rec.autos.simulators

First I tried out the Monza setup.  Following her recomended warm up laps, I
found that the setup pushed so bad that I could not drive anything close to
a competitive lap.

Next I tried Silverstone.  I tried the neutral setup, and again the car
pushes.  So I tried the loose setup, and after a few laps I could allmost go
fast, but I still can't seem to apply throttle to steer the car, the nose
just seems to washout of the turn.  I adjusted my steering ratio and
linearity slider to find something that resembled responsiveness, and I just
can't seem to get the car drift through a turn.  The best I can do is
approach a turn, brake and coast through, then get back on the gas when I
have enough straight stay on the track.  If I try to trail-brake, the car
snaps out.  I find that the window of throttle position to pitch the car
through a turn is far too narrow for my taste.  This Ferrari is more work to
drive than my Lotus, and thats saying something.

I am open to any input on how to get this car to perform.  It must be
something I'm doing wrong.

Mark

I only got a chance to run about 5 laps and was within about .75 seconds of
ALison's best lap at Monza.  But yes, I did notice some push to them and you
can really tell the setup has some push if you transfer it over and run it
in an Eagle (in her article she stated that very similar setup (and I would
think it would be minus tran setup. :?) worked with the Eagle...).

Reread the article in regards to trail-braking.  She said she specifically
designed these setups not to have to trail-brake, and that maybe why the car
snaps out like that.   From what I was able to get the time to try them out,
these setups need to be driven SMOOOOOOOTH, not pitched through every corner
in a 4 wheel slide :)

Probably not, different driving styles.

I recently "graduated" to the Lotus, mostly running Doug Arnao's setups (no
low-riders), and have bettered my personal best times at the Glen (about 1s
quicker than the Cov), Monza (almost 3s quicker), and Spa (almost 4s
quicker), so I was curious about the new Ferrari setups.

I put in about 40 laps at the Glen yesterday, and found the car very
composed and smooth, particularly under hard acceleration.  I didn't better
my personal best (a 1:06.91), but was able to run comfortably in the
1:07-1:08 bracket consistently.  The car is dramatically different from the
Lotus - as has been said, this setup wants smoothness and composure, not
theatrics.  My Lotus hotlaps are much more dramatic, but not much quicker,
and I'm pretty sure I can get down to my Lotus times without too much
difficulty (I'm less than .5s off at this point).

What's interesting is that I think these setups point pretty directly at the
complaints voiced over the last few days about the really quick laps being
too dramatic and untidy compared to "reality".  I think what we might find
is that, with the cars set up more like their real-life counterparts (and
Alison's Ferrari is probably the first setup that consciously tries to
emulate "real-life" setups), they demand more smoothness to be driven
quickly, and all of the "tail-happy" speed we've been seeing is really a
relic of the flawed setup theory that most of us have been working with
since the game's release.

For me, the Ferrari has (so far) produced its speed in a much smoother,
realistic fashion than the Lotus I'd been driving, and I'm curious to see if
this holds true as I test the theory a bit more.

Rick

  As chief "whinger" about this I would be majorly impressed if that
turned out to be the case.  I'm really looking forward to heading home
and giving those Ferrari set ups a go.

  By the way, I hope that nobody misinterprets my remarks - I think that
GPL is a great sim - a marvellous piece of work.  I do worry that,
amongst other things, if, for whatever reason, GPL is harder to drive
than is realistic then it will prevent other people developing racing
sims of comparable depth.

--
Richard G. Clegg     Only the mind is waving
Dept. of Mathematics (Network Control group) Uni. of York.

www: http://manor.york.ac.uk/top.html

Next I tried to apply the suggestions of AH in order to get more
oversteer - it did improve the situation, but by far not enough.

So I my old 'low-ride-height'-setup for Spa and started to adopt it ...
Driving a short race, I was within 0.2 secs of my new personal best ...
So I will try to alter my setups to AH suggestions (especially
ride-height) in a step-by-step, trying to do so without changing the
behavior of the car ...

TAL

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A-8223 Stubenberg, Vockenberg 108; Styria - Austria - Europe
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Go up one step on the rear sway bar.
reduce toe in on front to 0 or -.25
at Monza add one clutch to the differential

This makes a really big difference. This should get you close,
then do a lot of testing by changing only one setting at a time.

buzard

Thus far you have been driving a low-rider Lotus with your own setup,
and you are changing to a standard ride-height Ferrari developed by
someone else. Your driving style has been developed to hustle that
Lotus around the track as quickly as possible, so it's no surprise
that the Ferrari will sometimes resist your intentions. FWIW I also
tried Alison's setups over the weekend, and while I set a personal
best at Watkins Glen after about 15 laps, at Silverstone I struggled
to get around at all.

I think the important thing to take from Alison's setups is the
_concepts_ introduced, not to expect a tailor made car. Then, using
the supplied file as the raw stone, you can sculpt and hone the setups
to suit your own style.

One other thing which may be important is that GPL setups, of
necessity, have been developed to be fast "out of the box". Races are
typically short, with little or no warm up time and race are lost in
the first few corners. For that reason setups generally don't care
about tire temps beyond the basics. Alison's setups I have found to
perform MUCH better when properly warmed up, and indeed the Ferrari
was sweeeeeeet around Watkins Glen, very sweet indeed.

Cheers!
John

what time at the glen with alisons ferrari setups ?

McKafre De La Rosa

Ben

I need this!

-Larry

Cheers!
John

I have tried a few of her ferrari setups, and have found them to be
highly understeery. Not that this is a problem, it just means that the
car is easier to drive, but not as fast as it could be. And that's the
whole aim of her setups. Driveability.

Most ppl like my setups, but as with any low-rider, they have a fine
line between in control and out of control.

Alison's setups however suit many, _many_, more drivers than any of
the hotlap setups currently available.

To answer your question, to get alison's ferrari setup to perform
better for your style, the first thing to do is adjust the tyre
pressures. They are the primary reason why the car understeers. Alison
runs a 3psi difference between front and back. Lower this to a 2 or 1
difference and it would probably suit you better. (i.e. lower rear psi
1 or 2 clicks)

As for the trail braking snap oversteer thing. I think it's something
to do with the fact that the ferrari has alot of weight in the rear,
and is thus harder to trailbrake than the lotus. I've yet to find a
ferrari setup that doesn't get rid of the snap oversteer.

Now I have a question for everyone <EG>

Alison's setups have spring rates set to max on most setups, does this
class them as "unrealistic" in terms of 1967 gp cars?

Food for though ;)

Ian Lake

/\ 1m27s27 monza,3m14s77 spa, with a 2.5inch setup, set in races :) /\