So this is something that's been bothering me for a while now...
The fact that I don't know how to make my own setup. I don't know where to start
Actually, I do know since I've read the Basic Guide on how to set up cars, but honestly, past setting up the brakes, I don't know what to do.
So, how do you usually go?
I don't know where,but I got this - might be useful for editing setups if you don't know much about them,allthough you should take a ready setup as a base from https://www.lfs.net/files/setups
Hey man. I which I had someone told me this when I was starting sim racing back in 2003. Here it goes:
- First rule is to give the tyres the most grip they can possibly have before starting to chase after car balance. You do this by adjusting Camber, pressures, spring softness. Check tyre loads and temperatures when test driving (dont worry about lap times yet). If doing a right corner, the left front must have the same temps across in-mid-out and same loads in-mid-out = good traction.
- Second rule is to never change car balance by directly removing grip from the tyres either front or rear (dont touch cambers, pressures, and keep the springs as soft as you can get away with).
- Third rule is to give the car the lowest possible center of gravity by adjusting ride height and preventing body lateral Roll (stiffen the ARB's, more on these later).
- Fourth rule is: every setup setting will have a secondary effect else where in the car! This means that every setting has two or more effects on the car. Every adjustment will be a compromise. And a fast car is a car with the correct compromises and this varies with each track!
- Fifth rule is: To win you need to keep the car on-track at all times. Tweak your dampers (shocks) according to the track kerbs if you need to cross them to go fast. If they are very high, soften the bump and rebound. If they are low kerbs, harden the bump and rebound because having them hard will limit car pitch (rule4!) (Pitch is weight transfer front to back and vice-versa. High pitch movements will cause either understeer or oversteer when accelerating or breaking).
- Sixth rule is, you are here to go fast around a track and for that you need a car that complies and matches the track layout and your driving style (if you need to make the car slower to go faster, you need to change your style).
This is called changing the car balance and its basically fixing either understeer in entry-mid-outer corner or oversteer in entry-mid-outer corner. Those corners will be tight, long, short etc. Tweak the balance for the most common type of corner you have in the track. Remember rule 2!
So, now you have a car with perfect individual tyre grip, but the car understeers/oversteers. How to fix it? Remember rule 2 and 4! use the secondary effect of altering car height to shift the center of mass to the front or rear! make the front higher than the rear to fix some oversteer by bringing the center of mass backwards, and the opposite to fix understeer. If this harmless tweak didn't help, learn about TOE-in/TOE-out. Positive TOE in the rears will help oversteer! negative TOE in the fronts will help understeer, and so will negative toe in the rear. Altering TOE will have secondary effects. Rule 4! Tyre temperature and wear can go higher, and high-speed stability (wobbling) can occur.
If you still have understeer/oversteer, you will need to understand Anti-roll-bars here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFGkZNrNTIE
Once you understand what ARBs do, they are the next setting to alter! But ARBs are also full of compromises (rule4!). So understand that video and remember what they are. They can fix many balance problems. If you dont have anti-roll bars in the car, rule4 and 5!
There are many settings that are equally harmless to the tyre grip but have to be used together with driving technique, such as differential preloads, brake bias. Use them.
If all else fails, you will need to break rule 1 and 2. You will need to drop tyre grip in either the fronts or rears to fix the balance. This is still acceptable because the objective is to go fast, and for that you need balance, even at the expense of some tyre grip.