Ok, so who wants to be my race engineer?
I'm in the FBMW, at Spa04, and I can't get the tyre temps up.
Because the track is SO bumpy, if I put spring rates up the car turns into a Tokyo Drifter. This is the highest I can get it, should I just accept that my temps will be lower around spa?
I have the same issue as Hexman with the Seat Leon (WTCC), my rear tyres are always in the 75° vicinity. I tried lots of settings (anti roll bar, low pressure, high pressure), nothing helped to heat them up to 90°.
Lee Downham, if you stiffen the spring, you will loose grip, no ? what's the point of heating up to 90 if in the end, you have less grip ? I mean, the final objective is to get the maximum grip
:rotfl: ... LOL ... :rotfl:
Sorry to laugh but its proper black magic all this setup lark eh?
I am no expert, I too am learning with you all ... :glasses-nerdy:
The stuff I have quoted is what I have read and/or have tried and has worked for me in the past ... but I have found some tracks and cars just seem to go against everything that is "the norm" ... never tried a WTCC Seat at Spa, so can't tell you from personal experience what has worked there.
What I have been doing a lot more lately is along the lines of what Atti suggested ... (thanks for the handy hint there dude :wink2
... so lowering the spring/arb/etc right down and starting from there ... but I always tend to leave tyre pressures at or around 180kPa until I have got the base settings for suspension etc more sorted and the car is driving how I like it.
Something which may or may not help is playing with the ride height.
I believe I am right in saying that if you lower the ride height you compress the springs, thus effectively increasing the amount of pressure on them without actually touching the spring rate settings.
One thing I would suggest is that there is something else more fundamentally wrong with the settings you have Jamie, as your tyre pressures are WAAYYY lower than I would expect for the WTCC's ... although I may be wrong here as I really have done very little with WTCC's for some reason (been doing GT and mini stuff since starting my setup education I guess), I would normally expect to have them up near 180kPa.
One thing I sometimes do if I am struggling is experiment wildly to see if I can find something that is going to point me in the right direction ...
Put springs and ARB to minimum, then drive and see what happens.
Whack the spring rate to max ... drive.
Mess with ride height and spring rate combinations, etc
Dampers can help with over/understeer alot, but try to wait until you have the "harder" settings like springs etc sorted.
Always make sure you do 4 or 5 laps before you decide something is good or bad ... tyres need to get to and settle with their working temps before you can truly assess what is going on with the car.
Hope this mad set of ramblings helps chaps ... there is science in this I believe, and I am starting to understand it all a bit more, but sometimes there is soooo much frustration and confusion ... a good setup takes a long time and a lot of work in my experience, and this is why they are (rightfully :wink2
"protected" here behind closed doors at RD.
BTW: Make sure you thank anyone who posts up a setup no matter how good or bad it is, try to give them constructive feedback too, I wish more people did with mine (eg. too oversteery at corner entry / exit, gearing wrong, snappy, feels like a pogo stick, beautiful I took 5 seconds off my pb
...etc) ... give you more incentive to keep trying and keep posting.