Ok, its February 15th and like most American guys, I’m really glad to have the flowers and the lovie dovie crap out of the way. Now, its time to focus on important things, like getting better at Forza
So, I am trying to get myself used to driving manually. Its simply not as much as fun for me, but I want faster times so I’m doing it. I ran a really good lap in Automatic yesterday on the Alps with a 190E in C class. Got my time down to 2:00, which is a PB for me. The overall leader is just under 1:54. Unless I stop using auto, I seriously doubt I can ever get any closer. I wanted an idea of how much faster I could be with manual shifting, so I got another member here to download my tune and have at it. He drives with a clutch (I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to do that, so just manual alone is going to have to work) and is a better driver than me. He beat my time by 2.8 seconds.
Now I know there are a ton of variables that go into it. The car, track, type of trans, skill, etc. all play a role. However, what’s a good rule of thumb for me to shoot for in terms of improving my times with manual? So far, I’ve bettered a few of my times, but only by like .5 to .75. I’m pretty dissapointed with that actually.
One problem I’m having is losing control of the car when I downshift. I’m wondering if that’s because I’m not using a clutch, or if I’m doing something else wrong? I’m finding that anytime I have to make a really sharp turn that requires a lot of braking and the car should be in 1st gear coming out of the corner, the rear end really lets loose when I get back on the gas. Its not revving that high either. So, I’ve been leaving it in 2nd for most of those turns and it helps with control, but I’m losing some speed. Its weird, I can drive a manual like a raped ape in real life. Not so much in the game…
Depending on the Car / Track / Class / Upgrades / Tuning / etc, etc, etc…
You can gain, on average:
Auto to Manual: 3/4ths of a second per 60 seconds of lap-time
Manual to Manual+Clutch: another 3/4ths of a second per 60 seconds of lap-time
The biggest factor is how often you are shifting. You’re currently looking at a C-Class car on the Alps… If you recall, working on that D-Class Mini on the Alps, we were only shifting ONCE over the entire lap. One shift (well, one gear down, then one gear back up) will only net 1 - maybe 2 - tenths of a second.
I tried the 190E out on the Alps Festival with manual yesterday and couldn’t beat my auto time. I ran a lap about as well as you can in auto, so that’s a factor in it. I think more than anything, shifting just seems weird to me with the controller. I need a clutch on the floor next to the brake and a shifter in my right hand. Pressing buttons is bizarre. I’ll get it though… I did a fair amount of shifting with the 190E on the Alps. Downshifting to 2nd really helps me with that first long turn. It helps me with that hill that drives me crazy too (the one with the leaves on the side). Downshifting into 3rd around the last long turn really helps with controlling the car too. At least for me anyway…
I did beat my time on the shorter Alps course with manual though. The one without the tunnel (forget what its called). That has a long uphill climb in it that is fairly straight. The Auto was shifting into 4th gear and struggling at the top of the hill. I left it in 3rd the whole way and it was going about 7MPH faster at the top of the hill. I made a ton of mistakes shifting and still beat my time, so I really see the benefit of it there.
I ran several laps at Le Mans and that’s where I had a problem losing control when downshifting. Its surprising because my 190E is tuned heavily for grip.
I shared it in the game. I actually think you’ll really like it. Its tuned for me, but its a perfect car for the Alps (so-so everywhere else). I think I may have a B class version up there too, but that’s not really complete yet as I haven’t had time to fine tune it yet. Its ok, but still rough around the edges.
Hey lou glad you are making the switch to manual. Once you figure it out it will really help you with your times. Now about your braking issue are down shifting while going in a straight line or are you sitll down shifting while turning. Can you give a good breakdown on what the car is doing and what type of speed the corner is (fast or slow)
The problems I had were all on Le Mans (La Sarthe and Old Musanne, doesn’t matter which). I had several spots where the car went nuts, but the biggest is the first S turn. I am in 3rd coming up to that when I hit the breaks. I downshift while I’m off the gas and have the breaks applied. I shift into 2nd during the first part of the turn and there is no problem. I downshift into 1st just before taking the second part of that turn. It takes the turn great, but goes crazy coming out and will oversteer and just go out of control completely. If I just leave it in 2nd, I have no issues at all, but the car is revving so low that I’m losing a good bit of speed.
Its really bad at the end of the long straight away on OLD Le Mans too. I always worry about dirtying a lap there so I am cautious with that turn. You get that simple turn and little stretch before the sharp turn that is a good place to slow down. The break line is yellow at that first simple turn there, not red. I’m in 4th doing about 160 (red lining because 5th is actually slower, need to fix that in my tune) at the end of that straight. I ease up on the gas first, then hit the breaks lightly (maybe a 1/4 trigger) before the first part of turn starts. After hitting the breaks, I downshift into 3rd without a problem. Once I’m through the first part of that turn and on the little stretch, I hit the breaks harder (maybe 1/2 to 3/4 trigger, I almost never go full trigger) and downshift into 2nd while off the gas. As I’m slowing down and coming up to the sharp turn, I go to 1st. As soon as I get to 1st, the car goes nuts before I make the turn. I say nuts because I can’t even describe it, it just loses it completely and goes in every direction fishtailing all the way. If I leave it in 2nd, its all good. I’m on the breaks there, no gas at all. I tried shifting into 1st much later, but then it comes out of the turn crazy like I mentioned above.
What you are describing here is an engine at idle speed trying to instantaneously jump to high rpms. Not gonna happen - what does happen is at least one of your rear wheels locks/looses grip when the engine can’t come up to speed quick enough to match the rpms required to maintain the speed you were travelling at. Kinda like stomping on the brakes momentarily when your tires are working at max load just to maintain grip while cornering.
Thats a good starting point. You also may want to lower your decel and accel settings on the cars (10 front and 20) rear is usually where i start on a speed tune. On the lemans track i also tune the car for understeer so i normally not always run really soft rear springs and low rear roll bars. With the high horsepower i almost would never recommend going into first gear due to wheel spin and lack of control. You also should play with the damping of the car as that can also help the car enter and exit the corners. try lowering the BUMP stiffness on front and rear to around a 2 and see how that feels.
That’s just it, its not a speed tune. Its tuned for someone who is still very much learning the game and needs every bit of grip he can get. That’s why GRD probably switched tunes and Don bettered his time with GRD’s tune too. Mine is set up to make it easy to drive and it bored them to tears. I played around with the springs, rebound, bump, TP, accel/decel, until I got it where I wanted it for me. I know the car is capable of a lot more, just look at the leaderboards. I have a tune in mind for when I’m ready for it, but I’m just not there yet. Off the top of my head, my Accel/Decel settings are 35/10. Bump is 3.4 in front and 3.2 in rear. I really can’t remember the spring settings, but I know they are low. What I have been doing is taking the weight of the car, multiplying by the front% and then adding downforce. I forget the numbers on the 190E but if it were a 3,000 lb car with a 55% front weight bias, that would give me a number of 1650. Add 100 pounds of downforce you get 1750. Divide that in half and then multiply by .65 (just a guess that has been working out pretty well). So that would give you a number of 568.75 for the front springs. That’s a starting point for me and usually ends up being too stiff. I then take it out and test drive it. I run 3 laps at an easy pace to let the tires warm up and then start pushing it. I alter things as I go, all by feel. I know I ran like 30 laps with this car while making adjustments. My goal was to eliminate the rear end from sliding around during turns. Anyone who drives it will tell you that I achieved that, but good drivers will tell you its too slow and probably has too much grip. I have to look up the exact numbers on everything, but that’s my crazy method of figuring things out. It may be totally insane, but its been working for me. As I get better in the game, my tunes will become more and more aggressive. I don’t pretend to know what I’m doing exactly as a lot of it is just guessing. I have tuned 10 cars from scratch now and 8 of them have been pretty good. The other 2 were dogs and I gave up on them.
For a good driver, the car needs less rear downforce, maybe slightly stiffer springs, and more HP to be a true contender on the leaderboards. The fact that its tuned for a beginner and good drivers got it up to around 200 is a real shock to me. I was expecting no better than 500 or so, but these guys are pretty good. My current tune is a 5.9 speed rating and a 5.5 handling rating. I built another one last night that has a 6.3 and a 5.4. Still handles quite well, but the rear end kicks out a lot more for me. I can fix some of that by playing with the springs, bump and ARB’s, I think, but haven’t gone too far into it yet. For a more experienced driver, it might be really good, but not for me. Car is really fast on that track, but I can’t control it yet. Then I have a B class version that is a screamer, but I can’t control the thing at all yet. I have to do my test drive while altering settings yet.
I’ve played around with the 190E on a lot of tracks now. All types of builds and tunes. Its like it was made for the Alps and is pretty much a dog everywhere else. I only plan on using it on the Alps.
Don’t feel like you won’t master the clutch. I thought the same when I switched over a couple of months ago and all it took was 3 or 4 hours of racing. I can’t see myself racing any other way anymore and all the fuss I made about how difficult it was going to be evaporated. Also, it helps to bleed some speed with the brakes before you downshift to stay in control; it’s not always necessary to do but if your next shift down is close to redline when you downshift, you are going to lose traction since you will be going faster than the wheels can turn.
If you switch the clutch button with the handbrake button that can help. Thats how i do it since i never use the ebrake anyways. then you can just hit both at the same time to up shift and down shift. You can find that setting in my profile, controller, advanced if i remember correctly
Not sure if you are using a controller or a wheel but if it’s a controller, it’s not an issue at all. All you do is press the B+A buttons together for upshifting and X+A together for downshifting–move your thumb down a little and press them both with your thumb. Give it a whirl and you’ll see it’s not difficult at all.
I’m using the controller. A wheel is on my wishlist, but has not arrived yet.
I may try it at some point. The issue for me is that I have big bulky hands and arthritis on top of it. Its a real problem for me with my right hand and can actually be quite painful. Its a good thing the stick for the steering control is on the left of the controller or I wouldn’t be able to play the game at all. I know there are two sticks, but I never said I was all that bright either…
I know it seems like a simple task to just push button A, B or X, but it really isn’t for me.
1:59.362 - Auto
1:57.926 - Manual
1:57.341 - Man+Clutch
Between my MT and MT+C times, I couldn’t really tell you whether the clutch helped, or if I just ran a better lap. Probably a little of both.
With the way you have the gearing set up on this car, there were several spots on this track where it really helps to have manual control. You can let it wind out much higher than the Auto will allow.
Yeah, that was my intention with the gears. I set it up for that course specifically and I wanted it to be able to climb those hills better. Its nice to see it worked out even if its not me doing the driving, YET!
Did you even use 5th or 6th gear? The only spot I can think of where 5th is of any use is that first downhill section. 6th is a waste of a gear as it never gets to it. Not sure if I should try and fix that, or leave it alone.
You’re at 245 and GRD is at 214. I’m pretty proud of the tune even if I’m only at 1,400 on that LB. Not bad out of over 1.3 million players though…
Do I dare take any of the handling out of it and add some more power to try and make it better? I built it for me, so that’s why the grip is so good. I’m afraid if I take any of the handling away, it will suffer as a whole.
I shift down to 2nd for turn 1; get up to 4th going down the hill; back down to 3rd for the left-hander at the bottom of the hill… and then it stays in 3rd until I get back to turn 1.
That’s what I meant by “there were several spots on this track where it really helps to have manual control” — letting it wind out in 3rd instead of shifting is key.
I also took that car out onto Le Mans. I know this is blasphemous around here, but I really dislike that track – I find it incredibly boring, so I’ve never driven it enough to learn it. Anyway… Not sure why you’re running into trouble at those couple sharp turns. When using Manual without clutch, the game generally does a good job of “auto-rev-matching.” If the car is getting that squirrely when you drop into 1st, I suspect you’re either down-shifting too early, or maybe you’re inadvertently full on the throttle and it’s kicking out.
I tried it a couple ways… leaving it in 2nd the whole time; leaving it in 2nd until turn-exit, and then dropping to 1st; and dropping into 1st at turn-entry. I think for the two sharp right-handers, getting down to 1st before you enter the turn will result in the best potential lap-time, but not by much. For the final chicane before getting back onto the front straight, I’d say leave it in 2nd (in case you’re down-shifting there).
Another option would be to adjust the gearing… It’s rather unusual, in my experience (except maybe for LMP or F1 cars), to ever need to shift all the way back down to 1st gear.
