Pre-wedge era supercar (Download added)

[BurningBridges]

Leonard your setup is great for the car. But what did you do to get those extra 20hp, except bumping quality sliders?

[Leonardo9613]

Basically it was bumping sliders and then tuning it. Since it was an exotic car, it felt appropriate to give some quality to it.

The main change on the engine though was on the rev limiter, which gives a good powerband to the car.

[BurningBridges]

Ok, I only saw that you changed ignition timings and fuel mixture and thought I could learn something new
But if I remove all quality increases the engine falls 32 hp under my original version and durability falls from 37.5 to 26.5
So I think the rev limiter was ok where it was.

[strop]

It sounds like it might be knocking due to the more aggressive tune? That'll wreck both reliability and power.

[BurningBridges]

Whatever. He probably has a different philosophy but I saw no improvement in the engine. Quality for me always stays at zero so engines can be compared. I can increase hp/kg to over 2:1 just by maxing quality on the top end and I dont want to imagine what happens if I use all sliders.

Anyway this problem is solved and I now make high powered cars with appropriate tyres I just dont think I am the last one who will run into this trap. If an Automation noob (who does not have to be a car noob) bumps into this game and uses this shell, he will be limited to very narrow 185mm tyres unless he knows that he must change the tyre casings. This is a point that anyone who high powered mid engine cars will have to learn one day or another. I now admit that my car setup really sucked but it was because I usually do not modify anything on the 3D, at least not while I am testing the car, and I thought I was using the same tyres as everyone .. Otherwise the thought that these tyres might be a tad small did occur to me. Anyway I'm just glad I can now enjoy this fantastic mod.

By the way is this modeled after the Ferrari 330?

[TrackpadUser]

That issue is present with the vast majority of cars available in the game.

[BurningBridges]

Ok lessons learned. I think get it now, low sportiness / tameness is an indication where to look.
I was looking for the physical explanation. And I understand the problem now, it was the ridiculously low cornering g's, due to the massively underdimensioned tyres.
For low powered cars my approach was previously to use presets and then fine tune for extra seconds.
But I now had to learn that with massive power it is hard work to even get the most basic performance on the track. As engine sizes increase there is a massive amount of setup work. And I like that.

To the question, what has max power to do with track time, if the setup sucks? My intuition is that even if the tyres are too small a decent driver should get a comparable track time as any car with the same tyres and weight (not 30 seconds less), just by applying appropriate throttle. If the tyres are narrow, there is only so much power that they can get on the road, but not less. Is that wrong?

[strop]

Short answer, yes and no.

If its purely about going in a straight line, being able to get the same amount of power down should yield, in one sense, the same result.

But if the road is anything other than perfectly smooth and straight, other factors to do with weight transfer, slippage etc. Come into play.

[BurningBridges]

The problem is when you can take a 100hp car and mount a 400hp engine with the same weight (all else being equal), and it would make it slower in the game.
That would mean the car goes slower just because it has more hp and the game simulates a driver who naively applies full throttle all the time.

[Leonardo9613]

It is more a built-in penalty, caused by the tameness-sportiness ratio. It assumes that a car with a too high sportiness value will be uncontrolable, thus slowing it down. You can see examples of that in badly tuned cars in real life, like the Zenvo in the Top Gear show, which was slower than a M5 in the same conditions, despite being twice as powerful and 700 kg lighter.

[Kubboz]

After all, Automation's tame racing driver does not need to be novice to have difficulties driving a car at its limit.

[BurningBridges]

I can live with it anyways, just thought that it was a bit extreme out of the box.
I want to experiment a bit with putting both a 100 and 400 hp engine into the same car and see what happens.
I already did it for a front wheeled car (I used the small coupe) and this behaved as it should (the more powerful car was still faster, although just by a small amount).
For now let's assume that Automations test track simulation works perfect and that I am an idiot

[BurningBridges]

Unfortunately I must raise this question a second time.

I took a closer look at Leon's setup to study his technique. After I reset all quality sliders to 0, the time drops back to 2:33 on the default track and 1:29 on the airfield track. That is even with the quality increase he did on the engine, if I replace it with an engine without quality bonus it is another second slower.

I am not saying anything is out of the normal but I find that very unimpressive for this car and engine. And I dont claim I could even setup a Ford Fiesta, but such times are obtainable with half the horsepower and default setups. I compare the times again and again to my simpler front wheel cars and it just seems not right to me.

Regular Coupe 2L
ca 200hp/227Nm
default setup (Race)
215mm tyres (back)
no downforce
vmax 232kmh
0-100kmh 5.9s
Automation track: 2:32.58
Airfield: 1:29.87

Pre-wedge era supercar 4L V8
386hp/432Nm
Leon's setup (with quality set to 0)
265mm tyres (back)
vmax 245kmh (>300 without wings, there is tons of downforce in the setup)
0-100kmh 3.9s
Automation track: 2:33.15
Airfield: 1:29.52

Here are the two car files: http://www.global-explorer.de/20150206/ ... arison.zip

EDIT: I just realized the coupe is '70 tech, the supercar '65. I still think this does not nullify the comparison, but it should be noted.

I don't know what the problem is. The supercar is ca 200kg heavier than the coupe, but has almost 200 horsepower more, much larger tyres and considerable downforce. Shouldnt it be faster even with a bad setup?

EDIT: I also divided kg/hp, the ratios are:
supercar: 2.6 kg/hp
coupe: 3.6 kg/hp
The supercar also has larger tyres and generates downforce. Does this make it clearer what I mean?

Is my mistake perhaps that I am expecting too much from this chassis? It is a lot heavier than other chassis. Even with the largest tyres, semi slicks and Leons improvements there is still lateral acceleration of 33% which ruins the lap time.

[strop]

I'll take a look later but I can say right now that MR cars are very finnicky to set up (and each MR body is uniquely finnicky). So badly set up MR cars are absolutely horrendous around the track. Several users get stuck with really substandard tines until they find some magical balance. For the time being much of that is due to the huge weight imbalance which we can't do anything about.

For comparison I'll see if I can make a car with the same power/weight ratio and see what I can squeeze out of it.

[rileybanks]

I'll take a look later but I can say right now that MR cars are very finnicky to set up (and each MR body is uniquely finnicky). So badly set up MR cars are absolutely horrendous around the track. Several users get stuck with really substandard tines until they find some magical balance. For the time being much of that is due to the huge weight imbalance which we can't do anything about.

For comparison I'll see if I can make a car with the same power/weight ratio and see what I can squeeze out of it.

I agree. The MR cars are, unless you're willing to put in the time is really slow. My fastest MR (not including the van) is 1:11.0.