AC Porsches vs. RL Porsches (Rear Engined)

[panjandrum]

Got some time to play around with the '74 RSR and the 991 Carrera S and compare those with my RL experience daily-driving and running amateur motorsports in classic rear-engined Porsches.

The Yellowbird with the boost set to minimum remains the closest equivalent to a non-modified stock Porsche 911 of the era. The soft suspension allows for plenty of weight-transfer, allowing for the easiest "drive by throttle" experience that classic RR Porsche drivers know and love. Feels very, very close to RL. So if you want to drive the closest equivalent to a street-going classic 911; just hop in the YB and turn the turbo down and you are done. No other editing necessary (I usually drive on the "old tarmac" setting), and obviously don't enable driving aids that real cars don't have.

The '74 RSR is stiffer and lighter than anything I've driven RL, so it feels considerably different. My first thought was that on-throttle it's a lot like what my car feels like when I stiffen the rear-sway-bar too much (unwilling to come back under throttle, easily induces on-throttle oversteer). Overall the RSR has much less weight transfer, and thus is probably "better behaved" by a track-racing point of view. Softening both sway-bars and both the front and rear suspension as much as possible makes a big difference and makes the RSR feel a lot more like a road-going 911 (as it should). And, side note, how cool is it that tuning in AC pretty accurately mirrors RL? It's very well done.

The 991 Carrera was a surprise for me (never having driven a modern 911 in RL). It feels a lot like I hoped it would (similar to older 911s but in a more subdued fashion). Really nice feel and very easy to drive-by-throttle as long as you are gentle on the go-pedal.

For those of you wanting to do so; learn to drive with the go-pedal as much as the steering wheel. Lift-throttle to turn, depress throttle to induce understeer and bring the back in-line. It's a very graceful thing when you know how to do it. (Porsches of this era are often called "tail-happy" but that's just because so many drivers didn't know what they were doing with rear-biased cars. Just like you don't plant your throttle all the way to the floor mid-corner in a powerful front-engined rear-wheel drive car, you don't lift the throttle all the way mid-corner in a rear-engined car (or if you do lift all the way you only do it for a tiny, tiny, brief amount of time). That's really it.)

I'm playing on PC with a T500 and have also tried it with a G25. Both wheels did a fine job overall. I generally drive with all aids turned off (except, sometimes, ABS), even in modern cars. (I have zero interest in RL in cars which drive themselves at-all, in any way. I'm just a purist/curmudgeon in that regard, feeling it should be man+machine and zero computers involved...)

 

[WarriusZero]

Thanks for the comparison. It shows how well Kunos have done. 👍
So I guess while I'm waiting for the DLC on console, I could give that Yellow Bird another go...

 

[SpaceBreed]

Reading that makes me wanna get the pack asap, honestly, thank you for your views.

 

[WarriusZero]

I was thinking, could you please compare some more situations? e.g. grip on grass and sand, physics while on 2 wheels and mechanical / bodywork damage rendering?

 

[ALB123]

@panjandrum Thank you for sharing your insights on Porsche vehicles. It's one thing for an idiot like me to say "Oh, it feels so real! It's performance numbers are like the real thing...It must be a great simulation of the real thing." But, it's a totally different, more respectable opinion, to hear from people who have actually driven these cars in the real world. If they claim it feels like the real deal - that actually means something. 👍

I love the Yellowbird in Assetto Corsa. I thought it felt good in Gran Turismo 6 before I owned AC, but AC really makes it feel alive. GT6 Yellowbird setups feel so stale in comparison. Anyway, I heard about lowering Turbo Boost down to 0% to mimic the older generation Porsche Carrera. Of course I tried it and it was extremely enjoyable. As you described, the suspension feels softer like you would expect. You can feel massive amounts of weight transfer laterally, but the car actually stays planted quite well. I don't know if I've ever driven on Old track surface, but I will give it a shot next session. Unless I'm racing, or trying to see how fast I can drive the Yellowbird, I use Street or 90s Street Tires. Save the semislicks for the other scenarios I mentioned. Would you agree with that, to get the most authentic feel out of the Yellowbird and the Yellowbird at 0% boost? That's the most important thing to me when playing these sims - realism.

I immediately liked the Carrera S from Porsche Pack 1. It was the very first car I drove from the pack. There have been some complaints that the Carrera S under performs to the real thing. They try to make their argument by showing lap times which do tend to reflect the argument, however, I don't think it's totally fair to make those comparisons until all vehicles are on the same Tire Model. From what I understand, Tire Model 10, which was a complete re-write and not just an evolution of TM 7 is a "more sensitive" tire. The words in quotes come from Aristotelis, so if anyone would know it would be him!

As you mentioned enjoying driving the 0% Boost Yellowbird on Old track surfaces, I thought I should let you know, in case you hadn't seen this for yourself, but Aristotelis claims that we should using surfaces with a higher percentage assigned to them. He recommends 98%-99% because of the new Tire Model 10. I hope that Aris and Stefano decide to adjust the track surface parameters so we can still have 6 different selections to choose from. I don't want to be stuck only being able to use Optimum or Fast. Again, thanks for sharing your real world perspective on these cars. Those are my favorite posts to read. 👍

 

[Johnnypenso]

As you mentioned enjoying driving the 0% Boost Yellowbird on Old track surfaces, I thought I should let you know, in case you hadn't seen this for yourself, but Aristotelis claims that we should using surfaces with a higher percentage assigned to them. He recommends 98%-99% because of the new Tire Model 10. I hope that Aris and Stefano decide to adjust the track surface parameters so we can still have 6 different selections to choose from. I don't want to be stuck only being able to use Optimum or Fast. Again, thanks for sharing your real world perspective on these cars. Those are my favorite posts to read. 👍

Can't agree more with your assessment of @panjandrum's comments. Always great to see a real life driver of a similar car make a comparison.

Is the YB on v10 tires yet?

 

[panjandrum]

You can feel massive amounts of weight transfer laterally, but the car actually stays planted quite well. I don't know if I've ever driven on Old track surface, but I will give it a shot next session. Unless I'm racing, or trying to see how fast I can drive the Yellowbird, I use Street or 90s Street Tires. Save the semislicks for the other scenarios I mentioned. Would you agree with that, to get the most authentic feel out of the Yellowbird and the Yellowbird at 0% boost? That's the most important thing to me when playing these sims - realism.[/USER]

It's quite surprising how soft older sports-cars are. These older Porsches are quite soft by today's standards, with plenty of weight-transfer (in all directions - you CAN induce snap-oversteer in these older rear-biased cars if you stomp the brakes too hard for very long in anything other than a straight-line; you simply unload the weight off the rears too much; they lose grip, and once that heavy rear starts to come around you better be back on that throttle instantly or you are toast), but they still handle great. The primary difference, to me, seems that the driver needs to learn to use weight-transfer as part of the driving-process in order to get the most out of these cars. In motorsports I am almost continually in a state of "managing where the weight is going" (For that matter, I'm almost always in a process of controlled-sliding as well. Older sports cars absolutely love to slide-around, and managing that is half the fun). Only exception is on longer straights, and even then I'm planning where my next weight-transfer needs to begin happening, rather than just purely judging the braking-point as I might be able to do with newer cars. Heck, even the slightly-sporty "daily drivers" of today can be a lot stiffer than these older sports-cars. Thing is, I think those of us driving these older sports-cars actually *love using* the weight-transfer. How much understeer do I need here and at what throttle-point do I get that? How much oversteer do I need and how far should I come off-throttle to get it? Plus lots of throttle-feathering of course. But this all happens automatically; I never have to actually "think" it; my brain and muscle-memory just get the job done. It's only when sitting back and thinking it over that you realize exactly what's going on.

Anyway, I digress. My interest is primarily in classic sports-cars, not race-cars or even highly-modified street cars. I tend to like things "a bit slippery" because that's what I'm used to driving in RL. I'm going to try some stickier tarmac though, and see how it feels.

I would say that the YB with the boost at 10% (that's the lowest you can go with it as far as I know, but that's so low it really doesn't do much) on Old Tarmac feels a LOT, and I mean amazingly, like an actual 911 of the era on a good set of DOT-legal high-performance street/track combo tires. Plenty of grip with a nice predictable transition to sliding. Enough grip to easily initiate weight-transfer on/off throttle, with little chance of spinning-up both rears unless you are totally ham-fisted (ham-footed?) with the throttle. It's a great dance of "now I'm (purposefully) sliding... now I'm not... now I'm sliding... now I'm not...

But comparing a RL Porsche on racing-slicks is not something I can do. I've ridden in, but not driven, cars on rubber that sticky.

 

[Cote Dazur]

Can't agree more with your assessment of @panjandrum's comments. Always great to see a real life driver of a similar car make a comparison.

Is the YB on v10 tires yet?

No still on 7

 

[ALB123]

You are totally right. I kept saying zero boost, but it's actually 10% boost. Sorry if I confused anybody. I think cars like the YB, F40, Countach, etc. that are still on version 7 tires should be totally fine on the Old surface or Dusty or Slow, etc. I think it's only the cars on the version 10 tires that Aristotelis recommends to go onto Fast or Optimal surfaces. Version 10 is a complete re-write of the tire model, not just an evolution of the existing model like 4 to 5 to 6 to 7. So, I think that version 10 being so different requires the surface we now call Fast or better.

My interests are also 95% older sport cars, 5% modern super/hypercars/race cars... It's just my opinion, but I think Kunos's physics shine so much with cars like the YB, F40, Countach and then even older going all the way back to our Lotus and Maserati open-wheel racers. Maybe it has something to do with the fact I've never been in a car as stiff as a LaFerrari or Porsche 918 or GT3 class race car in real life, so it doesn't "feel" right to my tiny little brain.

 

[Fredzy]

Nice write up. I had a blast in the YB with default settings - never messed with reducing boost. I think if I cut it back like you're talking about, I'll be able to do a little more "driving with the go-pedal" and less oversteer whack-a-mole. You know those games where the mole pops it's head up and you bop it down with the mallet? That's how catching Porsche oversteer feels to me usually no RL experience though

 

[WarriusZero]

I'm slightly disappointed nobody else wants to know about the damage model...

 

[ALB123]

I'm slightly disappointed nobody else wants to know about the damage model...

Oh, I'm always interested! 👍

 

[panjandrum]

Nice write up. I had a blast in the YB with default settings - never messed with reducing boost. I think if I cut it back like you're talking about, I'll be able to do a little more "driving with the go-pedal" and less oversteer whack-a-mole. You know those games where the mole pops it's head up and you bop it down with the mallet? That's how catching Porsche oversteer feels to me usually no RL experience though

I've mentioned this elsewhere, so I'll just go over it very briefly again for those that want to know: One of the things that makes these older 911s and 912s so fun to drive is their incredibly predictable weight transfer / understeer / oversteer dynamics. What you have is a car that (assuming conditions are appropriate) you can make oversteer or understeer exactly the amount you wish using the throttle. Their power-output is low enough that what you get is understeer on-throttle due to all that weight back there helping to prevent wheel-spinup. Off-throttle you will nearly always get oversteer (except at very low speeds). So once you learn to use the throttle it's a fantastic tool for getting the car lined up exactly as you wish. Go in a bit too hot? Just lift the throttle for a fraction of a second and then squeeze it back down all the way and *bam* you are pointed exactly where you wanted to go. Got a longer sweeper? You can come off-throttle partly and just gently let the rear drift through the entire sweeper. (i.e. "classic drifting" rather than what I think people should call "exhibition drifting" by which I mean modern drifting. Drifting is a term that can mean very different things to different generations...). It's both useful and incredibly fun.

Now, what happens when you get in the wet? Or on snow? Or dirt? On ice? Or even if you just add a boatload of power? All those things change the dynamics and the skill-level needed. (On ice you get essentially zero weight transfer, for example). Take the YB example (or any of the old "widow-maker" models of classic turbo-911s). Suddenly you've got to have a really great feel of exactly how much throttle you are using. Unlike a stock 911 or 912 of the era, you can't just put the throttle all the way back down with confidence that all you'll do is transition to gentle, predictable understeer. Suddenly, with all that power, you have to squeeze the pedal only half-way down, or a quarter of the way down, etc. because any more than that and even the heavy rear might not prevent the rears from spinning up. If that happens, then you've just lost all your lateral traction on a rear-biased car, which is bad news if you aren't a drifting god. So where the stock naturally-asparated 911s of the era are incredibly easy and rewarding to drive once you learn the method, a 911/912 (or, one would think, based on basic physics, *any* car with considerable rear-weight-bias), with too much power becomes a different beast altogether.

So turning down the turbo all the way in the YB and practicing that throttle control (I suggest the Nurburgring with all those great bends) is a great way to learn this skill. Then slowly drive faster and faster and you'll start finding the limits of how far and how for how long you can lift the go-pedal. In some bends you won't need to lift at all, in others you better be slowed-down before entry (WATCH OUT for elevation changes, you don't want to come over a crest off-throttle!), in some you can blip the throttle up and down quickly. In some you can come off-throttle part way. In others you will be feathering all the time trying to keep things in-line. And over course you'll need various amounts of counter-steering (sometimes none, sometimes a moderate amount, but if you are going to "opposite lock" you've really overdone it!) Once you are very comfortable with the turbo at 10, go to 20, then 30 etc. (Personally, I still find the YB extremely challenging at high turbo settings because, of course, my RL muscle-memory keeps dictating that I can just hammer the go-pedal all the way down. That's just a huge, huge mistake in the YB.)

 

[ALB123]

Thanks for the write up! 👍 Please, feel free to share any experiences you have with 911's or any cars. I know it benefits me a great deal to hear tips on how to drive them properly. I think I'll be off for a few laps in my de-tuned Yellowbird on the Nordschleife.

 

[mister dog]

The first TT challenge i organized was with the YB at Virginia raceway, and to be able to compete we had to put it on a 100% boost. Quite a challenge indeed and like you say @panjandrum it's all about playing around with the throttle. Must say that even on a 100 it was more or less possible to do clean laps. You just wouldn't want to try that in real life i suppose unless you happen to wear brown underpants that day

You made me curious to try it out with the 10% rule so it mimics a standard 911 of the era. So far i've only increased default boost but never decreased it, so now's my chance 👍

Great write up too thanks for that.

edit: Just did 2 laps on 10% on the ring. Had semislicks on as i forgot to change them but it was great fun indeed. Very natural and easy to control a slide, made me think of an old school version of the Cayman S in AC. As soon as you feel the back going you just steer gradually in the other direction and likewise gradually feed in the throttle and you exit each time with a grin on your face.

 

[ALB123]

edit: Just did 2 laps on 10% on the ring. Had semislicks on as i forgot to change them but it was great fun indeed. Very natural and easy to control a slide, made me think of an old school version of the Cayman S in AC. As soon as you feel the back going you just steer gradually in the other direction and likewise gradually feed in the throttle and you exit each time with a grin on your face.

I did a few yesterday on the Ring in 10% too. I used 90s Street Tires though...I don't think there is that much of a difference between 90s Street & Regular Street unless you're really, really pushing as hard as you can. I usually just use Street. The vehicle is super fun setup that way. I wish there were a way to force the AI into using that setup for a race...Hmmm...

 

[Wiz]

I wish there were a way to force the AI into using that setup for a race...Hmmm...

I've not personally tried it so I'm not 100% certain it works, but this folder is for AI setups.... steam/assettocorsa/system/setups

Easiest way to do it would be to copy/paste your own tune into this folder.

 

[Whitestar]

@panjandrum, wow you were spot on in your description here. I tried the Yellowbird on Brands Hatch yesterday, and my oh my does this car handle wonderfully. I think it's actually not far from a car with drift setup in terms of just sliding around the track! I used 50 % boost and the oversteer was just so manageable in a wonderful way. I mostly used throttle to induce oversteer, but I also "flicked" it and even used the handbrake. This car can almost go backwards into a turn and still come out with the nose in the right direction. I've read many comments about the difficulty of this car so I was surprised that it was this easy to handle. Great stuff! 👍

Those 90s Street Tyres were hammered though. Quickly in the red zone. Might be an idea to turn tyre wear off.

 

[Dhalism]

This helped me a lot with driving the Porsches. It's practically a guide!

 

[panjandrum]

This helped me a lot with driving the Porsches. It's practically a guide!

Glad you are finding it useful. You know, I've many, many times started out to make a video showing my pedals, wheel, and screen while driving the YB to demonstrate the "lift-to-turn, squeeze to settle" method of driving these things, or do do the same in-car in RL, but I've always run out of time to get it done. RL is just a pain in the butt sometimes...

 

[ALB123]

Glad you are finding it useful. You know, I've many, many times started out to make a video showing my pedals, wheel, and screen while driving the YB to demonstrate the "lift-to-turn, squeeze to settle" method of driving these things, or do do the same in-car in RL, but I've always run out of time to get it done. RL is just a pain in the butt sometimes...

If you ever get a chance to make that video, I'd love to see it! I'm always on the lookout for ways to improve my own lap times.

BTW, nice avatar. I had a feeling the end was near when I saw him at the press conference for his last album, You Want it Darker.

 

[panjandrum]

If you ever get a chance to make that video, I'd love to see it! I'm always on the lookout for ways to improve my own lap times.

BTW, nice avatar. I had a feeling the end was near when I saw him at the press conference for his last album, You Want it Darker.

Off topic: Yeah, he looked so frail and shrunken. I was very, very lucky to be able to attend 4 of his concerts during his last era of touring, and just a few years ago he was actually skipping on and off stage.

P.S. I stole your idea of using his mug as my Avatar and giving him a mention in my .sig. Seems like a nice way to pay a little tribute. Thanks for the idea.

 

[mister dog]

Confusing though Leonard talking to Leonard

 

[Fredzy]

Ha, so I couldn't figure out how to adjust turbo % in settings and figured it was yet another thing missing from consoles. Just figured out today that "cycle turbo" (X button) does it! I kid you not.

Yellowbird doesn't have enough power to get out of its own way until like 40%! But my God is it way more fun! Can't wait for pack 1.. and some free time to play..

 

[panjandrum]

Ha, so I couldn't figure out how to adjust turbo % in settings and figured it was yet another thing missing from consoles. Just figured out today that "cycle turbo" (X button) does it! I kid you not.

Yellowbird doesn't have enough power to get out of its own way until like 40%! But my God is it way more fun! Can't wait for pack 1.. and some free time to play..

That's a side-effect of the sim-driving experience. IRL even the basic 911s of the era feel very fast. Not insane like todays cars, but very, very quick (this is partly because they are totally "raw" - not even power brakes or steering, just pure mechanical everything). But yeah, it's amazing how slow they can feel in a sim. Glad you are enjoying it.

 

[panjandrum]

Been playing with the Porsche Pack II. Wow, just loving that we now get Porsche in true SIMs, not just the limited selection of RUFs (although the YB remains one of my favorite cars of all time). With the quality of the simulation AC provides, I sure wish we would see the Alpine 1600s and the Lancia Stratos sometime in the future.

Although I unfortunately can't compare any of the newly release cars in terms of RL vs. Sim, they do feel very natural to me. I'm able to apply real-world techniques pretty much immediately to all of the rear-engined models; when I feed them inputs they generally react as I would expect, and the FFB provided through the wheel also feel really good to me. They definitely all feel like cars with engines in the back (unlike the way PCars feels, a product I rate an utterly abysmal "1" on a 1-10 scale for how it represents rear-baised cars.)

But since I haven't driven anything outside the classic-era machines (70s and 80s) I can't directly say how accurate they are beyond "theory suggests they feel accurate". That's a very slippery-slope IMHO. (I've basically come to the conclusion that the only real way to judge a sim is like-for-like comparisons between RL and Sim - anything else is just too prone to error...)

It would be very interesting to hear from other Porsche drivers with newer machines, if anyone here can do so!

 

[Fredzy]

That's a side-effect of the sim-driving experience. IRL even the basic 911s of the era feel very fast. Not insane like todays cars, but very, very quick (this is partly because they are totally "raw" - not even power brakes or steering, just pure mechanical everything). But yeah, it's amazing how slow they can feel in a sim. Glad you are enjoying it.

For sure, turning the boost down while accelerating in 4th gear can have a shocking effect. It's like the car basically stalls.

I stopped in the middle of Spa to do some acceleration testing, and at 40% boost the YB gets to 60mph in around 5-6 seconds, so that's still really fast. Spa was total joy, so I took that setup to Imola, a track I'm loving more and more. I had big troubles in turns 8 through.. uh.. 15. Took about 4 laps to finally get a clean lap.

It's gonna be a hard day waiting to get home to pack 1...

 

[ALB123]

@panjandrum what do you think about the 911 Carrera RSR 3.0 in Assetto Corsa Porsche Pack 1? Any real world experience with that mad dog? It might be my favorite of the bunch so far.

 

[panjandrum]

@panjandrum what do you think about the 911 Carrera RSR 3.0 in Assetto Corsa Porsche Pack 1? Any real world experience with that mad dog? It might be my favorite of the bunch so far.

I also love it, definitely up at the top of my list. That noise, WOW, for me nothing will ever beat the howl of a great NA motor, but I'm probably just showing my age there... I do cover that one a bit up in my initial post. While the chassis is essentially identical to those of my RL experience, the '74 RSR is so much lighter and stiffer that, again, I'm very hesitant to make any claims that "it's perfect" or anything like that. I can certainly say that on-throttle it feels very much like a 912/911 with a very stiff rear sway-bar; the RSR does NOT like to "come back around" on throttle. Same with my machine if I simply stiffen the rear sway-bar to the max setting. Suddenly it's just all oversteer and very hard to "settle" on-throttle. So, to me, it certainly seems like AC is doing a good job as the RSR drives almost exactly like I would expect.

I usually drive the '74 RSR as it is setup in AC by default. This is my general approach to a good SIM because I'm interested on how these cars actually drive IRL. However, if I want to have an easier time in it, I soften the suspension on both ends to allow more weight-transfer. It feels a considerably, though by no means completely, more like a standard Porsche of the era when you do that.

 

[ALB123]

I also love it, definitely up at the top of my list. That noise, WOW, for me nothing will ever beat the howl of a great NA motor, but I'm probably just showing my age there... I do cover that one a bit up in my initial post. While the chassis is essentially identical to those of my RL experience, the '74 RSR is so much lighter and stiffer that, again, I'm very hesitant to make any claims that "it's perfect" or anything like that. I can certainly say that on-throttle it feels very much like a 912/911 with a very stiff rear sway-bar; the RSR does NOT like to "come back around" on throttle. Same with my machine if I simply stiffen the rear sway-bar to the max setting. Suddenly it's just all oversteer and very hard to "settle" on-throttle. So, to me, it certainly seems like AC is doing a good job as the RSR drives almost exactly like I would expect.

I usually drive the '74 RSR as it is setup in AC by default. This is my general approach to a good SIM because I'm interested on how these cars actually drive IRL. However, if I want to have an easier time in it, I soften the suspension on both ends to allow more weight-transfer. It feels a considerably, though by no means completely, more like a standard Porsche of the era when you do that.

Cool. I must have forgotten that you had already talked about the Carrera RSR. Sorry to make you repeat yourself. It's just nice to hear from anyone who's actually driven a real version of the car that's being simulated. Whether it's a car that's only in AC at the moment, or only in Forza or only in iRacing. I just like to hear/read what people who've actually driven the car(s) have to say. If it's a thumbs up or thumbs down doesn't matter, I just want to know the differences or similarities. Actually, its' probably better when people are able to articulate why a car in AC is not being simulated properly. I know that I certainly don't have any personal experience with 99% of the cars in Assetto Corsa.