the balance?

@ morpha, just a lot of downforce.

From what i can see in them pictures, your car does to seem to be pretty low. Them parts of aston are pretty bumpy, so i would suggest raising the ride height a little, and have a mess about with the damping so it can take the bumps a little smoother. Also check your stiffness to make sure its not too stiff.

Quote from Darkone55 :

@ morpha, just a lot of downforce.

That might be your problem

Try decreasing downforce, and then do the above

Quote from Darkone55 :

@ morpha, just a lot of downforce.

Max stiffness and height wont help if the front wing pushes it down, so maybe that's the problem. Although... I guess you'd really need absolutely ludicrous front wing angle with maximum stiffness to get the nose down...

€: Minutes! Man I'm slow

Hmm...

Well, the downforce is pretty much critical.

The height it 107 mm rear and 88 mm at the front. I think that's not too low. The downforce might be the thing, but I'd rather solve it by adjusting the stiffness. I don't know about the damping. The balance is pretty much optimal at the moment, so rather don't touch it.

..

I just tested a lap, stiffer damping seems to help a lot. I'll try to balance that out then... Pff, lot of work. :P

EDIT:

Ok, I did some more testing. It seems that it's not so much the bottoming that causes the damage. If I make the car low enough I don't get any damage at all. But then it also bottoms in the medium fast turns, making it impossible to be fast. I tried about every combination;

- hard damped, stiff and high
- hard damped, stiff and low
- hard damped, soft and low
- soft damped, stiff and high
- soft damped, stiff and low

And some settings in between. It all doesn't seem to have much effect at all.
After 5 fast laps my suspension is halfway gone. I just don't get it. It's like the original setup works best, and that only lasts about 15 fast laps I think.

The only thing I can think of is even softer damping, and a little stiffer and lower. But I don't think that will work either..

Soft compression dampers, max ride height, springs matched to the ride height (to prevent bottoming but also use as much travel as possible), and ideally damped rebound dampers (or maybe a bit softer, meaning lower number) will provide high bump compliance. This has the added benefit of being very soft on the suspension components (at least in LFS. I think in real life there might be some adverse effects from the dampers moving so fast and far during compression).

Softer tires (lower pressure) will help too.

Quote from Forbin :

Soft compression dampers, max ride height, springs matched to the ride height (to prevent bottoming but also use as much travel as possible), and ideally damped rebound dampers (or maybe a bit softer, meaning lower number) will provide high bump compliance. This has the added benefit of being very soft on the suspension components (at least in LFS. I think in real life there might be some adverse effects from the dampers moving so fast and far during compression).

Softer tires (lower pressure) will help too.

Ok, thanks. I've tried this. And the rear suspension was gone in lap 10... With full speed laps.

I set the ride height to the absolute maximum, the stiffness to prevent bottoming and the compression dampers to the absolute minimum. First I tried with soft rebound dampers, then optimal rebound dampers. Also pretty soft dampers, like the original set has..

It all doesn't work. Even without the chicane it still gets damage on other parts of the track. It's not much, but it tells me that, whatever I do, it doesn't help.
The tyres are the softest I can get it too.

EDIT:
Hmm. I just did a qualifying lap. It was my fastest last sector so far, 260 kph through the chicane. And yet, not very much damage. I'm gonna figure out what causes so little damage in the qual set.. Pfff. Could have been because I was on less fuel tho..

EDIT2:

Well, it seems to work. Even with high fuel. It looks like the car bottoms out before the suspension can get damaged much. It still gets damaged, but not even half as much. The downside is that it also bottoms out in some of the fast turns, making it slow down and understeery. But maybe in combination with taking it easy on the chicane, or less downforce after all, it might work for a full race.

Must be a particularly bad problem with the BF1. I compete in 75 minute races in the FOX regularly and although I do get damage from bottoming out, the damage doesn't show at all in F10 and the only way I know I've got it is the extended pit time if I have damage repair turned on.

Pretty sure none of the FO8 drivers in the GFC have had the problem either.

The FO8 can cope with Aston North much more easily than BF1, which seems to be no stronger in structure than the FO8 but subject to more rigourous forces (hence the extra, crippling damage).

This is a very handy thread as I'll be making my OWRL race set for Aston North this week.

I guess putting in a low rideheight fixes the problem in a weird way, by making sure the car bottoms out before the suspension can, thus preventing suspension damage.

It could very well be that the BF1's suspension is still too weak to cope with regular forces, but that's the compromise you have to make with the limited suspension damage modelling. Right now there's no way to make the suspension arms actually break, they just bend instead, which also explains why the formula cars in general have such a ridiculously strong suspension (they need it so that regular forces don't damage it). Adding to that I think the suspension strength is universal right now, instead of being strong against forces it is designed to cope with (vertical load) and weak against impacts that come from the side/front.

Quote from AndroidXP :

I guess putting in a low rideheight fixes the problem in a weird way, by making sure the car bottoms out before the suspension can, thus preventing suspension damage.

It could very well be that the BF1's suspension is still too weak to cope with regular forces, but that's the compromise you have to make with the limited suspension damage modelling. Right now there's no way to make the suspension arms actually break, they just bend instead, which also explains why the formula cars in general have such a ridiculously strong suspension (they need it so that regular forces don't damage it). Adding to that I think the suspension strength is universal right now, instead of being strong against forces it is designed to cope with (vertical load) and weak against impacts that come from the side/front.

Yes, interesting point. I saw a documentary about the safety of modern F1 cars. And they showed how the vertical load was very strong, but from the side it's so easy to break the suspension, for safety reasons.

LFS really misses this yes. But I also noticed that if you make a hard turn to the right, when you arrive at the bottom of the chicane (where the car is the heaviest, since it basicly drops on the ground) the suspension gets damaged from the side, causing the camber to go positive. Very annoying. :P

Making it low and soft enough would do most of the trick (although it's not possible to get no damage at all), but the difficult thing is not to make it bottom out in other turns.

I tried the FO8 btw, and it seems to be fine through there indeed. Not a surprise if you see the enormous speed of the BF1. It's crazy! On a track like Aston GP, 20 seconds ! difference. Blackwood, such a short track, almost 8 seconds difference. Crazy.

In the chicane photo that you posted, it shows impact on the LF and RR. At also shows that you are running over the curbing. This matches the raised surface and how the suspension works. Perhaps you should stay off of the curbing. It might result in a slightly slower lap time, but also consider what the damage does to your average times over 10-20-30 laps.

I'm sure there's a fix for the problem, and is likely to be found in you setup and racing line. Ride height, wing, damping, and spring rate. What about sway bar? That will pitch weight to the opposite side and level the car out in turning.

Quote from PAracer :

Perhaps you should stay off of the curbing. It might result in a slightly slower lap time, but also consider what the damage does to your average times over 10-20-30 laps.

A compromise no one likes to make but every now and again you have to in long races.

Stop inventing hot water. The problem is in the LFS suspension damage model and it will be fixed after patch Z prolly. I've ran the as7 race with 100 N/mm spring rates, 100 front and 110 rear ride heights and dampers around 5 Ns (so it's basically FBM dampers) and i still had the same kind of damage. It cannot be avoided for now and trying to do it is just an exercise in futility.

Amen

I ran a pretty standard setup at AS7 in OWRL (maybe a bit lower ride height than usual) and did not fix damage in the 59 lap race. All I did was held back slightly on the downhill chicane. Finished 3rd, should've been 2nd but for unscheduled tyre change.