Still a newbie tuner here, but I’ve been working on a tune for a 190E for a little while now. I’m not that good of a driver to post great LB times yet but two guys here on the forum hit #214 and #245 on the Alps Festival in C class with my tune today. The one guy (the one at 214) was still going at it last I looked and I won’t be surprised if he gets even higher.
The car has 6 gears, but rarely ever uses 5th and never uses 6th. Its top speed on level ground is 158 MPH. That’s in 4th gear though. You can only get that high by red lining it. If you shift to 5th, it will drop below 155 right away. I had it on Old Le Mans and found it was much faster to leave the car in 4th for the long straight. You can hear the car whining like a banshee, but its a video game, so I don’t care.
What I’m getting at it is, should I even bother trying to fix it? 158 isn’t bad for a C class car and I built the car for the Alps so top speed isn’t really all that criticial. I don’t think the car has the HP to go any faster than 158 as its a grip tune anyway. Is there a benefit that I’m missing by changing the gear ratios so it uses all 6 gears? The way it is now, its a lot easier to shift gears with. I only really care about Alps Festival as I haven’t found another track yet that the car is any good on. Its too slow off the line to be any good online, but once it gets going, its great on the Alps.
Only thing that comes to my mind is acceleration on low speeds, and launch.
When you launch do you get excessive wheelspin, some wheelspin, or does it bog down?
-In case of bog down you might consider more gears just to get that first gear shorter.
-In case of excessive wheelspin, I would say don’t touch the final gear, but a bit longer first gear could be used.
When you get moving, let’s say around 30mph, to 90mph. do you “fly trough” the gears, or are you fighting to get the car going?
-In case of “flying trough”, it’s perfect.
-In case of fighting to get to move, higher final drive could come handy. Although not sometimes the high final drive which equals as more shifting might result in slower time. Experiment.
And the final question. as you are in alps, do you have to shift right after a curve when you are still turning, or in worst case scenario. in middle of corner.
-If no, it’s perfect
-If yes → shifting always causes a small shock trough the drivetrain to drive wheels. Does in unbalance the car in any way?
-If no, Don’t touch it
-If yes → adjust the gears so that you don’t need to shift in corners. or at least so that the gap between those gears is fairly small.
Personally I pretty often leave the race gearbox out of the build and 190E has fairly good gearbox. This leads to more power added, or more grip added in my builds. How ever. if you are running on race gearbox using only 4 gears isn’t so weird afterall. 3 is hardly ever enough as the gears end up being too long, How ever if you only once set off, and end up running the race pretty much using only 1 gear 4 is very often quite enough. especially if you have wide powerband.
I’m a little too new to answer some of the above well. The car is worthless off the line. I have no idea why, but it just crawls away from the starting line and then picks up speed well. That’s why I said it wouldn’t be any good online. Its a rivals car only. Its only the launch though. If I do have to shift into 1st (oh, I don’t know, maybe cause I HIT A DARN WALL), it pulls great. At Launch, the RPMs are super low and its like my grandmother’s car.
The only wheel spin I ever get is if I take a turn way too fast. Other than that, wheelspin isn’t an issue at all.
On Alps, it mostly uses 2 through 4 and uses them all well. There is only one short stretch going downhill that I ever put it in 5th. Never have to shift after a curve.
You mentioned 30-90 mph. Well, that’s 2nd gear basically. From 35-85 in 2nd gear, the car pulls great. It never goes out of control on Alps because of a shift, but it was doing it on Le Mans the one time I drove it there. Could be driver error though…
In this case I would probably shorten the first gear, and if that causes problems for 2nd gear being too long, I would add 1 gear in to the mix and try to keep 4th and 5th fairly short gears.
Although if you are using 2nd in alps, and have to go up to 5th I think that is bit too much. Shorten the final drive so that you get more use for the 5th gear, and can drop the 2nd gear completely.
You should end up in gearbox where, 1st is for setting off, 2nd for getting up to speed, 3rd fairly rarely used, and 4th and 5th the gears which you use 90% of the time 4th to cornering and 5th to get trough the longer fairly straight sections.
one way you could do this is adjusting
5th slightly longer than 4th is now,
4th slightly shorter than it is now
3rd slightly shorter than it is now
2nd slightly shorter than it is now
1st adjust this as long as you can launch so, that when you keep throttle pinned to the floor when you set off, you should get a small wheelspin on launch, enough to brake traction, but not enough to keep the engine banging at the revlimiter, you want to see your revs coming down a tiny bit as long as the wheelspin is going on, but soon as you get a grip you should be shifting for 2nd
Basicly what I mean is what I tend to call 5% slip or 105% grip. Yes the actual slip might be bit higher, but it’s still so low that you barely notice it, unless you go back, and check if there is any skidmarks