I usually use the default value (2.0 front 1.0 rear), because it works fine most of the time. If I use an MR/RR car I'll swap the numbers around (1.0 front 2.0 rear) because I know the rear end will roll out more. That's for road cars. For ready-race cars (LMs, Special Models,etc) I usually use 0 front & rear since most of them already have super stiff springs and low ride heights (hence minimal body roll), this way, I could maximise the braking force of the tires with minimal loss in cornering grip. My settings are very generalised, and they work fine for me, but I want to improve my lap times even further, and it would only happen with fine-tuning.
I also never use toe, it slows down the car on the straights.
With the extremely limited data we get in the GT series we are pretty much left with feel alone for most set-up options. Particularly for camber and toe.
Camber is certainly the most straightforward one to get to grips, with and most cars will benefit from some toe, in fact zero camber will actually reduce corner grip. I would also be very wary of using body roll as a primary factor in setting camber, as while it is a useful indicator, it can be misleading. Looking at why camber is needed, it keeps our tyres as flat on the ground while cornering as possible,as such it is always a compromise. Body roll is the visiable effect of weight transfer, but is does not indicate how much load is being transferred. If you took a car and replaced the suspension with metal bars it would not show any visible body roll at all, however the exact same amount of weight would still be transferred.
As load/weight transfer is also a factor in setting camber (as the load on a tyre will effect its deflection from true and effect the amount of camber required to get it back to true) using body roll alone can be misleading. Think of a real world example, race spec cars are very stiffly sprung and have very little in the way of body roll, however they all run significant levels of camber.
Now in the real world camber is set by lapping and then measuring tyre temperature at the edge, middle and inside. Camber is adjusted and this is repeated until the temp is as close to equal at all three points for a tyre, which would indicate all parts of the tyre are being used equally, giving you the best grip across the tyre face. Unfortunately we can't do this is GT, so trial and error is about our only option, combined with consistent lapping. It does get a bit better in later games in the series as we can use the g-level meter to see how much grip we get on any given corner.
Toe is a much more difficult one to use well, and as you have both mentioned a great deal of care needs to be taken with it. It will reduce straight line speed if used incorrectly, but can help to tame cars with a tendency to oversteer, and help produce lift off oversteer in FWD cars (which can help massively with cornering).
Predictably I would recommend downloading my GT4 tuning guides (link in my sig) as they are just as applicable to all the other games in the GT series (and any other racing sim for that matter).
If you do have any further questions, feel free to ask and I will try and keep an eye on this thread.
Regards
Scaff
Thanks heaps Scaff 👍 So there's no other way to find out the optimum camber other than testing? If that's the case then I guess I'll have to make do. Problem is, it's very hard to lap consistently and get a fair comparison. Sometimes your time improved because you drive a better line, not because of the change in settings. Other times you feel the new setup is faster and more comfortable, but your time ends up slower!
For toe, the values in GT2 are reversed (compared to real life) aren't they? Negative is \ / and positive is / \ right?
Yep for GT2 toe settings are backwards (this doesn't appear to be the case for the other GTs).
However don't fall for Sucahyo's 'damper settings are reversed on GT2 and GT4, they are not; higher values = firmer dampers (always have been and at last in GT5P the specifically say that).
Regards
Scaff
So conclusion is damper values are 100% not reversed right? Just the toe that's reversed?