Hello there,
Thank you for taking the time to read my thread. I need help understanding what tuning changes or impacts what. So if you can comment some basic things about tuning it would be greatly appreciated P.S: I mostly tune off-road
Sincerely,
Slowride56
Everyone has different handling preferences. But here are some facts about the tuning components.
As far as suspension, stiffer rear springs and damping components will help the car rotate or oversteer easier. Apply a softer front end but not too far as the front may become unresponsive or “numb”. The stiffer springs apply more force towards the ground, thus losing friction but are more responsive.
Sway bars (anti roll) bars are exactly as described in the name. They prevent body roll when cornering. I will say that body roll isn’t necessarily a bad thing however. Stiffer or larger sways make the car responsive but can cause the wheels to lose their contact patch of the roll bars are too stiff. A healthy amount of body roll helps the inside tires lose pressure from the cars weight and creates good traction. Too ‘soft’ however and the outside wheels begin carrying too much weight. I reccomened making the roll bars the same size if you desire a grip biased car.
Damping is basicly the upward and downward springing of the shock. Faster damping basicly will help responsiveness especially after encountering a bump. The “Bump stiffness” is what you feel when going over a speed bump and the rebound is the release of the energy. Tire rise to tire fall.
A locked differential of 100% means the tires turn at the same speed no.matter what. 0% lock means the wheels are not likely to turn at the same speed, especially when turning. This is called an open differential. Open diffs have better grip onto corners, locked diffs have better traction out of corners. (Drifting is usually best with a locked diff, for example.)
The dynamics of a brick on wheels varied according to how you will use it.
If its a drag car the setup is different to a fast track car and different again to dirt or multi surface vehicles.
Much of the how and what in changing specifications come from testing and making minor adjustments to the base setup. There are optimal adjustments that people stick to because they drive the vehicle in a way that offsets any faults. Can you make a perfect tune? No - because unless you turn all the difficulties off and test a green car in full manual you won’t find the optimum stability for that vehicle and on top of all those changes you make to find what you think is perfect, it is only perfect for how you drive the vehicle.
Hence - you might best test one car that you like driving and make minor adjustments as you get used to it. Every other vehicle is the same but - having learned the basics you will know what to change in what order so as to tune the car faster and get cleaner results. Can tuning be taught? Maybe but it really is something you have to be very scientific about because if you make too many adjustments at once the compensator may be that you are playing a slot machine to win a result and that jackpot is something you need to reign in with a small notebook telling you where you made the last adjustments and why you made them.
All tuners look for speed but that is not exactly what they vision - they think about weight distribution and balance and cornering control and feel of the overall engine torque at different intervals of driving where they are testing theory of how performance is improved through better results. It’s not about making cars go faster. Tuning is like building you own design - trademark balanced car that others may drive but you find greater pleasure driving from how you have customized the plethora of options.