Formula 0.5 Car Setup Guide

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slobb11
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Re: Formula 0.5 Car Setup Guide

Post by slobb11 » Mon Jan 25, 2010 10:21 pm

The second post of this thread is now updated with the troubleshooting tips.

I've decided not to bother re-writing the main guide at this point in time as I have too many other things to keep me occupied.
Most of what I said there is accurate enough, and even those points where the underlying physics is flawed, the general point will still apply; just the reasoning behind the point may be incorrect.
I spent many hours researching car physics but sadly it would seem that there's no clear, definitive resource. It appears to be a subject still under much contention, and Wikipedia has raging discussions taking place between engineers in the discussion threads, regarding automotive suspension/handling physics. So to make it 100% accurate seems a very vain hope.
I guess this is a good thing, as if it was all clearly understood then there would be no hope of future cars being any better than todays cars.

Maybe in time I'll have a crack at rewriting it to be more accurate, but for the moment it'll have to do.
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Heppy
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Re: Formula 0.5 Car Setup Guide

Post by Heppy » Mon Jan 25, 2010 11:03 pm

Honestly in the scheme of this thread I have no idea when it comes to setups. O_o
My understanding is quite simplistic. Softer means more grip. Loose rear end - soften the rear (Anything - springs, dampers, anti-roll, even tyres.) No front end grip - soften the front (Anything - springs, dampers, anti-roll, even tyres.)
When strugling my setups just tend to get too soft. The trick is to get balance between front grip, rear grip and driveablity of the car (Harder setups are "generally" more responsive to driver input and easier to drive.)
Anything else is in the expert realm and over my head at the moment. eg. toe-in, toe-out, caster.

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Re: Formula 0.5 Car Setup Guide

Post by slobb11 » Mon Jan 25, 2010 11:14 pm

Heppy wrote:Honestly in the scheme of this thread I have no idea when it comes to setups. O_o
My understanding is quite simplistic. Softer means more grip. Loose rear end - soften the rear (Anything - springs, dampers, anti-roll, even tyres.) No front end grip - soften the front (Anything - springs, dampers, anti-roll, even tyres.)
When strugling my setups just tend to get too soft.
And that is exactly what the main guide is for ;)
Just don't try reading it when you're drunk....I tried that this evening and got totally lost.

Heppy wrote:The trick is to get balance between front grip, rear grip and driveablity of the car (Harder setups are "generally" more responsive to driver input and easier to drive.)
Indeed. The overall stiffness of the setup really comes down to driver preference. The stiffer the setup the faster things happen, so the car feels sharper and quicker to respond.
Personally, I tend to run setups that are fairly soft overall. I'm not an accurate driver, so I tend to make a lot of small line changes during a corner (to correct my line after I horribly misjudge my turn-in point). A softer setup is more forgiving in that respect, where a stiffer setup would get very twitchy while suddenly applying substantially more (or less) steering mid corner.
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