A Guide To Setting Up Your Car!
Taken from UKStockcars Forum posted by Jon Symons.
First of all, only change one thing at a time (if you change more than one thing you wont know which change has improved/worsened a set up!),
and go out in test mode and give it at least 15-20 laps, also remember that it will take at least 5 laps or so for the tyres to warm up before you get the ‘true’ feel of a set up.
OK all these changes are made in the garage menu!
Note: “Loose” (also known as “oversteer”) is the term used to describe a car when its rear tyres slide toward the fence more quickly than the front. In other words if, if your car wants to swap ends , its “loose”.
“Push”(also known as “understeer”) is the opposite of loose. A car is pushing when its front tyres slide towards the fence faster than the rear.
“Front Sway Bar”
The thickness of the sway bar determines how stiff the chassis will be.
To stiffen the sway bar use a thicker sway bar. This will effect how much the Front of the car slides in a corner.
“Rear Sway Bar”
As above, except applying to the rear of the car.
“Brake Bias”
This is a percentage indicator of how much force is applied to the front brakes when applying your brakes.
The front do the majority of the stopping, so they should have a slight bias, e.g. 55%.
Too much rear brake will make the rear loose and likely to cause a spin into a corner.
“Spoiler Angle”
Raising the spoiler angle creates more rear downforce, but slows top speed, but on the short ovals we race on it makes
little diffence, no-one i know alters this, but you can try if you wish. I would say best left at max setting.
“Grille Tape”
This displays the amount of tape covering the grille, again like spoiler angle, has not much effect on brisca cars,
best set to 0% and forgotten.
“Wheel Lock”
This is the amount the wheels turn side to side when steering, too little and you wont turn the corner, too much and the
tyres will slide at full lock having the same effect. All depends on the controller you use.
A high lock also make the car react more esp. with keys or gamepad, and a steering wheel type controller seems to need a
slightly higher lock setting, if you find the car hard to keep in a straight line down the straight, lowering the lock
should help. Personally i find 8 to 10 best for most tracks, shale tracks needing a higher setting than tarmac,
best to experiment and find what suits you most.
“Weight”
Clicking on the yellow header displays information on the cars weight in the information window.
The cars weight bias is adjusted using the sets of arrow buttons- labelled “Front Weight”, “Left Weight” and “Wedge”-
within the information window.
“Front Weight”
Measures the cars front weight bias. the more weight on the front the more likely the car is to push into a corner.
“Left Weight”
Measures the cars left to right bias, you want the maximum amount available on the inside of the car to aid turning. Put at max and leave there!!!!
“Wedge”
is the amount of weight applied to each wheel on the car, when you add more wedge, it pushes the spring down harder on the
wheel and changes the weight of the wheel. Therefore, the balance of the car changes. If the car is “loose”, add more wedge to the right rear. Doing so will push the spring down and force the right rear and left front wheel to tighten up.
I find a good starting point is usually maximum “Left Weight” and “Front Weight” and “Wedge” both at 48%
“Shocks”
Clicking on the yellow shocks header displays the shocks information window. The window displays two values per corner of the car, “Bump” and “Rebound”. ‘Bump’ is a measure of how quickly the shock compresses. The higher the number the stiffer the shock will be. ‘Rebound’ is a measure of how quickly the shock expands after it has been compressed. The higher the number, the more the shock will resist expansion and the stiffer the shock will be.
Adjusting the shock can cure many corner entry/exit problems. The higher the number for ‘bump’ and ‘rebound’, the stiffer the shocks will be. If your car is “loose” soften the right rear. If it “pushes” soften right front. As a rough guide you should use a 1:2 or 1:3 bump:rebound ratio. (i.e. reduce bump 10 and reduce rebound 20 or 30)
“Springs”
Springs control the transition of the load to the wheel. Stiffening a spring normally “loosens” the corner in question. For example, stiffening the right rear spring may make the car a bit more “loose” on left hand turns. If the car is “pushing” on corner entry, then soften right front spring may help.
“Tires”
Clicking on the yellow tire header display the tyre pressure information. Adjusting the tyre pressure has a similar effect to altering spring, but in a less sensitive way. Lowering a tyres pressure can give more grip. As a rule right tyres should be higher than left, although i do know some people like to run the rear tyres at the same pressure to give the car better balance.
“Camber”
This is the wheels angle in relation to the ground.
Due to cornering forces, running the wheels at an angle causes more grip by virtue of the weight of the car pushing the
tyre straight and giving a larger “footprint” when cornering.
The inside should have positive camber and the outside negative, only the front is adjustable, and some improvements can
be made by adjustment.
“Gears”
Here you have two options, to alter the individual gears, or to alter the final drive. The final drive will alter the acceleration/top speed of all 4 gears at once. Now there are many different views on how you run your gears, some use all 4, some use 2, but its worth bearing in mind that gear changes will make your lap times slower.
If you can use manual gears all well and good. Personally I run gears in automatic, but by setting 3rd and 4th to 0.50 holds the gearbox back to 2nd as a racing gear. However, over-revving the engine by too high racing gear will cause it to jump to fourth and lose valuable time!
A normal gear set up for Formula One’s is:
Automatic Gearbox….Ratio’s……
1st: 3.00
2nd: 1.90 to 2.40 (depending on track)
3rd: 0.50
4th: 0.50
Final: 2.80
The lower the number the higher the top speed, but slower the acceleration!
That’s about all i can say i think!! Its always worth asking guys what they are running with regard to set ups, but remember that people drive differently and so what’s good for them may be useless for you!!
Oh and offline lap-times are usually faster than online, so don’t be disapointed if you cant match your best online!!
And if there are still guys faster than you, remember what the front bumper is for!!!