A quick transmission question

[Draggon]

I almost never tune transmissions except for the max speed slider. I just finished my first successful transmission tune, on the SVT Cobra R. Testing at Motegi East course, I picked up just shy of 3 seconds over the basic fully customizable trans with the just the slider set to 137mph. Is this normal, or are the basic settings of that trans just so bad?

 

[Bowtie-muscle]

I almost never tune transmissions except for the max speed slider. I just finished my first successful transmission tune, on the SVT Cobra R. Testing at Motegi East course, I picked up just shy of 3 seconds over the basic fully customizable trans with the just the slider set to 137mph. Is this normal, or are the basic settings of that trans just so bad?

Normal, custom always seems to pick up time as you can get each year where you want it. Speed slider tends to have at least 1 or 2 gears off just enough to lose time.

 

[Thorin Cain]

I almost never tune transmissions except for the max speed slider. I just finished my first successful transmission tune, on the SVT Cobra R. Testing at Motegi East course, I picked up just shy of 3 seconds over the basic fully customizable trans with the just the slider set to 137mph. Is this normal, or are the basic settings of that trans just so bad?

I'd say it's probably about average. The "stock" FC ratios are set based on the stock Final Gear ratio and the cars powerband to achieve the top speed set in the slider. Normally this means you're going to get a good amount of wheelspin in lower gears which will lose you time, altering final gear ratio to a longer one (lower number) can cut this down, saving lots of time. Tuning the ratios to cut down on the amount of gear changes also helps a lot too. But I'm not the guy you want answering transmission questions . If you need any further help with it, I'd ask @Otaliema, @Pete05 or @Lionheart2113. They understand this stuff way better than I do and are usually happy to help

 

[Draggon]

Thanks, guys. I knew it was going to make a difference but expected maybe a second improvement in lap time, at the best. The place I see the greatest change is mid corner to exit. I can plant the throttle with almost zero wheelspin, even on SH tires.

 

[demonchilde]

I will add one nontechnical aspect to this that is often overlooked;

You know what adds 'consecutive' lap improvement, is making a car 'feel' better to the driver. Thus making the ride itself smoother, and easier to avoid simple mistakes in laps.
Tuning a transmission vs. not tuning it, this is hands down going to be the case.
As always, the more work you put into a tune, the more its going to meld to your specific style. Due to this, you will also notice garages that produce lots of cars normally tend to be beneficial to lots of people who use the tunes. Where those of us who tend to tune and retune and spend weeks on specific cars will be really liked by only those with similar driving styles. I'm not sure if I explained that right, lol.

 

[Otaliema]

On something like a cobra a transmission tuned proper will pick up a bunch of time cause you as noticed can plant it sooner in the turns and reduce if not remove the wheel spin.
Some cars in the game you won't gain much because the stock box or basic top speed slider is already really well done, the 2J is a great example of this.
As @demonchilde said it can make the car more comfortable so your more willing to push it.

 

[Draggon]

Yes, I agree on the "feel" of the car. What you said @demonchilde about similar driving styles explains why some of the tunes I find posted I have trouble with. And people actually spend weeks? I spent 6 hours once and thought that was too much. I figured all of you guys were just that much better than me and could make up a good tune in 15 minutes. Until GT6 my tuning was limited to lowering the ride height, setting the gear slider and maybe brake bias, and that was that.

I'll look at that trans tuning guide in your signature @Otaliema 👍

 

[demonchilde]

Yes, I agree on the "feel" of the car. What you said @demonchilde about similar driving styles explains why some of the tunes I find posted I have trouble with. And people actually spend weeks? I spent 6 hours once and thought that was too much. I figured all of you guys were just that much better than me and could make up a good tune in 15 minutes. Until GT6 my tuning was limited to lowering the ride height, setting the gear slider and maybe brake bias, and that was that.

I'll look at that trans tuning guide in your signature @Otaliema 👍

Some can and do spend very little time. I know my cousin can come over and tune something in literally minutes and take a 10-15 second gap 1st place on any seasonal first try. But I take that very same tune and try and quit the race 1/2 way through the first lap because its horrid to my drive style. His, like many of the top 100 rankers, style is very individual. They have this magic spell cast on them from the Gods that make them win gt500 races with nothing but a wheelbarrow with a squeaky tire.
When I say 'weeks' I mean revisiting the tune often to tweak it here and there, using it in different situations. Offline, online, restricted rooms, seasonals with forced aids, seasonals without, all will effect how a tune works. Unless its made specifically for a seasonal, alot of tuners try to make a tune versatile to be used anywhere with minimal tweaking. I post 5-10 tunes a year, lol (not counting seasonals). I know some who don't even do that.
Then I know some that pump out 5-10 a week. And I also know I can grab any of those, tweak maybe 1 thing to my style, and go win with it. It won't feel like my cars, but will win with ease.
I don't claim to be some tuning god, because I'm not even close. To those who drive similar to my style, they follow me and like my tunes, to everyone else I'm just another small garage in a forum with 30 small garages, lol.
The best advice you can be given by anyone, is to use everyone here to learn how to tweak and tune everything. Anyone can grab a tune from someone and win some race, but not everyone can grab a car, tune it, tweak it, and win that same race having lots of fun and enjoying every minute.
I use them (FITT and all the garages) as teachers, all of them helping me get better at one thing or another.

Oh, and I also write long posts that take forever to read, sorry, lol.

 

[MrGrado]

I believe there is no one right way to tune trans for all cars on all tracks. I have a few different basic ways I will tune a trans, depending on the track and cars characteristics.

Sometimes differently tuned transmissions have almost no gain or loss in time. Take for example, testing Ford GT tunes. Many tunes had no noticable gain or loss of time compared to others over sections of track where you would be accelerating from 2nd/3rd gear all the way to max speed despite having fairly different transmissions. Or look at the times I got testing the transmission tuning contest. The two fastest tunes had vastly differently tuned transmissions but almost identical lap times (about 0.020 difference) and the tunes were identical other than transmission settings.