How to adjust setup to bring up corner speed?

cyrusyn · Apr 21, 2016

In the process of setting up, a lot of times I have to wonder about how I can modify the mechanical grip on my set up to corner faster after verifying that the setup finally has both good stable balance around corners and best top speed with RPM reaching red at the end of straight. In terms of the top speed, I know I can not squeeze any higher speed at that point because I have dialed down the wing angles without loosing too much grip yet I am still 3 or so seconds down from the lap leader. So my attention turns to mechanical grip in order to squeeze more time out of corners.

How would you start modifying the suspension at this point? Would you start by making the springs softer? Your ideas are much appreciated.

Niki Đaković · Apr 21, 2016

Rear camber and rear toe has the most to do with the mechanical grip. You usually want rear camber under -2 degrees. You want the outside right tire to sit right down with all of it's contact patch for maximum traction. You also want to find highest power diff setting where the car is usable (many times it's down in 20-30%) as well as never leaveing diff too open. You want the inside rear tire to give you some of it's sweet power too.

For suspension has a lot more to do with corner entry. You need to make sure you're not getting understeer-to snap oversteer. That hurts traction the most. So you need to make sure you can slip the car in that 1kmh over the limit and then the car has to sit down and take a set for traction to be effective.

This usually means you need to be more aggressive with rear rebound and often conservative with rear bump. Also, adding front bump is very useful if traction zone is under big load or for a long time, to keep the inside front wheel planted and rear more evenly balanced. Plus, soft front ARB always seems to work well with traction. Of course stiffest possible rear spring, but never push the spring too far. You want to have usable car on corner entries.

cyrusyn · Apr 22, 2016

Niki, thank you very much fro your reply.
By "For suspension" do you mean the front suspension?
By "be more aggressive with rear rebound and often conservative with rear bump" do you mean higher number on the rebound and lower number on the bump?

Niki Đaković · Apr 22, 2016

Yes yes. Ur welcome. I would like to see more replays to this thread. My post wa most focused on traction and getting the power down. This is the area I'm improving the most nowdays too. Its always good to see fresh approaches.

xnorb · Apr 25, 2016

Main question: Is your cornering technique spot on?

3 seconds is lots of time and i doubt any setup tip will help you gain 3 seconds per lap.

Marc Collins · Apr 25, 2016

xnorb said:
Main question: Is your cornering technique spot on?

3 seconds is lots of time and i doubt any setup tip will help you gain 3 seconds per lap.

+1

And depending on if you are playing against AI, the AI could be so badly calibrated as to easily be 3 seconds faster than anything humanly possible. They could also be slow, too, and you are even more than 3 seconds off the pace. The AI are NOT calibrated well at all at 90%+ of the tracks. And there is huge variation from one car mod to the next...just to make it more frustrating and impossible to figure out where you are relative to some useful benchmark.

Deleted member 130869 · Apr 25, 2016

Lower ride height (rear too), possibly a softer suspension, and more negative camber will help. Entering with a good line and speed is key to being able to sustain your speed, a good setup will make the car "stick" instead of understeer at that higher speed.