Determining Performance By The Numbers

  • Thread starter Dan
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Dan

Dan

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To all of the experienced tuners and test drivers, can you tell if someone's tune is going to perform poorly or not purely by just looking at the numbers? Are there specific things that automatically stand out to you which will ruin how a car handles?
 
I can. Ride height differences and LSD settings are the big ones to me. And how soft the suspension is, be it spring rate and/or damper settings.

I know what I like.

I also know, by looking at the numbers, if a car is going to be skating across the ground or more stuck to the ground.

Transmission settings are not so easily judged just by looking at the numbers.
 
A lot of it will depend on the car in question as well.
Some cars will 'ask' for a lot higher settings then some other cars, JUST to get the same desired effect.
My answer to your question, is simply Yes, AND No.
If the toe settings are between -0.20 And +0.20, then theres no way to know the effect without driving it, on MR and FR. But you can spot a strange setting on an RR or FF pretty easily. But again, some cars are the exception to the norm, so unless you already know that car, prejudging could be way wrong.
 
I agree a bit with both @coryclifford and @demonchilde. On cars that I have tuned in either GT5 or GT6, I have a pretty good feel for what a car will be like just from looking at the settings. When I test drive for FITT tuning events, I will build all of the tunes first (three tabs and multiple cars) then do my test drives. Putting that time space between building the tune and driving it, allows me to be more objective on the test drive.

On the other hand, some cars need really odd settings to make them work and you just don't know which ones those are until you are deep into tuning and are finding that none of the usual settings are working.
 
A setup that appears, at a glance, to be tuned to a basic level will likely not be as fast as it could be. For example, spring rates of: 10.00 / 8.00 or dampers all set to six. Other things that might set off alarm bells would be spring rates or ride heights left at the default values.
 
MrGrado
A setup that appears, at a glance, to be tuned to a basic level will likely not be as fast as it could be. For example, spring rates of: 10.00 / 8.00 or dampers all set to six. Other things that might set off alarm bells would be spring rates or ride heights left at the default values.
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Depends on intent, no? Or more to the point, depends on how much ackrite the car still needs after basic tuning. Any change you make will affect multiple aspects of the tune, sometimes knowing when to quit is more valuable than tweaking for the sake of tweaking.
 

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