Car of the Week 228: COTY GTS Finale

  • Thread starter Racer283
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So that means things kick off an hour earlier, right? It's 10am over here, still a bit too early for me to brain right.

Taking a look at my time which is Mountain time and your time, the races would start at 4pm your time I think. Not really sure the conversion from the US to New Zealand.
 
@RobboGTAddict's Mustang is ready!

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As i said, i found my Second Investigation Lap Track last week, Autopolis Short. And i got most of the cars i own that was in the COTW.
The rules :
- 1 Standing Lap
- Stock tune
- Sport Softs

And here's the board for week 26 :
1 – Week 4 – Fittipaldi EF7 VGT : 1'15,991

2 – Week 24 – BMW M3 GT Gr.3 : 1'17,951

3 – Week 9 – Chevrolet Corvette Gr.3 : 1'18,275

4 – Week 21 – Subaru WRX STI Isle of Man Time Attack Car : 1'18,306

5 – Week 17 – Shelby Cobra : 1'21,171

6 – Week 12 – Lamborghini Diablo GT'00 : 1'21,462

7 – Week 9 – Chevrolet Corvette Gr.4 : 1'22,336

8 – Week 3 – Toyota S-FR Racing Concept : 1'22,483

9 – Week 20 – Jaguar F-Type R Coupe'14 : 1'22,719

10 – Week 10 – Renault Megane Gr.4 : 1'22,893

11 – Week 9 – Chevrolet Corvette Stingray'14 : 1'23,778

12 – Week 16 – Dodge Viper GTS'02 : 1'24,113

13 – Week 5 – Porsche 911 GT3 996 :1'26,845

14 – (2018 Car of the Year) Week 2 – Alpine A110 Premiere Edition'17 : 1'27,799

15 – Week 24 – BMW M3 Coupe : 1'28,179

16 – Week 7 – Honda NSX Type R'92 : 1'28,450

17 – Week 23 – De Tomaso Pantera'71 : 1'28,488

18 – Week 14 – Sung Kang's Greddy Fugu Z : 1'28,818

19 – Week 22 – Toyota Supra RZ'97 : 1'28,856

20 – Week 1 – Honda Civic Type R'15 : 1'29,156

21 – Week 13 – Subaru Impreza 22B : 1'29,349

22 – (2018 Beater of the Year) Week 11 – Hyundai Genesis Coupe 3.8 Track'13 : 1'29,503

23 – Week 6 – Nissan 300 ZX : 1'30,978

24 – Week 10 – Renault Megane R.S. Trophy'11 : 1'31,768

25 – Week 15 – BMW M3 Sport Evolution'89 : 1'33,234

26 – Week 19 – Suzuki Swift'07 : 1'41,266

27 – Week 26 – Mazda MX 5 Eunos Roadster'89 : 1'43,429


As i said, there's a few cars missing, but it's normal, i don't actually own them for now. But when i will get em in my garage, they quickly be added to the board.

Anyway. What do i think about the MX-5 ? It's a great car, that's for sure, and even if it's slow, it's still great !
 
I legitimately have an incentive to get in on this week's car choice.

If someone could host the lobby at like 9PM EST or so i'd be able to tag along. As it is right now, my schedule doesn't mesh with the late lobbies.
 
I legitimately have an incentive to get in on this week's car choice.

If someone could host the lobby at like 9PM EST or so i'd be able to tag along. As it is right now, my schedule doesn't mesh with the late lobbies.
Not sure about @Racer283 or @Vic Reign93 but I might be able to kick things off a bit early for you mate, will advise.

Also here's some more footage from days gone by.



 
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I really don't know what to say about this car. To me it's nothing special in the game. It's a N-100 class car and it performs like you would expect a N-100 class car to perform. Relativity slow, underpowered, great braking, great handling. It shouldn't take anyone long to get good behind the wheel in this car just like most of the cars in it's class.
It wins all the Mazda Roadster Events in GT League completely stock from Brand Central & some even put up a fight.

Honestly I probably won't give this car to much more of my game time and not because it's a bad car but because there's another Mazda Roadster in the N-100 class that I like much much better plus I really don't spend to much time driving cars in the N-100 class.
So Unless your looking to recreate some nostalgia by making this the first car you buy in GTS to work your way through the GT League like past GT titles then it will probably just sit and collect dust.

Comparing it to all the other cars in it's class I call this one a Sleeper.

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Try camber 1.0 front 1.5 rear, and toe 0 front / 0.5 rear, that's what Miata specialists recommend on a stock one.
Real life settings are not applicable to GTS. In my opinion , they just try to set a given car to drive the way it's suppose to be in real life , at least they try and after this they put over the car behaviors all the same stock settings values they put on every car.
This is not a right way to proceed for sure but this is how they are doing . If they were asking to every car's builder the recomanded numbers for each car , then yes they could apply those exact settings numbers on a given car after they "tune" it and declare it conform ready for the game.
They are doing this , at least they did it from what i remember in GT5 & 6 for the stock gearbox gear ratios . I didn't pay attention to this in GTS but i think they still are doing so.
To resume , if you put officials settings values on a GTS car, you can be sure that you will not have the optimum result because of this.
This is just my opinion. ;)
 
Real life setup definitely worked in GT6 already, except for broken camber. I've put Clio Cup and Clio R3 values on the 2016 Clio RS and it worked wonders, really felt close to the real thing. Obviously you can't take spring rates and apply them to GTS now it works with natural frequencies.

Also the values I suggest are not OEM Mazda values, they come from tuners / race car builders. On production cars, they generally have a range of values they deem conform, which is quite wide, just so they don't need to check and setup every car at dealers before delivery. 2 indetical brand new cars will generally have quite different alignments, and sometimes that really doesn't look good.

Sure I've always found strange to have all the cars with the same alignment setups in GT, especially considering finding the info about the recommended range is not hard, but for the reasons I mentionned above I guess it's just easier to just slap fixed values. Anti roll bars and dampers have this as well, but that's more likely because you can't get standardized measurement units (if you can get any proper measurements at all), so each car would need to have custom sliders for that, and GT is not complex enough yet to do that (although having an identical roll bars preset for all cars is just stupid). Even some of the most hardcore sims use arbitrary values for those. Camber in GTS (and spring rates in GT6) are stock real life values though.

About the Miata, I have one in real life, and that alignment works as good in the game as it does in real life. If the game worked the way you described, those values would make the car spin every time while trail braking. I'll agree though this won't be the optimal values in GT, because things that shouldn't work in real life aren't punished by the game and just end up working better. But I'm not looking for the most effective setup, I'm trying to replicate how my real car feels, and I think those settings make it even more enjoyable.
 
About the Miata, I have one in real life, and that alignment works as good in the game as it does in real life. If the game worked the way you described, those values would make the car spin every time while trail braking. I'll agree though this won't be the optimal values in GT, because things that shouldn't work in real life aren't punished by the game and just end up working better. But I'm not looking for the most effective setup, I'm trying to replicate how my real car feels, and I think those settings make it even more enjoyable

Now you got my attention. I was all into tuning in GT6 but now I've become quite happy that it's not needed in GTS and I can spend more time enjoying other parts of the game.
But seeing as you really own this car in real life I would be interested in trying your setup that makes this car feel like your real one.
 
Well, my car has 205 wide tyres, OEM Bilsteins and Torsen, and it's also a 1.8l, so it's still a bit different (I tried playing with the front roll bar and increase a tad natural frequency as well). Still feels like it has plenty of grip on comfort softs so it definitely makes me think sport hards in this game are still full on semi-slicks. I'd suggest trying it on comfort mediums for better results (because with track tyres, you'd get a different alignment, and have more camber in the front). The alignment I suggest make the front end a bit more responsive, as Miatas are still a bit understeery by default when exceeding limits, unless you throw them in or shift lock.

Assetto Corsa's version is closer to mine, but in that game I can feel it's missing tyre width compared to mine. But I can use the shift lock there to enter hairpins, while GTS really mutes down the shift lock.
 
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‘The Fine Line Between Legal and Illegal’

It’s one we all try to be on one side of or another, some enjoy playing by the rules, others thrive on living by their own rules.

On the Left, the leader of the Grip Runners M3 from the sanctioned world of Prostreet.

On the Right, An ex race car turned into a tribute for its previous gen racer which was a law breaking, cop wrecking machine that became Rockports Most Wanted.

And then there’s me, one amongst many drivers who have driven both these cars
in their respective games. :P

We’ll start with the normal M3, BMW’s first(and only) mass production M3 to have a V8 engine.

Handling was as you expect from an M3, but the brakes... could be better.

The manual gearbox like most manual cars in GTS is very slow shifting, but even the custom box is slow shifting too.

Engine sounds nice mind you. :drool:

I’ll give it a Neutral. :)

As for the M3 GT, take the negatives from the road car and throw them away and add some extra pops and bangs on the downshifts to boot.

The M3 GT is still a capable Gr3 car, but it lacks that little bit against the established Gr3 front runners.

But as solid all rounders go the M3 GT is alright.

Verdict: Sleeper ;)👍

Both cars have a great sounding engine, but in the past, they have done even better.

‘Three Is Company’

The 1994 Mclaren F1 is a car that frankly needs no introduction and while it seems underpowered these days for a NA engine(the Valkyrie is chucking out 1000hp from 6.5 litres of Natural Aspiration insanity.):eek:, it still holds the title for the fastest naturally aspirated production in the world with the XP5 prototype running a 2 way average of 240mph thanks to its rev limiter being raised to 8,300rpm.

The road cars were good for upto 230mph, but that was in 6th where as we were touching 225mph at the top of 5th gear at SSRX

Well I say we, I think I was the only one to keep it in 5th and not shift to 6th and slow down. :sly:

Handling and brakes were quite interesting, the brakes didn’t feel like they were properly working as despite being quite light, it was struggling to stop.

The rear was quite soft sprung and hard to break loose, which is fine if the front tyres can grip otherwise it’ll lead to understeer, quite abit of it as it turns out.

I’ll admit it’s not the greatest to drive stock, but like the others I just can’t bring myself to call it a Beater as it’s a still an iconic machine.

So a Neutral verdict is a fair compromise, but I still reccommed you pick one up, just sort out it’s handling. ;)

And finally, if all you want is a cheap, fun soft top sports-car then..

‘Miata Is Always The Answer’

Yep, the original MX-5 is back in its pop up headlamp glory and it’s dropped in right next to its modern day counterpart.

The new car is heavier, but only by 50kgs to its credit considering the differences in safety and tech, plus an extra 11hp from a smaller engine and a extra cog in its manual gearbox.

The newer car cost just under 25k while the older car is only 17K, but that’s expected.

On the track, the MX-5 is a prime example of ‘Slow car fast’, it’s fast enough to be fun and use all 100% of its performance, but not overwhelming to drive either.

But in a spec race, it does punish you if you lose any momentum so it still requires a degree of skill and finesse to get the most out of it.

At the end of the day the question you have to ask yourself is, When you already have the new MX-5, Is 17k too much for some rosie tinted sunglasses and the ability to have pop up headlights?:cool:

Well dear reader, that’s a question I’ll leave for you to answer for yourselves.

For me, Verdict: Sleeper 👍
 
Mazda Eunos Roadster (NA) '89
117 hp / 6,500 rpm
101 ft-lbs / 5,500 rpm
2,072 lbs (940 kg)

Fastest lap at Tsukuba:



Of the 15 N100 cars, the little Mazda finishes in 4th place, a mere 3 tenths behind the Toyota S-FR, a whole second behind Mazda's newest roadster, and about 2.6 seconds after the Alpine A110. It's a well-balanced car, and although it can be quite boring on tracks with long straight sections, it shines on Japanese tracks like this, and Suzuka East, Autopolis, etc...It's a sleeper for me.
 
Since receiving my New T-GT and Playseat yesterday. I went back to the new Mazda Roadster events added this last update and tried out my new setup with the gearshift.
The car really becomes more fun once you immerse yourself into the game.
It has a completely different feeling than it did on the DS4 and I had a lot more fun behind the wheel and I was able to take the completely stock M-X5 and still win every event.

I definitely enjoyed this car more on my second testing session.. Its still a Sleeper.
 
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Livery by RothmansNS-1
A bit similar to last week, I find myself hard pressed to recommend an older car over a newer car by the same company. True, we're not talking such high price figures as were with the McLarens. However, it wasn't long before I abandoned the original Mazda Miata for the current version Miata during our regular races on Tuesday night. While they might not be too statistically different, the newer Miata just felt more competent in the corners and more lively in the straights. The difference was so stark that I did consider a Beater verdict for the old Miata, but I'll go neutral for it instead. It's certainly not terrible for what it is, but I won't be choosing over the new Miata anytime soon.

 
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The Mazda Eunosmiatamx5​

Here's a car we really didn't need. I mean, aside from the nostalgia of the first gen, there's no reason for it to be here. As proven on Tuesday, it doesn't really do anything different to it's later and greater sibling. If anything, they're virtually identical, aside from of course 30 years difference in looks.

True to form it's quick, sure, and nimble, agile, zippy and even fun! Definately not dangerous, in fact I'd recommend an MX 5 of any shape, generation or motor to any rookie out there.

But this car's shortcoming is the fact that it's newer, more attractive and generally more appealing in every way sibling kind of defeats the point of buying it. Just get the ND already!

Neutral, because it is still a ball to drive at the end of the day, like any MX5.
 
New week, New car. And for once, i'm behind it. Anyway, here's the week 27 board, with still missing some cars.

1 – Week 4 – Fittipaldi EF7 VGT : 1'15,991

2 – Week 24 – BMW M3 GT Gr.3 : 1'17,951

3 – Week 9 – Chevrolet Corvette Gr.3 : 1'18,275

4 – Week 21 – Subaru WRX STI Isle of Man Time Attack Car : 1'18,306

5 – Week 17 – Shelby Cobra : 1'21,171

6 – Week 12 – Lamborghini Diablo GT'00 : 1'21,462

7 – Week 9 – Chevrolet Corvette Gr.4 : 1'22,336

8 – Week 3 – Toyota S-FR Racing Concept : 1'22,483

9 – Week 20 – Jaguar F-Type R Coupe'14 : 1'22,719

10 – Week 10 – Renault Megane Gr.4 : 1'22,893

11 – Week 9 – Chevrolet Corvette Stingray'14 : 1'23,778

12 – Week 16 – Dodge Viper GTS'02 : 1'24,113

13 – Week 27 – Toyota GR Supra'19 : 1'25,250

14 – Week 5 – Porsche 911 GT3 996 :1'26,845

15 – (2018 Car of the Year) Week 2 – Alpine A110 Premiere Edition'17 : 1'27,799

16 – Week 24 – BMW M3 Coupe : 1'28,179

17 – Week 7 – Honda NSX Type R'92 : 1'28,450

18 – Week 23 – De Tomaso Pantera'71 : 1'28,488

19 – Week 14 – Sung Kang's Greddy Fugu Z : 1'28,818

20 – Week 22 – Toyota Supra RZ'97 : 1'28,856

21 – Week 1 – Honda Civic Type R'15 : 1'29,156

22 – Week 13 – Subaru Impreza 22B : 1'29,349

23 – (2018 Beater of the Year) Week 11 – Hyundai Genesis Coupe 3.8 Track'13 : 1'29,503

24 – Week 6 – Nissan 300 ZX : 1'30,978

25 – Week 10 – Renault Megane R.S. Trophy'11 : 1'31,768

26 – Week 15 – BMW M3 Sport Evolution'89 : 1'33,234

27 – Week 19 – Suzuki Swift'07 : 1'41,266

28 – Week 26 – Mazda MX 5 Eunos Roadster'89 : 1'43,429

For what i did with the Supra, it's drifty. but, it's hell of fun. and it's quick ! I mean, it's the quickest N300 car we had around for now.
 
I did a 07.45.686 with it on the Nordschleife. Initially I was quite annoyed by its driving mechanics, but you really need to get used to it, and once that happens, it becomes a really fun ride. It's quite the slidy thing but that said: some nice drifts are easy to do! I believe it's because of the recent physics update but man, the lap time is much faster, than I anticipated it to be! Although, the chief engineer of Toyota claimed it can lap the Nordschleife in 7:40mins. I guess he had drifferent tyres than the sports hards of GTS in mind though. :P

Because it beats way above its weight it's obviosuly a...sleaper!

 
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Toyota GR Supra RZ '19
2,998 cc
335 hp / 5,800 rpm
369 ft-lbs / 1,500 rpm
3,351 lbs (1,520 kg)

Toyota Supra RZ '97
2,997 cc
325 hp / 5,500 rpm
393 ft-lbs / 3,500 rpm
3,329 lbs (1,510 kg)

The main difference is that the new Supra develops peak torque at an ultra-low 1,500 rpm.

Fastest laps at Tsukuba:




KTM X-BOW is the only N300 car that beats it (and by 2 whole seconds) but the Mazda RX500 is only a tenth slower.
BMW M3 ties with it, and TVR Tuscan Speed 6 is only a tenth faster.

Cars within 0.500 seconds:

1:02.846 - Maserati GranTurismo S
1:03.054 - Ferrari 512 BB
1:03.090 - Lexus LC500
1:03.163 - TVR Tuscan Speed 6
1:03.254 - Toyota GR Supra RZ
1:03.266 - BMW M3
1:03.328 - Mazda RX500
1:03.622 - Alfa Romeo 4C
1:03.717 - Nissan R34 GT-R V-spec II Nur

It's a great car, and people are swapping 2JZ's into them which is awesome because a car like this really deserves a manual transmission. It's a throwback to the 90s and there aren't too many cars like this anymore besides the ND MX-5 and Toyota 86. Sleeper status.
 
As I mentioned just as everyone was leaving, apologies for the rather poor racing on my end!

I appear to be in a bit of a slump lately as far as my driving, and the most agonizing part of it is that I'm fully aware of it.

I'm really hoping to come bouncing back soon (that last run at the ring was looking so good! Everyone was nice and close and it was shaping up to be a solid battle), but until then, yeah sorry for my mediocre-ness in the lobbies.
 
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