Drift Settings Journal: Vol 2 - '03 Nismo Fairlady Z Z-Tune (Z33)

[Boundary Layer]

edit -
scratch everything I did have posted here. I'm still confused on a few issues after having read some of Sukerkin's findings in the Settings and Tuning forum.

 

[nos2]

I'm using DS2 to drift, so my settings probably won't work for the DFP.

Full mod, 602hp
Tires: F:S3, R:S3
Brakes: F:3, R:6
Suspension:
Spring rate: F15.0, R:8.0
Ride Height: F:50, R:50
Shock bound: F:8, R:4
Shock rebound: F:8, R:4
Camber: F:4.0, R:0.0
Toe: F:0, R:0
Stabilizers: F:7, R:4
Transmission: Auto 10
Driving Aids: All 0
LSD: 40/50/10

 

[Boundary Layer]

...what on earth was I doing before, and why didnt anyone stop me?
And how on earth did my setup even drift???

ok, I got a fresh start and things look much more promising. The car finally feels like an FR - I knew there was one hiding in there somewhere.

I figure I must have got in trouble with my spring rates before. I should have started with them soft and gradually stiffened them as I usually do instead of starting with the high rates that come stock on the car and progressively softening them. I think that's what got me all crossed up. But no point in trying to justify the weird stuff I was doing before. The wrong steps I took taught me a few things about this car and got me to the setup I have now.

Thus far all I have done is modify the suspension, brake balance, and gearing. The fully customizeable LSD is installed, but the values left stock for now. So there is still future room for me to improve this thing.

Parts to buy:

Racing Brakes, Brake Controller
Full Customize Transmission, Full Customize LSD
Racing Suspension
N2 Tires Front and Rear
Stage 1, 2, & 3 Weight Reduction
Oil change and maybe some nice rims
~390HP (stock)
​

Settings:

Brakes:

• Balance: 2 | 14

Suspension:

• Spring Rates: 8.8 kgf/mm | 7.6 kgf/mm
• Ride Height: 80mm | 80mm
• Shock Bound: 6 | 6
• Shock Rebound: 8 | 3
• Camber Angle: 2.6 | 1.7
• Toe Angle: 0 | 0
• Stabilizers: 5 | 5

Transmission:

• Tranny Trick Used!
• Auto Gear: 1
• Final Gear: 4.100

Aids:

• ASM Oversteer: 0
• ASM Understeer: 0
• TCS: 0

LSD:

• Initial Torque: 10 [stock]
• Limited Slip Acceleration: 40 [stock]
• Limited Slip Deceleration: 20 [stock]

Seriously have no idea what I was doing before.

This time the car is balanced. It will go where you tell it to. I really focussed on it's response to having the throttle lifted or applied in the middle of a turn. On my old setup the car would change direction quite noticeably. There was more understeer present with the throttle off. This time if you do so, the car will stick to it's original line. I consider that a good thing.

This setup laps GVS in under 2'13 on N2's. Infact, I'm sure it could still go faster if I were concered about such things (and if I were using my DFP). I was just checking the balance with a quick racing lap. But I thought I'd post it because I found it impressive.


I knew it was only a matter of time until I figured this car out. It now handles much more like any other FR in my garage. Not quite as much oversteer as many of them yet, but it's getting very close.

 

[G-T-4-Fan]

Well I give it up....AGAIN! I tried it today, but failed offcourse....it's very fun to have a car thats kinda misterious:tup: But it's kind of annoying too The weard thing is I always have the feeling like I left an aid on. Or didn't get the wrong tyres, I never got a car like this...

As I said I would try it one more time and I just did that....I'm leaving it to you now cause it's annoying, I will try BL's settings for once but if that doesn't work either I will sell the car.

Plus all those loading times between the drift and going to your setups are killing me....it takes 5 minutes of loading time to get to your settings!!

 

[Ske]

This time the car is balanced.

This time around it looks like we're on the same path... only my stabilizers are really different, but that's just to get a more laid back feel to it...

Even though I used similar for my settings (I'm sticking with the "pimped" one for now though I'm definitely checking this out ), the damper settings don't really make sense yet... only if the scales show how much the dampers RESIST the specific motion.. not overall stiffness of the damper... then it all starts making a bit more sense. Theoretically this would mean that the dampers resist weight transfer TO the rear and facilitate weight transfer FROM the rear, right? Which in turn means that you'll have more front grip as long as you don't totally floor it for an extended period. I'm sorry about the rambling, but I sort of want someone to confirm I'm not mad at this point...

The high rear bound/low rear rebound mess certainly works for this car, and it's starting to improve some of my other cars as well.

I also have to say that the s2000 and m3 testing was pretty much indicating the other way around for me.. but I probably got fooled by the low speeds I tested at. So give credit where it's due (yourself) for making sense of it At least it's confirmed that increased rear springs will cause understeer/stability in evenly balanced cars.

Anyway.. N1 tires seems to have solved a lot of problems with this car for me, and allowing it to perform without the added turbo. I'll check out the tranny trick to see if that would make it easier to find good ratios to work with that horrible engine.


Edit:
I tried those settings and I have to say 👍 - great improvement.. it's definitely more controllable and easier to steer (I set LSD decel to 10). Could still be even more prone to oversteer as you say.. but it can follow lines much better now.. the front seems to go where it's being told to.

I don't quite see why these settings feel so much better than mine, I hope you'll explain

 

[G-T-4-Fan]

Wow this is one HELL of a thread man. Thanks you VERY MUCH BL

Really, I'll test some extreme things now too without thinking. Although I sold my Nismo 350Z, I will test some things out to smoothen my M3 drifting. The car feels kinda....snappy and stiff. I want it soft.

I think I'll first put the height up to 130/135

 

[Boundary Layer]

Edit:
I tried those settings and I have to say 👍 - great improvement.. it's definitely more controllable and easier to steer (I set LSD decel to 10). Could still be even more prone to oversteer as you say.. but it can follow lines much better now.. the front seems to go where it's being told to.

I don't quite see why these settings feel so much better than mine, I hope you'll explain

it's because I made them

no seriously, after you logged of of AIM i kep testing different dampers on the S2000.

we tested a stiffer front bound and rear rebound and concluded that it gave us only mild oversteer (I only had oversteer at entry). That's all fine and dandy, but it doesnt paint the full picture.
After you logged off I tried a stiffer front bound and rebound (settings of 5 | 2, 5 | 2 on my S2000). This made the care incredibly easy to pitch into corners. Tremendous oversteer at entry.
I also tried a stiffer bound than rebound. (5 | 5, 2 | 2) This configuration also gave me more oversteer than the stock S2000 at corner entry... but the behavior of the car seemed slightly confused around the middle of the corner. I probably should have spent more time on these settings to get a better read on them. But all I really wanted to determine was if it'd give more oversteer at turn in.

At this point I basically discarded what we learned earlier about front bound and rear rebound. I decided that the slight oversteer we got there was a result of the stiffened front bound only - the rear rebound contributed nothing (or may have been decreasing the amount of oversteer we experienced).

So taking what I learned from the S2000 I applied it to the Z.
Beginning with all the damper settings at 5, I applied the following transformation
bound: ++ | +
rebound: + | -

that didn't work well at first. It was only through trial and error, and reading a few of Sukerkin's posts that I began to make more progress after laying out this inital groundwork.

I found the car had perfectly neutral steering witht he following damper setup (at AH):
6 | 4
7 | 3

But that wasn't quite slippery enough for me to drift with. So from prior observations I decided to raise the front rebound again (seems to increase front grip) and increase the rear bound to ipmrove my turn in with the throttle off. I got confused here for a moment - increasing rear bound seems to reduce rear grip to a certain extent - but this doesn't match with the assumption I made earlier that increased front bound increases front grip. Oh well. It worked, thats the important part.
The rest came from a lot of trial and error.

I don't imagine Sukerkin will visit this thread, but I want to thank him for the following post: Link

putting his findings in that post together with my own quick experiements with the S2000 gave me a much better understanding of what to expect as I fiddled with the dampers.

I hope that sort of answers your question Ske.

As for what the damping value physically represents, I'm still in the dark on that as well. Some of my findings (as wel as Sukerkin's) seem to be the exact opposite of what I was expecting.
But if there's one thing my engineering study has taught me its that experimental data and solutions are 100x more useful than solutions obtained numerically.

These settings work, there's no arguing that point. Now I just have to adjust my perspective and understanding of how the game interprets damper settings to try and figure out why. I have more new questions about dampers at this point than I did before I began all of this. 1 step forwards, 2 steps back.

 

[G-T-4-Fan]

You think these settings cant get better in any way? If this is it, and you cant do anything more than this (you did one hell of a job together with Ske!) I would suggest putting them in the drift settings depot yourself and tag it with a special color!

 

[Boundary Layer]

still plenty of ways to improve it.

the brake balance isnt perfect. I havent touched the LSD yet. Someone might find better dampers. I think I could use just a touch more camber on some corners, and I haven't even begun to entertain the idea of changing the stabilizers.

Hard to say when it's done, especially because not everyone will like the same setup. Besides, there's 2 weeks until the next DSJ. I'm gonna keep looking for ways to improve this thing until then

 

[ekmatt9]

I have some settings once again, but I'm not going to post them yet because they have to be "finalized" They are stiff, but it's a good stiff, it needs some heavy feint drifting sometimes.

 

[Funkshen]

I have some new (Improved) Settings on the way,

I'm still bugged about the fact that we can't fully dismiss the understeering issue when Initiating the drift.

 

[Boundary Layer]

Even though I used similar for my settings (I'm sticking with the "pimped" one for now though I'm definitely checking this out ), the damper settings don't really make sense yet... only if the scales show how much the dampers RESIST the specific motion.. not overall stiffness of the damper... then it all starts making a bit more sense. Theoretically this would mean that the dampers resist weight transfer TO the rear and facilitate weight transfer FROM the rear, right? Which in turn means that you'll have more front grip as long as you don't totally floor it for an extended period. I'm sorry about the rambling, but I sort of want someone to confirm I'm not mad at this point...

I was just doing some reading up in the settings forum before bed looking for anything I could find about damper settings (not just for you, but also my own curiousity) and could not come across anything cogent and widely agreed upon.

Apart from the ramblings of Sukerkin in the thread I linked to previously, I did find this other quote of his:

All the real world tuning 'rules' that I've learned over the years still seem to apply ... most of the time .

Like RK I too have found occaisions on certain tracks with certain cars where I've had to break the rules to get the car to work and it is much harder to tell whether what you've done has actually helped or hindered the handling because, as in RL, any set-up is a compromise so you'll find some corners are better after a suspension change and some are worse : pulls-hair-out : .

A prime example is my notes on setting up a Cerbera for Seoul.

Here is the extract:

"Trying to set her up for Seoul is, er, soul destroying . Can't get her to behave properly; it's as if the streets were diesel slicked.

Messing with the Dampers makes me think that PD have got it slightly wrong. I find increasing the Front Rebound makes corner entry understeer reduce, increasing the Rear Rebound makes corner exit understeer increase and reducing the Rear Bound made exit understeer worse!

Decided that this was an artifact of springs that were too soft for this flat track. Returned to my old rule-of-thumb of the Bound & Rebound adding up to the Spring Rate and got much better, more sensible results from the Dampers."

From that point I went rambling on about how when I tried the same thing at New York it didn't work ...

View the rest of that thread here - Ske, I think you'll enjoy that one, it asks the exact question you brought forth here.

What Sukerkin said there matches my own observations and setting adjustments to this Z almost exactly. But, I've found just as many other posts from him and other reputable sources that state something entirely different, or the total opposite.

big confusion
I fear I'll be running more tests tomorrow. I'm still hoping I can produce more oversteer in this car from the springs and dampers.

 

[Ske]

I'm staying away from this car for a few days, I'll grab my Silvias and FD's or something instead, to regain some sanity and perspective... Then I can hopefully be able to see the Z's flaws more clearly again... it's starting to become something of a blur.

 

[sukerkin]

I hope you gentlemen realise that you've shattered my comfortable illusion of Dr1ftarz as Rice-Boy Wannabee Know-Nothing Fan-Boi's etc etc LOL.

It's very nice to see a serious technical discussion on suspension here in a Forum I've never visited before 👍.

Admittedly, you're trying to get the car to do things that I would hate to see coming out of a suspension set-up I put together but the principles are the same when all is said and done - spannering's spannering .

I've sent Boundary Layer (great tag by the way) a slim paragraph of general observations and a wedge of URLs to suspension engineering and race tuning sites. I only sent them this morning so I don't suppose he's had chance to read them yet, given the fact that he resides in Canada (beautiful country).

I hope that they're of utility but, as I'm sure all of you know by now, there's something skewed in GT4's physics engine so all the real world principles don't apply all of the time or to all of the cars. It does seem to be track and car specific, as if some of the cars are still running GT3 models and some of the circuits have been shoehorned in with some bugs left in the construction .

For example, I had a terrible time getting my Vantage to run well but the S2000 needed only enough work to get it to go faster as it handled splendidly out of the box. The secret seems to be that if the Damper or Spring settings are acting as if they should be reversed then either:

a) Give in and use them in reverse
b) Sort out the general chassis balance (including Weight Distribution) and stiffness, with a frisson of LSD thrown into the mix, and, hopefully, things should start working more logically.

If option B is still not up to the task, then Tyre Stagger is a very useful tool. The game severely favours the front end of the car and tyre wear is usually worst there.

That means that if you're trying to smooth out understeer, you going to destroy your pit strategy unless you're fighting nonsensical oversteer (like in the Triumph Spitfire) which an N1/N3 mix tames rather well. If you're not overly concerned with tyre life tho', then some of the restrictions fall away and you have a lot more freedom.

It is to be noted that, in the real world, Japanese teams routinely run front-end-rigid and use stabalisers a deal stiffer than their Western counterparts; they then use tyre stagger to overcome the chassis problems they cause themselves. So it would be no surprise if the game works that way to a certain extent too.

 

[Ske]

... as if some of the cars are still running GT3 models and some of the circuits have been shoehorned in with some bugs left in the construction

That's an interesting concept.. especially since some seemingly similar cars behave very very differently.

I've also noticed that some good handling cars (like the M3 CSL) are impossible to mess up.. I tried running that specific car with min/max spring rates and dampers in all sorts of weird combinations, and the handling stayed very much the same. When you try to make sense of it by attempting to ruin a good setup... and fail... you know something's wrong.

I generally try to use option B personally, but without real life in mind at all (I'm neither an engineer nor a real life racer, so it's easier for me to disregard "common" knowledge ).. if the result ends up being reversed, then at least I feel I've learned something about the game ...

Tire stagger (I'm assuming you mean mixing tire types here) is generally frowned upon among the drifters here for some reason, but sometimes I feel the urge (It's not like drifters don't mix tires in real life). The same thing can be said about using ballast, but that's more commonly used. Using an N2/N1 mix on this car would certainly make things a lot easier, but then again this thread isn't about making life easy is it?

And for the record: Tire wear is definitely not an issue when it comes to drifting.

 

[G-T-4-Fan]

Well actually I read on some website that most of the drifters use tyre combo's in real life....I dont say it's true but I think it's true in some part. They also run on wider tyres than are originally used, so the tyres dont run off the rims ( the site says at least).

I dont know the sites name anymore but it seems like RL drifters dont REALLY mind balance if there are other problems occuring with the car. I think they would use tyre combo's too on the Nismo Z-tune just because of the understeer.

Pretty obvious I think, do you want:
-a balanced but understeering car or
-a less balanced but oversteering car
AS A DRIFTER!

 

[Boundary Layer]

There he is, in the flesh.

I've sent Boundary Layer (great tag by the way) a slim paragraph of general observations and a wedge of URLs to suspension engineering and race tuning sites. I only sent them this morning so I don't suppose he's had chance to read them yet, given the fact that he resides in Canada (beautiful country).

I hope that they're of utility but, as I'm sure all of you know by now, there's something skewed in GT4's physics engine so all the real world principles don't apply all of the time or to all of the cars. It does seem to be track and car specific, as if some of the cars are still running GT3 models and some of the circuits have been shoehorned in with some bugs left in the construction .

Thanks for the links sukerkin.
I haven't had a chance to view them all yet, but from what I have read the content will be a huge help to me. I particularly enjoyed the 65 page article on vehicle dynamics. The discussion of Newton's Laws was nothing terribly revealing to me, but the discussion in the final few chapters about the useable grip of a tire was intriguing. I had never considered applying my knowledge of members in torsion from stress analysis to discuss/determine the amount of grip a tire has available. (perhaps I should have ) There are many parallels drawn there - a slipping tire is much like a member that has exceeded its yielding stress and has left a state of elastic deformation and entered a state of plastic deformation.

I suppose that's all besides the point of this thread, I just get excited about such things.
Thanks again sukerkin.

(I knew a practicing engineer might hold some greater appreciation for my screen name).

edit:
ok, have some ideas to try out tonight after i get a little schoolwork done. If i get around to it and if it's worth sharing, I'll make a post.

 

[Funkshen]

Bounday_Layer and Sukerkin... Would it be too much effort to PM me those links also?.

I desperetly want to get some worthable knowledge into my head before i start my apprentichip.

 

[Ske]

Well, I went and tried "neutralizing" the chassis.. and added stiffening to put another ingredient in the mix...and I came up with a different setup once again. The stiffening seems to have made the car slightly more responsive all around, and I don't remember the car liking neutral settings this good before.

Springs: 8.0/8.0
Ride: 80/90
Bound: 6/6
Rebound: 5/5
Camber: 3.0/1.5
Toe: 0/0
Stabilizers: 1/1 (stiffen according to taste)
Brakes: 3/18
LSD: 8/50/8
Ballast: 70kg/+50

N1 tires
Stiffening/rollcage
Stock power
Gear autoset ~10-11-ish

I basically tried to even out the weight balance, assuming that the car with weight reductions retained the original Z's 53/47. Then I just set up the suspension totally neutral, and used the damper settings from my BTR (works wonderfully on that car)... and it SEEMS at the moment that it might work even better than before

The nose seems to tuck in easier, and the car seems to be easier to pull back in with throttle when the angle begins to fade. It also seems to be more able to hold lower angle drifts at high speed with the ability to smoothly tuck in when needed (example: first and last turns at Suzuka East. Linking SE from turn 2 is pretty effortless with this car now). No pure lift-off drift possible yet, but you don't need a lot of throttle to kick it out after a lift turn-in... It seems like it's easier to use now, to put it that way.

 

[G-T-4-Fan]

So...I have not much budget to go buy the car again. Does this mean it's finally fun to drift? Or just better but still isn't very good for drifting?

BTW I remember Droptop voting for this car because it was sexy, where are u lolz, they're doing this for ur votes!!!!

 

[Ske]

So...I have not much budget to go buy the car again. Does this mean it's finally fun to drift? Or just better but still isn't very good for drifting?

It's pretty good now actually... at least in my opinion.

You better b-spec dtm or something

 

[Boundary Layer]

hrm - the increased chassis rigidity didn't work well on my setup. Just gave me more understeer at corner entry and made feinting more difficult for me.
I'll give your setup a try Ske.

edit:
ok, ran about 10 laps before I got angry at this car again.

Ske, I tried your setup with and without the ballast. I think the extra bit of oversteer comes entirely from that adjustment. Without it your settings seemed to still have as much understeer (or neutral steer) as mine. The front was still fighting to pull out of drifts on long sweepers.

I'm going to give the ballast a try on my settings, but I think I'll repurchase the car first and get rid of the roll cage.

 

[Ske]

Sigh, guess I was being overly optimistic again.. it might just be my technique that's been adopted to suit the Z now, but the last setups we've come up with have all been fairly good. At least the car is definitely driftable now, even though it'll probably never be as easygoing as an FD or Sileighty.

With the ballast and all, I still think the new "neutral" setup works for me, however I guess it's better to lay low a bit longer and check back in a while to see what feels best after a brain reset

 

[ekmatt9]

I give up on this car...I think it's too hard for me...

 

[G-T-4-Fan]

Meh.....

*trying to keep up hope and annoy u*
NEXT UP: THE SPEEDDRIFT SETTINGS!!!

*omg, after this effort on exhibition settings....I think u guys are angry*

BTW I still havent bought it yet.......oh I'm so lazy

 

[Boundary Layer]

Ske might have been on the right track with the ballast though. Perhaps the car has an extreme front weight bias, and that is the reason that it wants to push so badly in corners.
the stock spring rates sorta suggest otherwise... 52.94% front | 47.06% rear
but whatever

It might be the only way to get the car really good and loose (while keeping the same tire compound on front and back, anyways).

 

[ekmatt9]

Alright!! These settings I believe are better than my last one's. I can control this more around tight corners...But it depends on their angle for me. This car is still very stiff in my honest opinion. All I gotta say is that Nismo and GT4 people really messed up on this cars handling in the game.

Parts to buy:
Racing Exhaust, N2 Tires, Stage 2 Turbo, Racing Brakes, Brake Controller, Racing Suspension, Full Customize Transmission, Full Cusomize LSD.

Settings:

Suspension:
Spring Rate - 13.2 / 9.8
Ride Height - 60 / 60
Shock (Bound) - 7 / 9
Shock (Rebound) - 7 / 9
Camber Angle - 3.0 / 0.5
Toe Angle - 0 / 0
Stabilizers - 4 / 4

Transmission:
Auto Set 9 or what ever you want...

LSD:
Initial - 23
Accel. - 35
Decel. - 8

Brake Balance Controller:
Front - 4
Rear - 10

All Driving AIDS At 0!!

 

[Ske]

If you think the car is too stiff, then

- lower the overall spring rate (as low as 7 works fine)
- soften the LSD init
- lower the stabilizers
- lower rear dampers
- raise ride height
- possibly lower front brake balance

 

[ekmatt9]

...I kind of didn't mean it in a bady way. I made the suspension loose, and every time I got done with a drift, and I tried to go straight, the car kept sliding back and forth or it just didn't feel right. It never wanted to go straight with out letting off the throttle a little. Now these setttings are good and stiff enough for me.

 

[Ske]

Ah, never mind me then