Cornering without ABS?

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drivehard

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thirty2try
For the first time I switched off ABS in my Elise 111R RM and noticed major results. All time gained is in the corners. Applying brakes early or mid corner can turn the car immensley and it seems that you can simply take corners much faster using this technique.

I'm wondering if anyone has some tips or pointers for driving like this?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 
I don't have advice, but I will occassionally race without ABS and when I can slow for a corner without locking up it's great fun and much more rewarding.

I also find I am better without ABS when I use a pad...that makes me very sad. But I haven't played with the wheel for over a year up until a few weeks ago. So I am relearning.
 
Learning how to set up a LSD properly can also help as it can counter over and under steer.

Correct me if I'm wrong but if you set the acceleration and deceleration numbers closer together then the car won't respond as abruptly to throttle/break transitions. The farther apart these numbers then the more the cars' attitude will change in a throttle/break transition.

The lower the ABS the more the LSD will affect the car.

These are my own observations, I could just be blowing smoke.
 
Ronald6
Learning how to set up a LSD properly can also help as it can counter over and under steer.

Correct me if I'm wrong but if you set the acceleration and deceleration numbers closer together then the car won't respond as abruptly to throttle/break transitions. The farther apart these numbers then the more the cars' attitude will change in a throttle/break transition.

The lower the ABS the more the LSD will affect the car.

These are my own observations, I could just be blowing smoke.
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By saying "respond abrubtly" do you mean that the wheels won't lock up so easily?

Because so far that's the only disadvantage I can see. Coming into a corner with all for tires red is no good. I've been thinking about using the quick menu during races to adjust for long straight line braking.
 
If you use the RA function you can adjust ABS, Traction, 4WD Torque Distribution and Front and Rear Brakes Bias while driving. I've recently started using it and it's amazing when changing settings for each turn.
 
drivehard
For the first time I switched off ABS in my Elise 111R RM and noticed major results. All time gained is in the corners. Applying brakes early or mid corner can turn the car immensley and it seems that you can simply take corners much faster using this technique.

I'm wondering if anyone has some tips or pointers for driving like this?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
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Good that you found an improvement here. May be dependant from the specific car you using, since with some "diving" into a corner is more easy, with others not.
I'm still looking for a method to switch ABS off, since carried our properly it MUST be faster on a complete lap and makes overtaking "on the brakes" easier with more control.
But after playing much GTR2, for me it isn´t so easy to apply driving style to GT5. Which leads me to a main conclusion: Need to practice :)
 
Non-ABS is a huge advantage... but you'll need to retune your brakes depending on a variety of factors... car, tires, suspension set-up and track. For most cars on sports tires, you'll need to lower your braking force to make avoiding excessive lock-up easier... whereas on racing tires, you can use the stock values or higher.

On most cars in the game, the stock 5:5 balance is not optimal. Many front engined and some mid-engined cars will like a little more front bias, whereas some, like the Ford GT, will like a more rearward bias to balance out properly (the Ford GT's braking with the stock 5:5 bias is woeful... as it overstresses the front tires and induces excessive understeer.

I tend to tune my brakes (when I'm not too lazy to do it) to avoid excessive heat over the front axle, then adjust my driving around what results. Most cars benefit from a little trail-braking oversteer, anyway.
 
I've tried a few cars without ABS and the braking was so sensitive even at 1/1 it was undriveable, by me anyway, with any consistency. Do you guys modify your brake pedal in some way to be able to use it without ABS?
 
Well, I use a pad... and stick control is not an issue, once you get used to it.

For wheel users, you might want to look at finding a way to stiffen up your brake pedal. There are a few discussions on this in the Wheel and Cockpit section.
 
Well, I use a pad... and stick control is not an issue, once you get used to it.

For wheel users, you might want to look at finding a way to stiffen up your brake pedal. There are a few discussions on this in the Wheel and Cockpit section.
 
niky
Non-ABS is a huge advantage... but you'll need to retune your brakes depending on a variety of factors... car, tires, suspension set-up and track. For most cars on sports tires, you'll need to lower your braking force to make avoiding excessive lock-up easier... whereas on racing tires, you can use the stock values or higher.

On most cars in the game, the stock 5:5 balance is not optimal. Many front engined and some mid-engined cars will like a little more front bias, whereas some, like the Ford GT, will like a more rearward bias to balance out properly (the Ford GT's braking with the stock 5:5 bias is woeful... as it overstresses the front tires and induces excessive understeer.

I tend to tune my brakes (when I'm not too lazy to do it) to avoid excessive heat over the front axle, then adjust my driving around what results. Most cars benefit from a little trail-braking oversteer, anyway.
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Thanks for your tipps. I will try to reduce the brake bias on both ends, this might help me in getting a better overall feeling.

How do you use your brakes? Since I was driving formerly mostly in racecars, slamming the pedal down when reaching the braking point and letting it smoothly release till corner entry was just the way to go. Specially because racebrakes' optimal working temps are around 8-900 degrees.

I guess this technique isn´t the best way for (sports)cars on sports tires? :)

In GT5 this might work like just with a car in reallife (The other way around like with racecars). You build up continuously more and more pressure on the brake pedal after reaching your braking point. Can you confirm this?

Just wondering if these 2 different braking methods apply both in GT5? One for the sports (tuned) cars, the other for the racecars?

Hope you still get the clue about what I mean, I may have explained myself a bit unfortunate.
 
Johnnypenso
I've tried a few cars without ABS and the braking was so sensitive even at 1/1 it was undriveable, by me anyway, with any consistency. Do you guys modify your brake pedal in some way to be able to use it without ABS?
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There´s a so-called "Nixim brake mod" out there, but that site is just down. Any other rubber rod may have similar results. This might be a good solution for me being a brake-slammer, since it´s a reasonable priced improvement. My problem might be the wheelstand I use, which I'm afraid isn´t stable enough to keep your setup (specially the pedals) at one place.
 
GTP_roadrunner
Thanks for your tipps. I will try to reduce the brake bias on both ends, this might help me in getting a better overall feeling.

How do you use your brakes? Since I was driving formerly mostly in racecars, slamming the pedal down when reaching the braking point and letting it smoothly release till corner entry was just the way to go. Specially because racebrakes' optimal working temps are around 8-900 degrees.

I guess this technique isn´t the best way for (sports)cars on sports tires? :)

In GT5 this might work like just with a car in reallife (The other way around like with racecars). You build up continuously more and more pressure on the brake pedal after reaching your braking point. Can you confirm this?

Just wondering if these 2 different braking methods apply both in GT5? One for the sports (tuned) cars, the other for the racecars?

Hope you still get the clue about what I mean, I may have explained myself a bit unfortunate.
Click to expand...

Well, we were always taught the same... brake hard, THEN modulate, even in street cars... but it's hard to do with video game sticks or pedals... Especially with the stock bias in-game. If you get your bias tuning right though, you'll be able to slam on the brakes without worry of excessive over or understeer.
 
I did some experimenting with my DFGT last night. I do have a custom seat arrangement so my set up is solid and stable. I had some closed cell insulating foam that is used for copper water supply pipes and stuffed one piece behind the brake pedal and one piece under the front of it and voila!!...it was perfect as far as feel goes. Felt like real brakes and you had to give her a good press to get her to brake. I ran some laps at an easy track with the brakes at 1/1 in an easy car to drive (lexus GT500) and it took some getting used to but eventally I got some consistency and was able to shave a few tenths off my best times there in that car, finally getting into the 57's once or twice. I found that if you can do it correctly, it actually brings the front end of the car around better and faster under braking and at times you can kick the rear end out a bit to get a different approach angle to corners and gain a bit of time.

I also tried it with an NSX GT500 car and it was much harder to control, with the rear end kicking out quite easily, so you'd have to be much more careful with that car, but it's known for being particularly twitchy.

Note: This was done offline, I haven't tested it online yet so I'm not sure what the questionable online physics will do
 
I did some more experimenting last night, racing several different cars including the GTR GT500 car, Ford GT40, McLaren F1 car, BMW GTR and the Tommy Kaira (sp?) ZZ, all 500-750 hp and the results were mixed but encouraging. It definitely takes getting used to but I'm convinced that if you can master it you can both shorten your braking distances and increase your turn in bite. To master it, as was mentioned above I think, you need to give her a good push when you begin braking but back off some as the car slows down to avoid locking the wheels up. Some cars, like one of the Lotus Elises, liked to throw out the rear end at the hairpin after the start finish straight but this could be avoided by braking in a straight line and then turning in with slight brake pressure or none at all.

One other thing it allows you to do is use slight brake pressure mid corner to bring an understeering front end back to the apex of the corner

The cost of this is, you have to retune all the brake setups in all of your cars because 8/6 won't likely work in most cars. 2/1, 3/1, 3/2 are pretty common so far with the GT500 GTR at something like 5/3I think.

Now that I've made the switch and seen the possibilities I can't see going back to ABS except perhaps at the Ring, where it's so undulating and you have such drastic variations in braking grip. Perhaps there ABS could still serve a purpose but I would bet that with practice you can probably tame the Ring too without ABS
 
For some cars, like the Ford GT, counter-intuitively, you'll want a more rearward bias. The tire temperature readout on-screen is a big help in figuring this out.
 
ABS 10 is the fastest... with any car, on any track. test it.... go to arcade rune a lap ABS 1.... then race your ghost ABS 10... you will win by a marginal amount
 
TeddyBear-420
ABS 10 is the fastest... with any car, on any track. test it.... go to arcade rune a lap ABS 1.... then race your ghost ABS 10... you will win by a marginal amount
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yeah but then you leave bits of your tires on the track? maybe for sprint racing it would be effective but for many laps you'd find yourself without grip eventually..
 
niky
For some cars, like the Ford GT, counter-intuitively, you'll want a more rearward bias. The tire temperature readout on-screen is a big help in figuring this out.
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Thanks for that. On one hand I'm a little ticked that I have to retune all my cars but on the other hand it's a new challenge and I'm looking forward to conquering it. Any other counter intuitive tips you have send them along...lol.
 
I always drive with abs on 0. I think it helps you learn how to brake properly. My driving improved immensely once I started using no aids. At first it seemed impossible but once you get the feel for it, well, I feel like it helps you get a feel for it. I'm a big advocate for no aids.
 
I am sad to say I went back to ABS because I was having real trouble being consistent. I will have another go for sure. Some cars handled completely differently without ABS too, like the Audi R8. The tail would whip around at the slightest provocation under braking, so you could only brake in a straight line, no trail braking and even then, if through certain sections of Rome for example, the car seemed to be real tail happy even not under braking.

What I might end up doing is doing non-ABS on race cars, which seem to do it much better and ABS=1 on street cars. More experimenting is definitely necessary.
 
I've found that in GT5 I get generally better results by braking gently at first and then increasing the pressure up until each time I shift, rather than braking hard and then trailing off as the brakes heat up and the car slows down. Hard braking just results in instant lock-up. Just don't forget to let up a bit when you shift or it will lock up for sure when the clutch engages if you're keeping the engine at high revs. This is for braking in a straight line, you need to be gentle when turning and I have enough trouble with that as it is.
 
To the person that mentioned using ABS on the ring. It's not needed. A friend of mine challenged me to run the ring reverse to beat his time. I had ABS1, and could only maintained 1:09.xxx min/lap. I decided to take ABS off, and my lap times improved to almost beating his 1:08.536, in which I got 1:08.75...something. I say the ring is one of the best High Speed tracks to perfect high speed braking. To me it is...I was using the Italia, and the ZR1 (sport med). Thoe only time I knew when to let off the brakes, when the back would try to kick out. I like it, but it will definitely take time getting use to.

I use the Stick and Paddle method of driving. I can't use the pad anymore.
 
Try doing it like in RL, with a F2007/F10 with no ABS... you'll lose everytime! :(
 

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