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Hey All,
After a disastrously poor race last night by myself, im struggling to see how come the bulk of the field are SOOOO much fast that us at the back,
i Accept that they have more experience and are in most instances just better drivers but im consistently 10 secs or so off a single lap pace.
I do find the car difficult to drive and keep the 4 wheels pointing in the right direction and there is an element of bringing in the gas too early etc but all this time cant just be down to my right foot. surely
Can anyone help with a simple baseline set up to aid at least keep it going straight?
Not expecting any of your secrets but some help to at least help me progress and enjoy the racing.
Steve
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Unfortunately I'm equally as puzzled as you are as to how the aliens are so fast this series but that's for them to tell if they wish, however, the default setup of the car is actually perfectly fine for running in the mid-pack and you can set some pretty respectable laptimes using it once you're more confident in the car.
This car in general though is not easy to drive and requires a lot more care and precision than you'd expect from a slow box on wheels. The rear suspension setup on this car is diabolical but you can't change it so you kind of have to live with it, which does mean you have to be very smooth and delicate under braking and when picking back up the throttle again, being abrupt with this car will only result in you ending up pointing the wrong way very quickly. The car also gets very easily unsettled over kerbs and bumps so be careful of those too.
My advice would be if you're struggling with driving the car is to spend a little bit of time in solo practice with the car and to basically start from 0. Start doing some slow laps on the default setup and try and be delicate with the car and then steadily increase the pace as you find confidence in keeping the car on the road, as having some degree of confidence in the car is very important to being able to squeeze more speed out of it.
If you want some small setup tweaks to make the car a bit more manageable, I'd recommend the following:
- Decrease tyre pressures, if you're unsure of what numbers get the ProTyres app, do a couple of laps and it'll tell you what to set them to, by default they're too high and make the car more unstable.
- Tweak the brake bias and brake pressure until you find a setting that works nicely for you, if you're locking up too much then reduce the brake power and if you're getting too unstable under braking you can increase the bias (increasing diff coast can also sometimes help in this regard).
- Increase the rear ARB, as at least in my testing I found in this 86 making the ARB stiffer at the back makes the car more stable under rotation compare to removing it (which is usually the other way around in other cars).
Some people may be able to give better tips, but this is what I've found out at least to help me be less rubbish in the car, hopefully this helps out to some extent.
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Thanks a lot Craig.
Appreciate the time to reply.
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11-16-2022, 08:38 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-16-2022, 08:39 PM by Martin Smith.)
The key to take away from his post is SMOOTHNESS.
There is no setup alone that can make this car 10s slower, maybe 1 or 2 seconds if you really mess it up. People get their speed by holding the car at the very limit of grip as long as possible, and that requires smooth inputs at every part of the corner.
This car is pretty unforgiving at the limit, so it will probably be frustrating to learn on. The MX-5 or Radical may be better for that. But forget about speed and work on smooth brake application, smooth release, smooth turn in combined with brake release, smooth transition to throttle and so on, while pushing every limit of the track in a line that allows you to be smoothest.
To do all that, you need to know the track well, know the car well, and need to have developed a sense of what inputs you need to use to keep control until it becomes almost muscle memory.
If you're that much slower it would probably benefit you to ignore lap times and just focus on smooth inputs. Then you form good habits and chunks of speed can start to appear out of nowhere as you naturally explore the excess grip you have as a result of being smooth. That's why they say "slow is smooth, and smooth is fast".
