Was hoping to get some feedback into something that is definitely holding me back to some degree with the game. I’m not well versed in all the correct terminology, so I will do the best I can to explain in layman’s terms…
Its an issue with muscle cars primarily. Perhaps I do with it other cars too, but I’m just not aware of it. What happens is that the car will just suddenly jerk strongly to one side or the other. There doesn’t appear to be any reason for it. It does it under acceleration, while coasting, and while braking. Its not something that happens all the time, but just seems to come out of nowhere, with no warning, and its ruining a lot of clean laps for me lately. I used to think it was something in my tunes that was causing it, but I’ve had a few people that are better drivers than me test the cars out lately and none of them had any complaints about this. I can only assume its my driving, but I’m baffled as to what I’m doing wrong and how to stop it. Let me try and give a more precise example:
Lemans is the most frequent place for this to be an issue. In the early part of the lap, turns 4-7 (between the Dunlop sign and the beginnng of the long straight), the car has a tendency to just out of nowhere angle off at like 45 degrees to one side. It only does it for a split second, but it has ruined more laps than I care to count. It does it in lots of places through that stretch, but most often its coming out of turn 7. I make the turn well and I’m a little over to the left near the curb, but not on the curb at any point. The road is blue on the other side of that curb and if you touch it, the dirty lap indicator comes on. Well, I ride right alongside that curb and start putting the throttle down. That’s when it happens the most. The car jerks 45 degrees to the left near the end of that curb and goes into the blue. Then I’m stuck running over 3+ minutes of a lap for nothing. It does it in lots of other places too. I used to think its was my decel settings in the differential because it happened a lot on throttle lift off. That seems to be less and less an issue now though as its happening more during acceleration than anything. The weird part is, every time it happens (and the lap has gone dirty), I hit the rewind button to try and duplicate what caused it and I never can. Once I rewind, the car goes straight as an arrow everytime. That’s why it has me so befuddled. No, I am not blaming the game either. I just want to identify the issue somehow and then try to fix it.
I know very little of that probably makes sense, but I really want to figure out why I am doing this. On Lemans, its costing me at least a second per lap because I’m very tentative through a couple of stretches as I’m guarding against this happening again.
that particular part of the track is bumpy, combined with the solid rear axle, if the car was still dealing with some lateral forces when it had to deal with the bumps and/or steering inputs, that can send the rear out of shape as you describe.
do you use sim or normal steering?
I guess it could be bumps, but I haven’t really noticed them. They aren’t like the one near the Michelin sign towards the end of the track, that things is murder if you hit it wrong.
You aren’t kidding about that Michelin bump. I was running Le Mans this morning. In, wait for it…the Mini! I’ve never noticed it much before because I usually like to run the bigger muscle cars. But, that bump was whacking the Mini pretty good. I was thinking “Wow, where did that thing come from?” Much more noticeable in the smaller car. Either that or a pedestrian stumbled onto the track and I ran him over while playing the beta version of Grand Theft Forza.
I notice it in the muscle cars too. Don’t know if its the best way to handle it or not, but I always make sure I’m accelerating when I go over that bump. If I coast there, it gets me every single time. There’s a similar one on one of the Alps courses, darn thing always gets me.
I will keep that in mind, but I don’t think Turn10 has given us the option of detaching it.
I think I have corrected the problem with two of the cars. I bumped the front springs up about 100lbs, raised the ride height one setting f/r, and increased the rear toe to -0.2. I really didn’t want to mess with the toe at all, but that seems to be the thing that has helped the most. The cars still aren’t perfect, but definitely an improvement. I lowered all of my times today with them after making the adjustments. Nothing great (barely broke the top 100 on one track and got two others under 110), but better is always a good thing…
Not on these cars, no. They are Lemans tunes, so every bit of PI is going into HP after brakes, shocks, and ARBS. I’m running stock tire sizes on stock rims.
I remember feeling some bumps that I have never experienced before on LeMans when driving muscle cars. I tried to relocate it/them yesterday using various suspension/wheel combinations to no success.
Just so that we can all check it off as not the cause: have you considered the crown of the track? It may or may not be the cause at all but at least you can check it off your list. I don’t think I’ll be able to tell unless I’m seeing a video of it.
Next time you run across the problem, do “XBOX RECORD THAT” then upload it so we can watch the problem too.
If you mean that crown on the long straight, no, my issues haven’t been with the crown at all until I tried driving the Cougar. It was a major factor for me with that car, but not “normal” cars. I just stay to one side of that crown and all is good. I believe iCCXlll above nailed it, it is bumps (Merlin was right too in that I needed a shock adjustment). They are mostly on that turn before the straight with curbs on both sides and the blue paint (is it paint? probably not). Like I said, bumping the front springs up has really helped. I won’t say the problem is gone entirely, but I notice it much much less. I’m getting fewer dirty laps, so I’m happy about that. Changing the springs has helped with braking a lot too, so I think I just did a lousy job of tuning.
Maybe I have the wrong corner in my mind. Are you referring to the set of bumps + bump before the start of the long straight?
My Le Mans corner goes something like:
1R - right kink
2L - 90 deg left
3R - 90 deg right
undre bridge
4L - downhill blind left
5R
6L
7R - gentle crest right
8R
Bumps + bump
Straight starts
9R - shallow bend in the straight
etc.
Are you referring to the bumps immediately after the 8R? If you get on those bumps with hard acceleration and hitting them at an angle, it is a sure recipe for disaster. More than once I had the car turn sideways and it is very difficult to catch, if at all. Now I compensate by arriving at the bumps with the car facing straight ahead (no steering input over the bumps). If I have to steer at all, then I go easy on the throttle.
These bumps are “fast” bumps. FM5 only has adjustments for the “slow” bump damper. No idea at this point if “slow” bump damper is even modelled in FM5. I’ve noticed that using smaller rims (higher profile tires) feel more smoother going over the bumps, but at the expense of handling.
Yes, they are the bumps I’m talking about. There are more later in the track, but they are certainly the worst for me. They have dirtied a lot of laps…
That happens if you brake late and have to continue to apply steering. I learned it the hard way. The best solution I have found is to brake earlier than your usual brake point (by about 3~5 car lengths), have total control over the car while cornering, then ensure the car is pointing down the straight while accelerating over the bumps. Little steering input is OK, but hard steering + acceleration increases the chance of losing the rear end in a RWD.
Then once you have that nailed down, then you can brake, slow release, have the rear end slide while the front of the car brush across the apex in a gentle drift. The car should be pointed down the straight but the car is still sliding gently across the track sideways. There’s little to no steering input so the risk of losing the rear end is also that much lower. That’s what I aim for anyways. Avoid that off track strip to the left; it has lower grip. That strip + the bumps + heavy steering input is very risky.