Griffith 500 Understeer???? What?

[TurboRegal]

I bought a used tvr grif 500, tuned it with lvl 2 na tuning, lvl 1 weight, exhaust and a chip. I take it to race in the TVR championship, and holy understeer. Why on earth is a FR 996 kg car with a huge engine up front understeering????

 

[Pebb]

Stunt people and drift people loved the Griffith for its understeer. They even loved throwing it through cones while drifting.

 

[TurboRegal]

Wow do I ever hate driving this car with understeer, you can't come into a corner with any speed, or youre off the road...

 

[skyline speed]

Mmm,try increaseing the rear spring rate by buying a racing suspension.And if that dont work decrease the oversteer and increase the understeer in the driving aids section.

 

[Master_Yoda]

Then drift it...

 

[Dave A]

It only understeers when you over power it into corners like any road car, the fact it has a huge power to weight ratio magnify's the under and overteer effects, the power delivery on a TVR is immense, so it doesn't take a huge stab at the throttle to overdo it and if the cars lateral grip isn't being overcome when you do you'll just understeer, practice throttle control and you'll be doing flying laps in no time.

 

[DuckRacer]

Mmm,try increaseing the rear spring rate by buying a racing suspension.And if that dont work decrease the oversteer and increase the understeer in the driving aids section.

1. Increasing the rear spring rate makes the car understeer more, despite what RL facts dictate.

2. Don't use aids, as they'll slow you down.

3. Get the full custom suspension, and set the stabilizers to 4/3, rear toe to -1, and lower the rear spring rate. That should get rid of most of the understeer.

 

[Dave A]

Just keep the car stock and drive it with better throttle control.

 

[Scaff]

1. Increasing the rear spring rate makes the car understeer more, despite what RL facts dictate.

Hmm, not sure I'd agree 100% with that Duck, it depends on what the default value is, how much its being increased by, what track its being run at and when the understeer is occuring. If its corner entry then I would agree, as working on the front springs would have more effect. However if its corner exit then stiffening up the rear can help. It does of course also depend on the damper settings as well.

Of course if the driver is taking the corner to fast, then no amount of tuning is going to make a difference anyway.

2. Don't use aids, as they'll slow you down.

👍 driver aids cause more problems than they solve in my opinion.

3. Get the full custom suspension, and set the stabilizers to 4/3, rear toe to -1, and lower the rear spring rate. That should get rid of most of the understeer.

Again I would have to question this (not the custom suspension bit obviously), but that considered we do have very different driving styles. LOL

Regards

Scaff

 

[Famine]

Pick a car. Any car.

Drive it in a straight line at 200mph.

Now, with no warning, yank the steering wheel as if to do a 90 degree right turn. What happens?


Come into a corner too fast in any car and it will understeer. As the great Graham Hill once said:

Go in slow, come out fast. Go in fast, come out dead.

 

[Scaff]

Pick a car. Any car.

Drive it in a straight line at 200mph.

Now, with no warning, yank the steering wheel as if to do a 90 degree right turn. What happens?


Come into a corner too fast in any car and it will understeer. As the great Graeme Hill once said:

Go in slow, come out fast. Go in fast, come out dead.

Now thats a quote you can't argue with.

Remind me of the Graham Hill quote from when he crashed a GT40 at LeMans

I went into the corner a little too fast, realised it, called on my legendary skill and years of experience, panicked, locked up the brakes and slid into the bloody bank - sorry

Scaff

 

[Famine]

And I should just note that I have, for no apparent reason, rechristened Graham Hill. Sorry about that.

 

[Alfaholic]

To be honest I've stopped driving the TVRs because they understeer too much for my liking. I gave Bob a juiced up TVRsomethingorother to win the TVR races. Similarly I have not driven any of the FF cars unless I've had to because they oversteer more than I would expect them to. A friend of mine, who really does drive a Tuscan (and drives very well) bought GT4, drove the virtual Tuscan, commented that it feels nothing like the real car because it has way too much understeer and lost all interest in the game at that point. As far as I know he has not played it since.

For me it hasn't been quite such a strong reaction. It is interesting to me though that GT3 was marketed as a real simulator, so is GT4, and yet the same car (the Griffith) has a fundamentally different balance. For me its easier just to drive the GT4 cars that I enjoy driving and avoid the ones I don't enjoy driving, and there are plenty of those, and remember it's a game and is therefore entertainment. So get the TVR event out of the way as fast as possible, park the gorgeous Griff in a photo location to take some pics of it, and drive a Prowler / M3CSL / 'Vette Grand Sport / Supra to get your FR oversteering thrills.

Also, if the griff is high mileage, try a chassis refresh. It usually makes the cars feel more precise.

It's ok to comment on driving style being the problem and corner entry speeds being to high but if that was the case then all the cars in the game would feel like they "understeer too much". Relative to other FR cars in the game, the Griff can accurately be described as having a strong understeer balance.

 

[Famine]

A friend of mine, who really does drive a Tuscan (and drives very well) bought GT4, drove the virtual Tuscan, commented that it feels nothing like the real car because it has way too much understeer and lost all interest in the game at that point. As far as I know he has not played it since.

He has a point, BUT... When was the last time he took his Tuscan into a hairpin at 100mph+?

The problem that people who drive the real cars will encounter is that, being a game, Gran Turismo has no real feeling of speed. Other than some numbers at the bottom of the screen, there's nothing to tell you that you're going "X" fast, whereas in real life you can feel how fast you're going. This can lead to entering corners too fast in the game and the inevitable understeer that follows.

I should note that there is actually a slight bias for understeer in the game, in my opinion, which is less than realistic, but the majority of understeer problems arise from simply going into a corner too damn fast.


And the very last thing I have to do for 100% in GT4 is a single TVR race...

 

[Dave A]

Famine is spot on, I have absolutely no problem with the understeer in GT4, most people just don't seem to realise exactley how fast they're trying to take that corner, or they're braking too hard too late ect. If you drve properly no matter what the car is you'll get around the track fast with minimal understeer, TVR's included. IRL a TVR will understeer, just like pretty much every other road car out there understeers.

 

[Daddybird]

Same with Clarkson, he said that GT4 felt very real, only the G-forces weren't there, so you automatically can drive lots faster in a game than in real life.

He also said that because racing drivers have no fear (and this is true) they can get those lap times for real.

 

[Dave A]

Well you can actually go a lot faster in GT4 than in real life, not because of the lack of a fear factor but because the tyre's are over grippy. It doesn't wholly apply to road cars since you can use the more realistic road tyre's but all the other tyre's, the sports and race are over grippy.

 

[Daddybird]

I meant the N2 tires, look in my test thread.

 

[Dave A]

Well that I agree with, the road cars on the N tyre's are pretty close to the real life counterparts. The race cars are well off, you can hammer real life lap records in the race cars.

 

[Daddybird]

Well that I agree with, the road cars on the N tyre's are pretty close to the real life counterparts. The race cars are well off, you can hammer real life lap records in the race cars.

That's why the race cars are no fun.

 

[Alfaholic]

Live4Speed and Famine: While I agree that the lack of motion awareness and depth and speed perception in a computer game tends to make you arrive at corners far too fast (and is also why I will tend to crash 5 times a lap on a circuit I don't know in a computer game but don't keep falling off unfamiliar roads or race tracks in a proper car), the crux of my argument was that, within the world of GT4 alone, the TVR is a relative understeerer. That is, I can approach a specific corner at a certain speed in a Griff, and turn in, and notice that I am running wide of the apex because I am understeering. I can then approach the same corner at the same speed in some other FR car, and not experience any understeer while negotiating the corner. Yet another car will oversteer at the same speed. Another may enter a neutral drift, and yet another may be well below the fastest speed at which it can negotiate the turn, and just go around the corner slower than it is capable of. EDIT: Or, another way, when I JUST exceed the limit of grip in the Tuscan, it tends to understeer. Other GT4 models show a different balance. END EDIT. If understeer was because I or my friend was approaching all corners at overly optimistic speeds, we would be complaining about understeer in ALL the cars, not just a TVR. My friend did not try to "negotiate hairpins at 100+mph" in the TVR and then think the game was innacurate. He did not only drive the TVR. He did note that the reason he kept sliding off the track in the GT4 model Tuscan was because it understeered at the limit (which it does in the game) and knows that understeer is the least of his problems when approaching the limit in the model in his garage.

I have been playing computer driving games for over 20 years and have in that time understood that the biggest challenge with learning a new game is usually to slow yourself down. But even before I stop falling off the track, and this is true in GT4 as in all the others, the car's balance is obvious. And the GT4 Tuscan's is understeer. The RL's is sharp steering and oversteer.

Saying that, I also noted with interest that when Evo magazine crashed a Tuscan on a road test, they understeered off...

 

[Daddybird]

Maybe you're a bit right but TVRs are known for their understeer in character and oversteer out character......And if we all lose out faith in Kazaori we won't get GT42.

 

[Alfaholic]

Maybe you're a bit right but TVRs are known for their understeer in character and oversteer out character......And if we all lose out faith in Kazaori we won't get GT42.

On that point:

6 months ago I wouldn't have said this, because back then I was still having to win races to get what I want. But now, and before I get too misunderstood, I'll make it known that PD at this time already has won my custom for GT5 when it is released (probably in 2026) on the PS3. I love this game. It FEELS good to drive to me. That's what counts most. I just happen to agree with the original point of this thread, which is that the TVR Griffith in the game suffers from understeer, and maintain that this is a characteristic of the GT4 Griffith model as opposed to it being a characteristic of the driver which for some reason only manifests itself when he's driving a Griff.

 

[Dave A]

I'm fortnate enough to have driven a TVR, the understeer in GT4 is not over the top, I also don't find the TVR's understeer a lot more than other cars. I think you may just find you need to learn to approach corners a bit different in them, they're a lot faster than more cars of similar power outputs, the reason the understeer is more pronounced when you do understeer is becuase of the cars light weight, that can enhance any under or oversteer effects the car will go through. If you drive it just right, neither the front or the rear will lose grip at all, but you'll fly around the corner, just practice.

Also a TVR Tuscan in real life is set to understeer, and they do. They only oversteer when you light up the rear wheels, someithng you don't often do once your out of first and second gears (not counting the 12 then you need to be in 5th) and at this point you have to remember GT4 featuers some kind of TCS level you can't turn off, so you'll never be able to deliver the power as much as you can in the real car.

 

[niky]

Don't TVRs usually have soft rear springs, to increase traction? I always thought that that was what caused the perceived increase in understeer in TVRs in this incarnation of GT, a slight exaggeration of that effect where the weight comes off the front and you lose steering? (don't flame me for this, I'm not overly familiar with driving TVRs in real life )

And, of course, I agree with the "too fast" school. Do it like a real life newb and you'll be all right. Slow down, turn, speed up. One thing at a time.

 

[Dave A]

Yeah, many of the models have softer rear springs, but they're all, even the Sagaris, setup so that they'll understeer rather than oversteer.

 

[Pebb]

TVR's have always had understeer, your going to get understeer when you have not much weight in a car. While having a lot of power, but TVR's are raw thats why I love them.

But it is a shame the TVR Tuscan Racer which races TVR Tuscan Challenge, is not in game. And if any of you have not seen the TVR Tuscan Racer race, then well check this news out. If you have Sky Sports:

http://www.b-link.co.uk/talkingtvr/features/skytv.htm

 

[Dave A]

I've seen thoes racing, they'er awesome to watch and to hear. I can also remember reading about a guy that made one of thoes road legal and used it as his everday car, madness.

 

[Pebb]

But it is fast 0-60MPH and 0-100MPH.

 

[skyline speed]

1. Increasing the rear spring rate makes the car understeer more, despite what RL facts dictate.

2. Don't use aids, as they'll slow you down.

3. Get the full custom suspension, and set the stabilizers to 4/3, rear toe to -1, and lower the rear spring rate. That should get rid of most of the understeer.

Realy?Well I had a car a while ago a MG TF{Ithink} and other cars were I have decreased the spring rate in the rear and it gave me more traction.Mabey because I suggested increaseing them that it wouldnt work,or mabey just the car.