Aha! I knew there had to be a thread about this car somewhere in here! In fact I'm surprised it isn't mentioned more, most other Cerbera search results relate to the big Speed 12.
TVR Cerbera Speed Six '97
In GT1 my favourite car was the Cerbera LM and I'm sad that it didn't reappear for GT4, but at least the road version is here. Something made me think of the old car recently so I set about tuning up the road going Speed Six to see if I could replicate the thrills long past.
In stock form I found this '97 vintage TVR to be rather sluggish and reluctant to turn in, instead preferring to plough straight ahead. Clearly some tuning was in order, but the usual quick fixes weren't getting the results I was after so I did a search to see what others have done and found this thread.
Usually I shy away from 'buy everything and use these settings' threads but I was open to suggestions and I share rennie911's preference for hard tyres and no driver aids, so I gave it a go. Not bad at all, they are certainly a big improvement over default settings. 👍
Those ride height, spring rate and dampener settings work well for me, the car feels quite nicely balanced and well settled. However I did make a few tweaks and increased the rear spring slightly as I felt the car was a wee bit soft in the rear. I also increased the front stabaliser bar to assist turn in and, combined with the downforce change mentioned below, this helps to further bring out the RWD characteristics hidden by the poor default tune. Camber I dropped down as the rear was struggling for traction in a straight line.
To further assist the initial turn-in a touch of toe-out was added to the front. Some people might like to add toe-out to the rear, and indeed it does help pull the car around when powering out of a corner, but I found this to make the car a little too squirrilly for my liking.
Downforce is something I try to go easy on as I think the suspension should be tuned as best as can be first, but the Cerbera Speed Six certainly benefits from a strong setting. However I don't like the idea of a full setting at both ends as it leaves no where to go for tracks like Monaco where you want more downforce than usual.
I reduced it on the back a small amount to loosen it up, but there is still enough downforce to maintain acceleration even when backing off the throttle slightly when the back starts to lose traction on high-speed crests. Without a spoiler the wheel spin is controllable, but too much speed is lost doing so.
I'm not sure about your LSD settings, they aren't bad but they don't stand out in any way. The low initial value dulls the effect so I balanced it out to give it a bit more bight in and out of corners. Brakes I felt were a bit too harsh for my liking, however like the LSD this is a one of those settings that is very much down to personal preference. Those who favour late braking will want to tun it up, but either way I found a neutral setting to maintain the best balance - you certainly don't want the fronts to lock up coming into a coners as the car's natural tendancy to understeer will make it hard to recover from.
Transmission setup is generally dictated by the track you're on, but with only 5 gears to play with you will want them to be tight between 2nd, 3rd & 4th while still allowing enough top end in 5th for fast straights, but keep in mind that there's not much power past the redline. I found auto settings of 11 to 13 worked well for most circuits.
Here are my changes to the above settings by rennie911.
All modifications purchased. Hard Racing tyres. No driver aids.
Suspension front / rear
Spring rate: 10.0 / 9.2
Ride height: 97 / 92
Bound: 4 / 5
Rebound: 8 / 9
Camber: 2.4 / 1.0
Toe: -1 / 0
Stabaliser: 6 / 5
Downforce 30 / 25
Brake balance 6 / 6
LSD Initial: 20
Acceleration: 45
Deceleration: 25
Remember to perform the Body Rigidity Refresher Plan when you get one of these cars from the used car lot. The roll cage also helps greatly to sharpen it up, though you might want to test the car with and without it before you commit to it.
To conclude, the Cerbera Speed Six can be made to handle much better than as it comes out of the box, but even with full engine mods and weight reduction plus the rollcage, the car is still too heavy and under-powered to make it in the big league. Sadly it is not the blast from the past that the GT1 cerbera LM would have been, but it is by no means slow and with a bit of tuning it can be made quite enjoyable.
Do these settings work for you? How do they compare with the ones above? Have you been able to develop them further, or does something completely different suit your needs?
