Am I setting brake balance & top speed correctly?

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87lc2

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nyr386
Here is my current method for setting up the brake balance & top speed in pretty much every car:

Brake Balance:
Turn ABS to OFF
Find the settings that will lock both front & back tires (turn the indicators red) at the same time, then proceed with tuning ABS=1. I dont really have any complaints with this method, seems to work very well. Just wondering if there are better ways to do it.

Top Speed (Transmission):
I basically set this per track at about 10-15 mph over what the car will do ont eh longest straight in top gear. example: If the car will do 160-170 on the straight @ Grand Valley Speedway, Ill usually set the tranny somewhere around 180. This method Im not so sure about.

Please give feedback on the above methods and let me know how I can further enhance a cars performance in these areas.
 
I would try to get closer to the exact top speed. If you set it at 180 and your car ends up topping out at 165mph, you may find that setting it to 170 will help you get to 168mph. You want to get as close to the rev limiter as possible without hitting it. Depending on the track, you may actually benefit from being below the top attainable speed because it will give you lower gearing for other parts of the track.
 
I think he's talking about the speed displayed in the transmission tuning, which is usually about 10-20 percent higher than the actual redline limited top speed, so it sounds like a fair method. The brake balance method is actually pretty clever, I'll have to try it myself.
 
chuyler1
I would try to get closer to the exact top speed. If you set it at 180 and your car ends up topping out at 165mph, you may find that setting it to 170 will help you get to 168mph. You want to get as close to the rev limiter as possible without hitting it. Depending on the track, you may actually benefit from being below the top attainable speed because it will give you lower gearing for other parts of the track.
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Not always; quite a few cars have a very rapid fall-off in power (Impreza Spec C, anyone?) after a certain RPM range which means you're better off going far longer than the actual top speed of the car.

Keeping with said Impreza example, it'll only do about 160-170 with gearing for 190 but will do 180 with gearing for 261, both figures at 400hp.

My personal way to set top speed for all-around performance is to take it to SSR7 or Sarthe, check what RPM the car makes peak power at, and attempt to make it top out as close as possible to peak power. It's good for a fair few MPH of top speed.

If it's going to be a dedicated tune for a given track, I try to make it run slightly past peak power in top gear on the longest straight of the track, but this is only really due to the way gearing is currently handled by GT5; if we had individual ratio settings I'd run the same gearset everywhere... As it would be as close as I could ever want it to be.
 
Never had a system for brakes :dopey:; usually go with 7/6 unless rear mounted engine car, then I use 6/7. Will try yours 👍

As for transmission top speed; also depends on whether you will be drafting at all; type pf track; engine and torque performance.

Example dilemma: tune for the Nurmburgring twisty bits, or tune for the top speed bits?
 
Thanks guys. So would I be correct in assuming a higher top speed setting would be optimal in cars that have a ton of low end torque like turbocharged & big block V8? Likewise, set the top speed closest to the actual top speed for exotic types that produce little low end tourque & more top end hp?

As for the brakes, I have no idea if the way I go about it is optimal, but it seems to leave me with lower values than most people (4/3 for front engine, and usually balanced 3/3 4/4 for mid/rear engine). This all depends on tires of course, but it seems to allow me to dive into turns much deeper than most of my opponents.
 
87lc2
Thanks guys. So would I be correct in assuming a higher top speed setting would be optimal in cars that have a ton of low end torque like turbocharged & big block V8? Likewise, set the top speed closest to the actual top speed for exotic types that produce little low end tourque & more top end hp?
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Yup, pretty much.

87lc2
As for the brakes, I have no idea if the way I go about it is optimal, but it seems to leave me with lower values than most people (4/3 for front engine, and usually balanced 3/3 4/4 for mid/rear engine). This all depends on tires of course, but it seems to allow me to dive into turns much deeper than most of my opponents.
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I've found that settings for ABS on need to be a bit higher than with ABS off, and also that there's rarely such a thing as "too much" rear brake strength with ABS on; you'll never actually lock them but you may in some cases put a bit too much stress on them for them to hold up to cornering forces at the same time.

My way for setting bias varies; sometimes I'll base it off stop time (go into practice/free run, hold the brakes while the AI drives, hit pause the instant the speedo hits zero, repeat twice, change, etc etc) and other times purely off feel.
 
Great, thanks for the info Rotary. Definitely makes sense to use a bit more pressure with ABS on as they wont lock up. Sometimes it seems as if the car stops quicker with lower settings though. Im sure its different car-to-car, just wanted to make sure I wasnt blatantly missing anything. Thanks again.
 
Your brake setting is how I run mine, only i will go one step lower on the rear brakes then what will lock. This decreases low speed breaking but gives far greater mid corner braking stability.

your transmission settings are correct, for most tracks. The only variation is that sometimes going to low on the gearing will mean very short first and second gears, so your power out of the corners is compromised by either extremely short gearing or wheel spin.
 
Anyone got a good brake setting to try for the Ferrari 512BB? The back end comes flying out with a vengeance if I try braking with the wheel anywhere but pointed perfectly straight. I have it at 5/8 right now. The thing must have drum brakes in the rear or something.
 
chuyler1
Anyone got a good brake setting to try for the Ferrari 512BB? The back end comes flying out with a vengeance if I try braking with the wheel anywhere but pointed perfectly straight. I have it at 5/8 right now. The thing must have drum brakes in the rear or something.
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too much rear brake, try it at 5/0 and increase the rear 1 at a time, you will see how it works.

My trick is to change it on the fly, this saves going back to the tuning menu every time a tweak is needed.
1 button to access the RA function, then program the D-pad up/down to select function, left/right to adjust.. Simples

All I do is go flat out and slam on the brakes to go into a turn, must be still braking whilst turning though. Does the back end let go = to much rear brake

If it doesn't want to turn in= to much front brake, I get a perfect bias every time like this.
Note though that the car suspension has to be set up to cope with this
 
I tried the ABS off method and also ended up with too much rear brake bias. I find this only works on nose heavy cars to get them to rotate. On anything else, especially rear heavy cars, this can cause severe instability under braking.
 
Thing is, with ABS on the brake balance setting doesn't make much sense in GT5. To some extent, it changes dynamically under braking. Only extremely unbalanced settings seem to affect somehow the car balance while braking. The higher the ABS setting is, the more the brake balance will be dynamically tweaked to promote the car's ability to corner while braking instead of promoting minimum stopping distances at all costs.

The story is completely different with ABS off, of course, where the brake distribution is fixed.
I would have preferred PD to include a more realistic ABS setting where the brake balance is fixed while still preventing lockups, though.
Also, they should really have included better default brake balance settings. 5/5 forces to tweak each time the brake distribution when the ABS is not used.
But I guess that's just another one of the many design faults in GT5.
 
We have a lot of threads on this, already. I may have to start consolidating.

Anyway... you set the top speed per track. And that takes practice (ghost-lapping in time trial mode) and observation. Sometimes, if you set-up for top speed, you will have gear problems in specific corners.

I sometimes set-up the car so that it's banging off the limiter two or three hundred meters before the end of the longest straight, as that gives me better punch out of several mid-lap corners or through that long constant-radius curve in the back. This is especially important on the slower cars or on cars with poor low or high rpm capabilities.

As for brakes, rubberscrubber2 has it right. With ABS on, I set mine to 10/10. (Shortens braking distances dramatically, weirdly) Understeers? Front tires go absolutely red under braking? Lower fronts. Twitchy? Slides under braking (with ABS on, the slides aren't dramatically sideways for most cars, but there are some...) Lower rears. Repeat until you're satisfied.

ABS off, I usually have it at 2-1, 3-2 or the like, or close to 5 if I've got racing slicks on.
 
Best way to set the brakes is to practice on Fuji with ABS on. If you can nail the brakes after the long straight without having your tire indicator red, you are fine. Plus with those hairpin turns you will know if your brake bias is too far forward if you can't turn well on them.
 

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