How to setup cars
- Thread starter Heath82
- Start date
As bad as it sounds:
The first thing to fix is probably your driving. Had to learn that the long and hard way!
Then it depends on what type of car you have. First thing should always be to get the right pressure in the tyres and choose the correct compound.
For aero cars like formula 4,3,2,1 the second thing is to set the wings roughly fitting for the track! Basically deciding between top speed and cornering speed.
After that I fine tune the understeer/oversteer with the front anti roll bar.
After this it gets messy. Camber is mostly correct in most sims but it's differently simulated and difficult to determine a correct value. Toe is mostly set up well at default too!
The next thing is the differential. Read about what does what. In general high coast and low power settings are the easiest to drive!
And then comes the suspension which I can write a book about. Don't touch that more than +/- 1 click on each side. The only car that's a little weird is the mclaren 650 gt3 in assetto corsa with way too stiff rear springs.
Other than that default is mostly okay for the suspension as most Sims are based on the real settings.
Depending on your current skill level it's probably better to spend the time into getting Motec running, watching replay and note down your driving errors or start a thread to get advice on how to drive better.
In numbers:
If you are 5 seconds off the pace, a setup perfectly fitting for your current skill level will give you 2 seconds but you'll keep the "bad driving" as the setup won't show you your weak spots.
This makes you 3s off pace.
Investing the same time into skill level progress will give you 2 seconds after some days and probably another 2 seconds when you find out that the default setup was actually faster when you know how to drive it.
But it depends on the car and the sim!
Give us some info and you'll get better help
Ok i’m gonna explain my problems again. I have been through career, i got gold with 500 abarth and giulietta at n1 events, i started n2 i got gold at first stage, then at second stage i have a race with a bmw z4 e89, besides i read lots of forum where they say that this events is bugged on ps4 because even at easy level the cpu get 1:48 on Nürburgring sprint, but i have been keeping to play at medium level and I almost got the silver, but I realized that my car was even unstable on the straight when I touched the brake. So i started to practice with the same car and the same track and i got more than 40 laps but never under 1:53. But my problem is the bad behavior of the car, i’m sure i can fix it, so i tried to increase tyres pressure, and magically i fixed unstableness on straight!! So now i got excited and i’d like to learn how to get even better the car and then going through the race again.
What i’d love to learn is where do i have to start setting up? For example I increased tyres pressure and the car got better on straight, but I noticed that not all the tyres on the screen are green, the right side is still blue after many laps, so should i keep setting up tyres pressure till i get all green before going through other things? That’s the first step?
Not really familiar with career nor with the PS4 hud.
Do you have a colour for the pressure value? It should be green! In AC you barely influence the temperature with the pressures, the tire physics are basically: get the "correct" pressure and stick with it. On PC that means a green colour for the PSI value.
For the temperature: for the fastest lap times you should go with the softest compound available as long as it won't get deep orange or red. Cold tires are not as bad as overheated ones!
Just loaded up the standard Z4 e89 to check the setup. Road cars are difficult to race with in AC as the default setups are based on the ROAD setups and are not race setups.
My first guess for you to try after checking with the apps available on PC:
- maximum negative camber, put the slider to the "minimum"!
- PSI in the box to 25. So basically -10 psi compared to default
- plus 3 clicks on the front toe to make it more responsible
In general: there's no easy way to setup cars as they are highly complex, dynamic systems. To get the basics right however you just need to read a few weeks through forums etc. and you'll be fine
Good question. Actually I never came across the RD guide, must be a bit older. Could you link it?
Thanks for advice i’m gonna try it, but what i’d like to know is: why should i set these modifications? I’d like to learnNot really familiar with career nor with the PS4 hud.
Do you have a colour for the pressure value? It should be green! In AC you barely influence the temperature with the pressures, the tire physics are basically: get the "correct" pressure and stick with it. On PC that means a green colour for the PSI value.
For the temperature: for the fastest lap times you should go with the softest compound available as long as it won't get deep orange or red. Cold tires are not as bad as overheated ones!
Just loaded up the standard Z4 e89 to check the setup. Road cars are difficult to race with in AC as the default setups are based on the ROAD setups and are not race setups.
My first guess for you to try after checking with the apps available on PC:
- maximum negative camber, put the slider to the "minimum"!
- PSI in the box to 25. So basically -10 psi compared to default
- plus 3 clicks on the front toe to make it more responsible
In general: there's no easy way to setup cars as they are highly complex, dynamic systems. To get the basics right however you just need to read a few weeks through forums etc. and you'll be fine
- maximum negative camber, put the slider to the "minimum"!
The theory is that when the car leans into the corner, the tire has the maximum contact patch. So when chassis + suspension lean 3 degree, the camber as to be - 3 degree. Depending on how many kerbs you ride and the tire form and flex itself, that angle varies.
For rfactor 2 you aim for 0° to - 1° mid corner for AC there's a hidden formula in their code. For PC you have "camber extravaganza" that gives you a real time graph about how perfectly you hit the ac formula. A roadcar doesn't go far enough most of the time as camber is bad for only straight driving (like road cars mostly do). That why the maximum amount that's possible should be the best for the z4
- PSI in the box to 25. So basically -10 psi compared to default
When you drive a car there's one value where the tire will be perfectly even and flat on the road, maximizing the contact patch while maintain stable. Now heat will increase the pressure so aggressive cornering will need to be compensated by a lower psi value in the pits. If you only drive straight you won't heat the tire up by the same amount so depending on the track layout, the value you need to put in in the pits will vary.
In theory you can generate more heat with a lower pressure and get a cooler tire with higher pressure but in ac it doesn't really work like that so always aim for the perfect pressure on track and not for the temperature!
I just did a lap and the pressure was way too high (colour coding in the tire app). Lowered by 10 psi it stayed okay over a full lap.
- plus 3 clicks on the front toe to make it more responsible
Again, road cars are meant to be stable while driving a straight line and understeer on the limit. Positive toe in ac means that the front of the tires will point to the middle in front of the car, while negative toe means the front of the tires pointing to the outside.
Outside pointing tires constantly want to start cornering, pulling you to their sides. The car will be nervous on a highway but also will turn in quicker on a race track.
Negative toe on the front will lead to quicker turn in while positive toe on the rear will give you stability when starting to slide.
That's why the classic basic racecar setup is a bit negative on the front and a bit positive on the rear.
Hope that helps for now
Written on the phone while cooking so possibly some mistakes in there
The theory is that when the car leans into the corner, the tire has the maximum contact patch. So when chassis + suspension lean 3 degree, the camber as to be - 3 degree. Depending on how many kerbs you ride and the tire form and flex itself, that angle varies.
For rfactor 2 you aim for 0° to - 1° mid corner for AC there's a hidden formula in their code. For PC you have "camber extravaganza" that gives you a real time graph about how perfectly you hit the ac formula. A roadcar doesn't go far enough most of the time as camber is bad for only straight driving (like road cars mostly do). That why the maximum amount that's possible should be the best for the z4
- PSI in the box to 25. So basically -10 psi compared to default
When you drive a car there's one value where the tire will be perfectly even and flat on the road, maximizing the contact patch while maintain stable. Now heat will increase the pressure so aggressive cornering will need to be compensated by a lower psi value in the pits. If you only drive straight you won't heat the tire up by the same amount so depending on the track layout, the value you need to put in in the pits will vary.
In theory you can generate more heat with a lower pressure and get a cooler tire with higher pressure but in ac it doesn't really work like that so always aim for the perfect pressure on track and not for the temperature!
I just did a lap and the pressure was way too high (colour coding in the tire app). Lowered by 10 psi it stayed okay over a full lap.
- plus 3 clicks on the front toe to make it more responsible
Again, road cars are meant to be stable while driving a straight line and understeer on the limit. Positive toe in ac means that the front of the tires will point to the middle in front of the car, while negative toe means the front of the tires pointing to the outside.
Outside pointing tires constantly want to start cornering, pulling you to their sides. The car will be nervous on a highway but also will turn in quicker on a race track.
Negative toe on the front will lead to quicker turn in while positive toe on the rear will give you stability when starting to slide.
That's why the classic basic racecar setup is a bit negative on the front and a bit positive on the rear.
Hope that helps for now
Written on the phone while cooking so possibly some mistakes in there
Whole list temp range & pressure(taken from tire pressure engineer, need to be registered to the official forum to gain accessibility): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ywib7cdh7mglEOkkQh8hSFKZe6CgCe9u/view
For semi slick it's for the Z4 road car
Front: 33
Back: 34
The PSI need to be at this pressure on the track. On the pit you will set them lower & unevenly. They will heat up & they will eventually reach the ideal pressure. It require a bit of trial & error. With the tire blanked on, it take about 2~3 laps for the temp to settle.
For semi slick it's for the Z4 road car
Front: 33
Back: 34
The PSI need to be at this pressure on the track. On the pit you will set them lower & unevenly. They will heat up & they will eventually reach the ideal pressure. It require a bit of trial & error. With the tire blanked on, it take about 2~3 laps for the temp to settle.
https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/assetto-corsa-car-setup-guides.99049/Good question. Actually I never came across the RD guide, must be a bit older. Could you link it?
Last edited:
You are great at tuning man!! Could you give me a link or some kind of guide that says what setting up when car understeers or oversteers, or how setting up the tyres pressure, and other things?- maximum negative camber, put the slider to the "minimum"!
The theory is that when the car leans into the corner, the tire has the maximum contact patch. So when chassis + suspension lean 3 degree, the camber as to be - 3 degree. Depending on how many kerbs you ride and the tire form and flex itself, that angle varies.
For rfactor 2 you aim for 0° to - 1° mid corner for AC there's a hidden formula in their code. For PC you have "camber extravaganza" that gives you a real time graph about how perfectly you hit the ac formula. A roadcar doesn't go far enough most of the time as camber is bad for only straight driving (like road cars mostly do). That why the maximum amount that's possible should be the best for the z4
- PSI in the box to 25. So basically -10 psi compared to default
When you drive a car there's one value where the tire will be perfectly even and flat on the road, maximizing the contact patch while maintain stable. Now heat will increase the pressure so aggressive cornering will need to be compensated by a lower psi value in the pits. If you only drive straight you won't heat the tire up by the same amount so depending on the track layout, the value you need to put in in the pits will vary.
In theory you can generate more heat with a lower pressure and get a cooler tire with higher pressure but in ac it doesn't really work like that so always aim for the perfect pressure on track and not for the temperature!
I just did a lap and the pressure was way too high (colour coding in the tire app). Lowered by 10 psi it stayed okay over a full lap.
- plus 3 clicks on the front toe to make it more responsible
Again, road cars are meant to be stable while driving a straight line and understeer on the limit. Positive toe in ac means that the front of the tires will point to the middle in front of the car, while negative toe means the front of the tires pointing to the outside.
Outside pointing tires constantly want to start cornering, pulling you to their sides. The car will be nervous on a highway but also will turn in quicker on a race track.
Negative toe on the front will lead to quicker turn in while positive toe on the rear will give you stability when starting to slide.
That's why the classic basic racecar setup is a bit negative on the front and a bit positive on the rear.
Hope that helps for now
Written on the phone while cooking so possibly some mistakes in there
Gonna scratch my sources together tomorrow
You can't expect to understand it all just like that. I do that for over a year now and studying mechatronical engineering so I kinda have to know every single part that's influencing the car.
But there are nice guides which will help you doing at least some basic stuff
EDIT: Did it now. Really not that much sadly... The only way to really build setups is to know and imagine in your head what every single settings does and how it influences the rest of the settings/parts of the car. This takes a long time!
But even if you do, for simracing you have to know how the physics engine of every sim works. AC for example has some formulas and tables that you need to know, which is hard work. Gladly on the PC you can read through the tire tables and use motec and apps that show the details.
Good thing about AC though is that the default setups, for the race cars at least, are very good in general!
Here are the 3 links that helped me the most to begin with:
The guide Mr Deap linked me. I remember now that I read that over a year ago!
https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/assetto-corsa-car-setup-guides.99049/
At the bottom there's a post linked which contains a nicely done PDF about the basics:
https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/racedepartment-setup-guide.1085/
And then there's really a "work through that and you'll get a nice base setup" PDF:
https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/the-21-steps-guide-from-gtr2.99873/
Some basic stuff about the Z4:
Looking at the default setup in the pits (PC looks different to PS4, sorry):
- Not even -1° of camber, that is never enough to race!
- Front positive Toe mostly isn't great for racing. If the car isn't nervous on straights, put it to 0.00 or slightly negative!
- Rear Toe looks good though!
Then after one lap around a random track:
- Still default setup!
- Temperatures: middle is higher than the sides -> too much pressure!!!
- Inside basically the same as outside -> more negative camber until you have 10-15° of difference!
----> randomly going max negative camber and -10 psi
---->
Now after a lap with these settings:
- Temperatures are higher on the inside, the middle is in between. That's good!
- Only 1-3° difference though, would need more negative camber but the slider ends already...
- One thing to spot: at default you have half a degree more negative camber at the rear while with maximum negative sliders, the front is more negative! Try to lower the front and see if the default relation between front and rear drives better or not
After that: play with less front toe and more rear toe to make it turn in sharper and slide with more control!
---->
For me the car understeers with the default camber relation and is also difficult to catch while turning in a bit slow.
-> max negative camber at the front
-> less negative camber at the rear
-> more positive toe at the rear
-> slightly negative toe on the front
---->
Didn't really do what I want so now trying to max out grip in general via overall max negative camber but going neutral with the rear toe to make the rear going a little bit sideways on corner exits!
---->
Better but it's really nervous under braking without even turning! Going slightly positive with the front toe again!
---->
Yep, drives okay! Full setup compared to default:
- max negative camber!
- Toe front default, rear minus one click
- pressures -10 psi
That's it! Rest is up to your driving with that car. Btw are you driving with a wheel?
Fun fact:
When you look at the default setup of the Mazda MX-5 Cup you'll the following:
- more negative camber at the front that at the rear
- slightly negative toe on the rear
Road or almost-road-like Racecars mostly are the quickest when the rear slides around a little while the front has lots of grip. But it's very difficult to get to the point of driving skill to handle a car like that!
Hope that helps for the basics. Don't give up but also don't forget to just simply enjoy driving the cars
Last edited:
Oh I definitely don’t expect to learn everything you learned working hard dude, i just wanna know some basic rules like: if car understeers set this up, if the car oversteers set this up, if the tyres are like that set this up. You know? I just wanna know what part i gotta hit to fix these little problems. Will you help me?
Edited my post
I'm more lost than you do by reading @RasmusP post.
I can give you a much simpler explanation using 3d spatial awareness.
On car that doesn't have some electronic sway bar whatever, the most common scenario...
Road car are build for compliance. Since semi-slick grip more & the inertia of the body tend to resist state in motion(basically refuse to change it path)... It will just roll more due to more grip than road tire, because the inertia is heading straight & will refuse to the steering path. If the car has tires that have econo slidy one it will slide instead of rolling.
Alignment contact is what make the grip during cornering. I personally don't think oversteer & understeer would be a correct way to learn setup unless it's for small tweak.
There's the weight distribution of the car to take in consideration, like more mass on one side, roll more. Less mass roll less.
The default value of the sway bar & spring rate hints a bit the weight distribution of the car.
Spring compression is a source of velocity(speed energy). It's like if you throw a heavy ball & throw a light ball. If you throw light ball in the sky with the same force, it lead to higher amplitude. If you throw a heavy ball with the same force, it will get to a lower amplitude. Although, they will fall down at the same time due to inertia. Damper limit the amplitude basically & reduced weight increase amplitude. Braking, accelerating create a source of velocity on the spring based on the mass of the car depending of the grip of the tires.
If you brake & accelerate, it's preferable to both front & back to follow about at the same rate as the car roll based on the center of gravity & the suspension geometry. It's about retaining a balanced natural frequency between the front & the back.
On road car the rear usually have lower natural frequency since hitting a bump doesn't result compression, decompression on both suspension at the same time space, but during braking & accelerating it happen at the same time.
Sway bar is a mechanism that compress the pair of suspension by using a torsion bar. It use the inside tire velocity to extend the opposite corner.
Personally for the toe it's default or closer to 0 in the car status. Leave default for twisty track & maybe reduce a bit for long straight track.
I can give you a much simpler explanation using 3d spatial awareness.
On car that doesn't have some electronic sway bar whatever, the most common scenario...
Road car are build for compliance. Since semi-slick grip more & the inertia of the body tend to resist state in motion(basically refuse to change it path)... It will just roll more due to more grip than road tire, because the inertia is heading straight & will refuse to the steering path. If the car has tires that have econo slidy one it will slide instead of rolling.
Alignment contact is what make the grip during cornering. I personally don't think oversteer & understeer would be a correct way to learn setup unless it's for small tweak.
There's the weight distribution of the car to take in consideration, like more mass on one side, roll more. Less mass roll less.
The default value of the sway bar & spring rate hints a bit the weight distribution of the car.
Spring compression is a source of velocity(speed energy). It's like if you throw a heavy ball & throw a light ball. If you throw light ball in the sky with the same force, it lead to higher amplitude. If you throw a heavy ball with the same force, it will get to a lower amplitude. Although, they will fall down at the same time due to inertia. Damper limit the amplitude basically & reduced weight increase amplitude. Braking, accelerating create a source of velocity on the spring based on the mass of the car depending of the grip of the tires.
If you brake & accelerate, it's preferable to both front & back to follow about at the same rate as the car roll based on the center of gravity & the suspension geometry. It's about retaining a balanced natural frequency between the front & the back.
On road car the rear usually have lower natural frequency since hitting a bump doesn't result compression, decompression on both suspension at the same time space, but during braking & accelerating it happen at the same time.
Sway bar is a mechanism that compress the pair of suspension by using a torsion bar. It use the inside tire velocity to extend the opposite corner.
Personally for the toe it's default or closer to 0 in the car status. Leave default for twisty track & maybe reduce a bit for long straight track.
Last edited:
I really appreciated guys, but i’m still confused.. i think that everyone should set up the car basing on his own driving style, for example i found the bmw z4 unstable on straight, oversteers in the mid corner and a bit of understeer in the exit corner, so I should set the parts that fix these behaviors.. what i wanna learn is which parts do i have to set? I want a generic guide
Download the 21 steps gtr2 guide pdf I linked in my post. It does exactly that! Step by step, really easy
My confusing last part of the post was just what I did to get the z4 right for me.
The real post ends with the 3 links.
Yes and no. If you can't improve your driving skill anymore in a reasonable time then yes. Like the real pro drivers out there, F1, Blancpain etc.
If you aren't really really fast yet, you can get a little faster with a personalized setup but mostly there's is one physically best setup and the driver should learn to use it correctly!
I once tried to set up the Mazda mx-5 cup and yes, I got faster with it. A friend of mine was 5 seconds faster than me, with my setup I got 2s faster.
Then I got stuck, couldn't go quicker anymore so the 3s gap would exist forever.
We compared the replays and analyzed the driving in Motec and it turned out that my setup made me quicker but from a physics point of view it was slower than the default one!
So I went back to the default setup, tried to drive like my friend and after 3 days I was faster on default than I was with my custom setup!
Since then I don't try to personalize a setup to my lack of skill "driving style" but instead try to find out what's physically the fastest and then try to learn how to drive it.
You can only do that if you have enough time though. If you have a spontaneous online race there's no time to learn the car so to at least be somehow good in the race you make the car better for you, although it's not necessarily the fastest!
What I did with the z4 was about the physically fastest setup, not about what is the easiest to drive for me!
For AC the camber setting via looking at the temperatures is difficult but a good value would be 10° difference between inside and outside, the middle should be between these two.
The 21 step guide says 5° difference as it's for GTR2. Replace that number with 10° and follow the guide
Brake Duct isn't simulated in AC, so forget about that. Same for "Steering Lock". The rest though is really good from my experience!
It's a bit tricky at first to understand, the camber setup basically says:
Inside of tire > outside of tire = increase negative camber
inside of tire more than 5° hotter than outside of tire = decrease negative camber
inside of tire less than 5° hotter than outside of tire = perfect
If you would grab these equations and do it with minus, it would be like this:
line from above "inside of tire more than 5° hotter than outside of tire".
Let's put in real numbers like inside of tire = 70°, outside of tire = 64°.
That's 6° difference and too much (in GTR2, not AC!).
Now 70° minus 64° = 6°, which is more than 5°.
The last line of the guide says, in math, that the difference between the outside of the tire and the inside of the tire should be within 0° to 5° difference.
The guide really just does this math.
Remember, it's 10° in AC you should aim for!
For the ride height: You don't have motec of course, but you'll hear when the car is scratching on the bottom
The 21 step guide says 5° difference as it's for GTR2. Replace that number with 10° and follow the guide
Brake Duct isn't simulated in AC, so forget about that. Same for "Steering Lock". The rest though is really good from my experience!
It's a bit tricky at first to understand, the camber setup basically says:
Inside of tire > outside of tire = increase negative camber
inside of tire more than 5° hotter than outside of tire = decrease negative camber
inside of tire less than 5° hotter than outside of tire = perfect
If you would grab these equations and do it with minus, it would be like this:
line from above "inside of tire more than 5° hotter than outside of tire".
Let's put in real numbers like inside of tire = 70°, outside of tire = 64°.
That's 6° difference and too much (in GTR2, not AC!).
Now 70° minus 64° = 6°, which is more than 5°.
The last line of the guide says, in math, that the difference between the outside of the tire and the inside of the tire should be within 0° to 5° difference.
The guide really just does this math.
Remember, it's 10° in AC you should aim for!
For the ride height: You don't have motec of course, but you'll hear when the car is scratching on the bottom
