Add power=suspension change?

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rosckolove

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Ok so I was reading through the Nurburgring PP laptime thread and noticed people talking about how the 2.09 tunes are useless because of the update even though there wasn't a significant change in physics.

someone stated how the whole car would have to be retuned because some part combo's wouldn't work the same and the cars handling characteristics would have to be changed to handle the extra HP.

Who cares about parts installed. Use the power limiter if need be, not the topic I am aiming for anyway.

The part I bolded I feel is untrue. I think the cars suspension should be setup as good as possible regardless of HP# (unless its super low and your sacrificing downforce but thats also another topic)

When I race a car that is good on many PP levels, I just adjust the parts installed, power limiter, and the trans, I don't touch the suspension.

What do YOU guys think?
 
Depends on the car I'd say. With more power I tend to give my car more tendency to understeer at corner exit. With less power I can reduce these traits to be less drastic.

But honestly, I don't notice a significant difference with how I tune cars, maybe other peoples methods do require a change depending on the power output however.
 
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There's different levels of tuning a car. There's setting it up so that it handles pretty good, and then there's setting it up so that it is perfect.

If you want perfect(the way people trying to handle budgets and the competitiveness of high-level real-world racing do), then any change requires other changes to compensate. If you add or remove power or weight or downforce or drag, or change tire types(even within the same general performance bracket) then the theoretical perfect suspension and gearing settings would no longer be perfect due to different forces being exerted on the components involved. This is no different to changing the tune radically to suit a different track.

Of course, doing this requires an intimate knowledge of how everything works and what effects any changes make on a very precise level. Then again, adding 50% to a car's power will probably have a pretty noticeable effect on something, so someone who has a reasonable grasp of what they are doing might well want to try to change things to compensate for it.

Myself, I'm just pretty damned happy when I can get a car to stop spinning or plowing and don't usually want to risk screwing that up, since I don't know much of what I'm doing beyond the basics.

And of course, some people just like to tinker.
 
In a general sense, yes because you need to compensate for the extra power going to the wheels.
 
Maybe not for a general setting to go do a quick race in GT5, but to perfect a car, or if you were releasing (as a manufacturer) or tuning a car in real life, there would be many little tweak done on the suspension as a result of major power gain.
 
People seem to forget that for a car to perform its best all the parts have to work together.
The perfect transmission, LSD and suspension settings on a car with stock power will in most cases be different than one having full power upgrades. Then you also need to tune for the tires your using as well.
While you may be able to use a fairly basic tune for various power levels, if you want the car to have optimum performance you'll want to tune all the parts so they work in harmony, preferably set up for a specific track or at least very similar track types.
 
Whether or not I would change the suspension would depend n the extra power that is gained. If I only gained about 10 hp then there's no point because at the most you're only going to get some slightly higher top end speed. But if I added on 100 bhp or more then I would consider a suspension change but only if it's necessary for the car that I'm driving.
 
I usually don't change my suspension settings. I drift a lot so my suspension settings tends to be the same but with some cars I ofcourse change it. For example the AE86 it's usually the same setup as my 300zx which has like 630+ hp (Similar settings but not all).
 
Say I gain 100 HP. I wouldn't take out some oversteer characteristics to keep the back end sliding out. I would use throttle control.

If the car already has maximum grip and turn in/rotation.. why change it just because the car goes a little bit faster?

I just want to gain some understanding, with legitimate reasons. Perhaps I will have to change my ways.

Speed > Easy to drive.
 
I tend to do longer races, so I prefer to tune my cars to require less throttle control at corner exit. Mostly because how I sit at my wheel doesn't really make it comfortable to do that for an hour straight :lol:
My ankles tend to eject in protest after 45 minutes.
 
That added power technically speaking, doesn't just magically transfer from the flywheel to the rear wheels. There's a complete drivetrain that at some point connects to the suspension which helps manages those forces transferred eventually to the road. Consequently, if it's a relatively large difference in power, more consideration has to be taken and vice versa. At least, that's what I use as my guideline.
 
i allways low the car and give it some camber works just fine because you don't just want too compensate the extra power but also improve the car's general performance if you want to drift the setting is difrent and more complex but i can't help you with that
 
I also change the car if I add a lot of power. Usually, the LSD is what needs tweaking since I like to balance weight transfer and where power is distributed. Every part of the car needs to work together for the car to be efficient. Yes, you can use throttle control, but anyone that can floor it when you're feathering will get a bonus.
 
It really depends on what kind of upgrades you're putting on the car. Moving up 3 tire grades and increasing the car's power by ~30% will probably warrant tweaking the suspension as well as the drivetrain. It depends on the car as well. Drive it before you make any changes. If you don't think it needs any further tuning, then let it be.

IRL, suspension tuning is a must when you add a significant amount of power to a car. The suspension must deal with the increased forces/weight transfer characteristics.

rosckolove
Speed > Easy to drive.
Click to expand...

I'll have to disagree. Confidence in your abilities to drive a car is what dictates how fast you are, and proper tuning can improve your confidence. More speed is not going to help you if you struggle to maintain traction and stability out of corners.

Then again, the two don't necessarily have to be mutually exclusive. If you were given the option to make a fast car easier to drive (even by the smallest of margins), why wouldn't you take that opportunity?
 
lol...

The "Every part of the car needs to work together" comments don't really apply in this game like they do in real life.. Its not like we can choose between heads/headers/ and exhausts.... And that doesn't explain what your doing to compensate.

Would I make the car easier to drive if it didn't sacrifice speed? Sure, because that would make you faster by making you more consistent. Would I sacrifice speed to make it easier to drive? Never. I would practice it till it became easy.

And I stated we are only adding power to the car, Tires aren't changing, we can assume downforce will stay the same.. Why change anything?

Again I am asking this, because I don't think 2.09 tunes are useless, I just think they need to add or subtract power to bring them back to the PP rating (if possible) then there you go. Your done, The physics didn't change (or did they?), so the car will handle the same.
 
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