Ballast on race cars?

[dixonbaps]

Is it me or does ballast on race cars improve car handling?

I mean, I've been doing the latest 650pp Seasonal at SSR5 quite a lot recently in a variety of premium GT500 cars and for the life of me I couldn't catch that flaming BMW F1 that starts out in front. Then just out of the blue I experimented with adding 90kg ballast to the cars.

Since adding the ballast the cars seem to have automatic SRF and stick to the road like glue and I am catching the BMW F1 by the end of lap 4 and taking over it by the end of the start straight on lap 5. This has worked so far on the NISSAN's & NSX's. Going to try the LEXUS' next.

I know it's not that i'm improving my driving skill that much with doing this but it makes me look like i've gone from an amateur driver to a fully fledged GT500 race driver in a matter of minutes.

I thought that giving the car a bit of weight would slow them down a touch but it hasn't affected the speed that i've noticed, but the handling has improved 10 fold. No more power sliding round corners. Actually not much tyre slipping at all.

 

[mjm_98]

More downforce on the weight and possibly
Might help the weight (front/back) ratio

Also if it lowers performance points allowing more power?

 

[dixonbaps]

More downforce on the weight and possibly
Might help the weight (front/back) ratio

Never thought of it as having a downforce effect. But nothing seems affected apart from handling. I haven't shifted the weight, left it at 0, Just added 90 kg and it's like witch craft.

Seems like if that's the case then its apparent that some variables have been missed as I have not seen a noticable difference in speed.

 

[mjm_98]

Sometimes even at 0 the ballast levels weight slightly as it's spread 50:50 so getting it closer to that ratio

 

[Ravicale]

the extra weight also means that the tires are forced into the road more, increasing grip and thus speed. Ballast adds a low center of gravity, before weight reduction the cars will have a higher center of gravity increasing body movement and making things less efficient, its important to find just the right amount of ballast.

 

[buddyslowrider]

I will have to give this a go as I have been having the same problem:tup:

 

[XPLOSV]

Adding ballast definetly works in real life. A lot of racing cars strive to get under the minimum weight requirement and add ballast where required. But to get a car to handle better with ballast on its own in a modern day race car (where weight distribution is well sorted) generally means there is another problem (mainly wrong suspension setup).

 

[HuskyGT]

Odd. I was having the same problem with that seasonal. I was trying to win it with a Ford MK IV which was apparently a terrible choice considering the competition (specially the BMW McLaren).

I increased 100 pounds and shifted the ballast to the front of the car and to my surprise, not only the handling was improved drastically eliminating the snap oversteer under lift that the MK IV suffers from, but I catched with the BMW and won. I havent had any problem with that Seasonal anymore, and I'm not using any assist whatsoever on the old Ford.

My guess is that there is a mid point were you reach the perfect weight ballance in a car. Reducing the weight further will only hurt the handling. That's why since GT3 I don't go further than Stage 1 weight reduction, and in most cases I don't touch this modification at all. In GT3 and GT4 I discovered that doing the weight reduction 3 doesn't improve handling at all and it makes the car behave more erratically.

 

[Olegonic]

What tires did you use?
I could only catch that BMW F1 on FORD GT TEST car II, but I didnt tune it, racing hard tires, no any upgrades and I could do 1.17-1.18 lap time
Its weight is 1160 kg and handling is better than Zonda with lower weight.

 

[shirakawaa]

My guess is that there is a mid point were you reach the perfect weight ballance in a car. Reducing the weight further will only hurt the handling.

Reducing weight in GT doesn't alter the weight balance. The problem is that when you do that you should also make suspensions softer.

 

[godlameroso]

Adding ballast definetly works in real life. A lot of racing cars strive to get under the minimum weight requirement and add ballast where required. But to get a car to handle better with ballast on its own in a modern day race car (where weight distribution is well sorted) generally means there is another problem (mainly wrong suspension setup).

Actually almost all race cars are underweight, the rules for most series stipulate a minimum weight, if your car is way underweight, it gives you more freedom to use ballast to tune the balance of the car. In GT5 the F10 Ferrari weighs under 600kg, but F1 rules for 2010 stipulated that the minimum weight was 620kg with everything but fuel. If you ballast the F10 to F1 rules level it's not so easy to do 1:29's at Suzuka.

 

[HuskyGT]

Reducing weight in GT doesn't alter the weight balance. The problem is that when you do that you should also make suspensions softer.

You know that makes a lot of sense. Less weight means that the suspension gets "harder" even if it's not touched since there is less weight to press on the springs. A perfect example of "Accion equals to an oppossite reaction."

Hmm. This gives me an idea. I'll play around with some of my race cars that I'm having problems with.

 

[eran0004]

Mid-engine cars are often better balanced than front or rear engine cars, so it does make sense that adding weight to the center improves handling. To a certain limit, of course.

My favourite trick, however, is in one of the B-spec races for old racecars in Monaco. Using the Toyota 7 it was nearly impossible to win that race, but then I found out that adding the equivalent weight of a dead body (80-90 kg) in the equivalent position of the trunk (in the back, that is) made my B-spec Bob win at first attempt. I suspect my Bob is an old getaway driver and that he has very little experience driving cars that DOESN'T have a dead body in the trunk.

 

[Ravicale]

Mid-engine cars are often better balanced than front or rear engine cars, so it does make sense that adding weight to the center improves handling. To a certain limit, of course.

My favourite trick, however, is in one of the B-spec races for old racecars in Monaco. Using the Toyota 7 it was nearly impossible to win that race, but then I found out that adding the equivalent weight of a dead body (80-90 kg) in the equivalent position of the trunk (in the back, that is) made my B-spec Bob win at first attempt. I suspect my Bob is an old getaway driver and that he has very little experience driving cars that DOESN'T have a dead body in the trunk.