New 'Go Faster' With Aristotelis Vasilakos Video: Engine and Gearbox

[Paul Jeffrey]

Kunos Simulazioni physics engineer Aristotelis Vasilakos has released his second 'Go Faster' tutorial video, this time with a focus on car engines and gearboxes.

On the back of a popular first release in his series of 'Go Faster' videos, Aris once again takes to the home of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone to impart some useful driving wisdom using the Assetto Corsa simulation and a selection of cars. Unlike last time, Vasilakos takes us on a tour of the ins and outs of faster driving using not just the trusty BMW M235i Racing but also the incredible Mercedes-Benz 190E EVO II of DTM touring car fame.

Whilst last time out Vasolakos had a focus on the physical driving line and braking techniques one should employ in order to become a competitive driver, this time around the talented physics creator turns his attention to the more technical aspects of setting up a car to best suit the conditions and ones on driving style. With such a large and complicated array of different settings that can be employed on any single car, Aris has in his near 30 minute video paid special attention to gearing and engine settings and how best to maximise this element of the car setup in order to provide a safer, and faster, driving experience.

When quizzed on the reasons behind these recent tutorials, Aris had the following to say:

"The first ethical reason is that I always thought that simracers should talk about driving, racing, cars. Not bickering around on sterile flames about which is the best sim and who's penis is longer... So I take advantage of whatever knowledge I have gained through all these years on the subject and try to express it in a way that doesn't annoy people, clear and simple enough to be understood from newbies and just a hint of "high end" stuff so that aliens and engineers can join in and take it from me and push it further, sustaining the discussion.

The second reason is that we want the channel to grow, to gain respectable numbers. For the money? Well I doubt it we can get it to numbers that YouTube will start to pay us good enough, but certainly we won't say no hehehe. But the main reason is that with a big enough channel, we can go to the automotive makers and ask real cars to try on real tracks. And then we can convince them to sponsor us to make the Game&Track show even bigger. This is our main side project, mine, Maurizio's and Davide. This show on a real track is free for everybody and we organize on site competitions. Winners get to do taxi laps on supercars with us or professional drivers... and maybe this year we might have the opportunity to put some simmers to try some cars on the side of official instructors!

Still early times but we really pushing behind the scenes to convince as many sponsors as possible!"​

As with the first driving techniques video, the latest release is both entertaining while at the same time providing useful information aimed at increasing players enjoyment and competitiveness in Assetto Corsa. I for one hope that these two video releases are the beginning of a series of releases from Aris, and prove themselves to be useful for new and experienced sim racers alike.


Assetto Corsa is a racing simulation designed by Kunos Simulazioni and is available for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.

Oh boy do we like mods! If you do too then we have you covered with our fantastic Assetto Corsa modding archive. From downloads to a place for mod discussion, we have it all for you to enjoy, check it out today! If you don't fancy trying out some of the awesome community created tracks and cars then drop in on our Assetto Corsa sub forum to chat about the game with your fellow fans. Interaction and threads make forums fun, so start one today!

Have you enjoyed the latest video from Aris? Did you learn anything interesting that could be used out on track? What topic would you like to see Aris cover next? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Paul Jeffrey]

Oooops double post

 

[Shaun Clarke]

It's simple. With shifting earlier, you are not stressing the engine, and thus using the Torque to propel you forward more instead of trying to use raw power, as most modern race cars engines, although have a limiter of say for example 7000rpm, you actually loose power around the 6,500 mark to "save them"

This is why you should never flat line a racing car. I love his racing style as I have done this for a long time.

Use the Torque Luke

 

[Brandon Wright]

instead of trying to use raw POWAH!!

Considering your avatar, I fixed that for ya.

 

[Lorenzo Bonder]

Yeah with this new it's makes official that @Aristotelis is looking to be the newest Asseto Corsa Driving Academy instructor.

Call to arms, Bram!

 

[Shaun Clarke]

I have experienced this, in real life. I now have a Focus ST. Now before you all say yeah yeah is that all you have, but this torque steers like a bitch, at lower revs, higher acceleration. After having a good "play around" on the UK roads, which are mostly country based, I have found, that if I am in 4th gear, and I want to overtake, I actually change up to 5th gear, let the turbo and the torque do the work and the engine is not screaming hell Mary at me and it picks up quicker and I get there faster.

 

[doghouse]

It's kinda funny. For all the years I've pratted around on sims, for some reason, I've never really considered engine specs. Could well be a reason for lagging seconds behind everyone else when I put it down to, 'does it sound good to step up a gear now?'

 

[slingshot64]

Thank you once again Aristotelis these little bits of detail help tons , wishing you a great Easter break.

 

[Shaun Clarke]

It's kinda funny. For all the years I've pratted around on sims, for some reason, I've never really considered engine specs. Could well be a reason for lagging seconds behind everyone else when I put it down to, 'does it sound good to step up a gear now?'

I did the same, and sometimes it is the sound that makes you change gear, but I do look at revs more now

 

[doghouse]

I did the same, and sometimes it is the sound that makes you change gear, but I do look at revs more now

For sure. Next time in game, I'll note that performance band and see if that alone knocks some time off PBs - as it should. Yay! Hah.

 

[PhilS13]

I have experienced this, in real life. I now have a Focus ST. Now before you all say yeah yeah is that all you have, but this torque steers like a bitch, at lower revs, higher acceleration. After having a good "play around" on the UK roads, which are mostly country based, I have found, that if I am in 4th gear, and I want to overtake, I actually change up to 5th gear, let the turbo and the torque do the work and the engine is not screaming hell Mary at me and it picks up quicker and I get there faster.

It doesn't. Something is messing up your perception of the pull.

 

[Tim Meuris]

Nice vid, again. Atm i am practising with the alfa romeo 155 dtm (a car which has lots of similarities with the benz in the vid).
Here's my question considering gear ratios:
The alfa has six gears. However (after adjusting) i m often faster using 5 gears than using all six of them. Is this perfectly possible or am i doing sthing terribly wrong here? The behaviour of the car feels a lot more stable to me as well. It's not like a gt3 car where you can adjust each gear seperately but one click left or right adjusts all the gears. Please enlighten me...

 

[lhcaetano]

It's simple. With shifting earlier, you are not stressing the engine, and thus using the Torque to propel you forward more instead of trying to use raw power, as most modern race cars engines, although have a limiter of say for example 7000rpm, you actually loose power around the 6,500 mark to "save them"

This is why you should never flat line a racing car. I love his racing style as I have done this for a long time.

Use the Torque Luke

So you say we should shift on the point where the torque ends instead of where the power ends?

 

[lhcaetano]

Much LUV for Aris, and all the Kunos team, for bringings us Marvels with Assetto Corsa.

 

[Alex Townsend]

Awesome video again @Aristotelis .
Learned a bit more now that I will apply to my racing.
Hearing the future plans for the show and live events at tracks sounds really good too. Hoping you'll do one in Malaysia at Sepang whilst laser scanning the track for AC!

Good luck for all of this as it sounds incredibly positive. (And a lot of fun too)

 

[Nico Major]

Engine specs and shifiting is an interesting topic but usually also causes some confusion and missconception among the people. I did not watch the video yet (will do later) but I'm sure Aris is getting it right. However, I'm already reading stuff here that is not correct (IMO) and/or can lead to wrong conclusions and sub-optimal driving performance.

Some words ahead:
Eninge specs give a good clue on first look but what actually counts ist the "amount of force" that arrives at the wheels (given that there is enough grip). The gearing plays an IMPORTANT role because gears multiply the output from the engine to the wheels.
Also what's finally interesting is power, not torque. (To get two bags of 25kg each from A to B in 5 minutes it does not matter if I carry them both and it takes me 5 mins or if I go twice carrying only 25kg and taking 2.5 mins on each run. Torque (force) by itself only comes into play when the question arrises: "Am I able to lift 25kg or 50kg at all?")

So you say we should shift on the point where the torque ends instead of where the power ends?

You mean torque and power peak, aren't you?
Both would be wrong. Since power is important for accelleration and torque peak is usually before power peak, shifting at max torque would be even worse.
Think about it this way: If you are at peak power and you shift you are cutting down significantly what arrives at the wheels. This drop will always be much more than what you loose by going over the peak and "suffering" from some loss of power. The question is, how far behind the peak should you go until you shift. The only way to determine this is to calculate what arrives at the wheels for every RPM and every gear. (see attached image and referenced sources)

This is why you should never flat line a racing car.

This statement is too universal and probably wrong for the majority of the cars out there. Most cars do not loose as much between power peak and max revs as they loose by shifting. Don't get me wrong. There are cars that have siginificant drop of power towards max RPM. Often cars with turbo engines or some artificial restriction (like the GT2 Ferrari).

I have found, that if I am in 4th gear, and I want to overtake, I actually change up to 5th gear, let the turbo and the torque do the work and the ... and it picks up quicker and I get there faster.

Like @PhilS13 said - that is a wrong perception, except you are already very close to max rev of 4th gear. To be honest I feel the same in my car (turbo diesel [I know]) but I blame it on the fact that I feel the push more because in 5th with rising revs from a relatively low starting point the acceleration is increasing at first whereas in 4th gear you feel that the acceleration is decreasing already. What you are not feeling is, that it's absloute value is still higher than in 5th gear.

References:
http://teamghettoracing.com/tech-info/optimum-gearchange-points/
https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/the-old-hp-vs-tq-debate/96076/page4/

 

[PhilS13]

Feels like for every guy like @Nico Major there are 30 dudes popping up convinced that some cryptic non-sense like "Torque is for accel, HP is for top speed" is true.

The misinformation just won't die on this subject.

 

[David Dominguez]

Feels like for every guy like @Nico Major there are 30 dudes popping up convinced that some cryptic non-sense like "Torque is for accel, HP is for top speed" is true.

The misinformation just won't die on this subject.

Horsepower sells cars, torque wins races !!!!11!!11!!!

 

[Stereo]

Yeah, it's not like torque + gearing cancel out and leave you with horsepower or something... say you have a car with 200 tq at 1000 rpm, and one with 100 tq at 2000 rpm, both geared to run at 100km/h at that rpm, they have the same horsepower and will accelerate the same.

 

[MarcG]

Just managed a 1m11.9xx using this earlier shifting method on a completely default setup, reckon with the tire pressure changes I can beat the 1m11.777 I set previously, challenge myself accepted!