If the car has upgraded transmission any ideas on getting the most out of a car for a specific track? open to ideas
Not the most experienced with gearing but I have been playing along time, I don’t have a name like emw lol but I think it has something to do with not being at peak rpm around corners, and also not slamming through every gear cause obviously it wastes time. lol I don’t know that’s all I got, im at work and bored
That definitely would work, keeping at max rpm through corners where possible, just trying to eek every last bit out of the car for each track is tricky
It’s all going to vary to a certain degree depending on the build and your driving style, but in general you want to be just short of peak revs as you exit the turn really.
Obviously there are always exceptions to any generalisation, but this is normally a good starting point to aim for.
There are a whole host of reasons for this, and I’ll try and explain what I understand. Firstly, if you are higher in the revs the car generally turns better (especially true for RWD). If you try to short shift for or take a particular corner in a higher gear than usual (and keep the same line, speed etc) you will notice what I am saying. Secondly if the driven wheels break traction then they have less revs left to climb so it kind of acts like a form of traction control for you (great if you don’t use assists) as there is less of a speed difference between the driven and un-driven wheels. Thirdly in a lot of higher power cars, especially those with very aggressive engines/power curves, if you are lower in the revs you will likely hit peak torque mid turn while trying to apply the throttle - this is not good obviously as it means it is much easier to break traction and start spinning your wheels. This is all tuning gears for handling and application of power however.
You also need to think about where your power (and torque) is in the revs. Always worth making a mental note (or even better taking a quick picture on your phone) of the power and torque curve that you can see when adding engine upgrades (you don’t need to add anything, just be on the screen for an upgrade). Once you look at a few you will start to notice that peak power and peak torque are both at different places usually, and also that they are usually well before you hit peak revs. You can use this to work out whether you need longer gears to capitalise on your power or not, and also if you need to shift up gears earlier if your power or torque drops badly.
Another thing worth noting is your top gear (5th, 6th, 7th or even 8th in the case of the Lotus E23) can be worth making a faster gear and lengthening your lower gears slightly to help your car get to top speed faster for those top speed tracks like Nordschleife or La Sarthe (without sacrificing as much speed as just shortening top gear on its own). Try out the Mercedes E63 AMG V8 Supercar to see what I mean (although this is a pretty extreme example of it).
There are loads of little caveats to all that I’m sure, but I think that covers a lot of the basics and a little further, although feel free to chime in if I have missed something/got something wrong as gearing isn’t my strongest point when it comes to tuning and we are all still learning (I’ve been racing motorbikes for years and I’m still learning every time I’m out on track).
I would generally drive a car for a few laps with the standard gearing to get used to what gears for what corners and what they feel like before I start tuning them. Also if you have a car with a tall first gear (Lotus E23, Audi E-tron) that wants to stall on the start if you use manual with clutch, you need to shorten first gear to stop it stalling (move the slider towards the acceleration end more).
Good luck with yet another balancing act in the oh so simple yet oh so complicated world of tuning a great car. Let us know how you get on =)
HW
Find the most crucial turns on a track, gear to come out of them at maximum pulling power out. That is generally the RPM that the torque/hp cross.
There are obviously tricks like coming out of a turn in second and quickly short shifting before needed to third, things like that.
I dont think i need to change the gearing on the car but i’ll keep an eye on the graph when the peak torque and rpm meet and try that as i was just going by peak torque on some occasions, i know that short shifting definately works on the 1.6 turbo rally