It's time to take a stand against GT5's reversed suspension settings

[fatkrakr]

All i know is I was trying to tame a fully upgrade sambus. I tried everything I thought I knew about tunning and couldnt get the rearend to stick. LSD, camber, rollbars and toe no help. Remembered about this issue so I lowered the front 20 left rear stock and bam drives like a champ. Now common sense says I took all kinds of weight off rear tires should handle worse, but it doesnt, now I have tons of rear grip. If that isnt backwards Then I need a new definition of backwards. People saying I havent noticed it so your wrong just cracks me up. You dont notice so it must not possible, come on now. Try a sambus for yourself and youll see. Now does it effect all cars, I dont think so, but not 100% on that.

 

[JackWilson]

Might it possibly be that you're somehow bottoming out the car with low settings?

In your case Jackthalad, the 20-0 setup may be bottoming out the rear a little so that it's not the tires taking the load but the bumper (and the graphics may not necessarily show this either). So in terms of things being reversed, it may simply be that the default settings aren't optimal for race conditions and don't scale with any upgrades you might do (you can throw turbos and engine upgrades on the car, but your suspension settings will still be factory stock). The first task would have to be to get them to race-tune levels and then tweak them.

Ok re-done the test with a higher ride height to prevent the suspension from bottoming out and causing the bumpers to take the load rather than the tyres.

Equal Ride height: 20--20
More load on tyres than at 0--0. More grip, more body roll.

High Rear Height: 20--40
Same as ride height at 0--20. The rear tyres had more load than the front, could be heavy footed with the accelerator and not worry about the rear tyres spinning, the rear was well planted.

High Front Height: 40--20
What I expected. The rear tyres had less load than with a higher ride height, which dont make sence. The car turned in much better and was quicker through the 1st section of Nurburgring GP/D by 0.5 seconds. You still had to be very light footed or you would easily spin out.

So now you know that the bumpers wernt stopping the tyres from touching the ground and the car wasnt bottoming out in my first test.

Setting the front of the car lower than the rear adds load to the rear tyres helping to keep them planted.
-- It does not give the car tendancy to oversteer and add grip to the front tyres like it should. --

Setting the front of the car higher than the rear takes load off the rear tyres, without making it bottom out, which causes the rear to lose grip and there fore oversteer.
-- It does not add load to the rear tyres, pushing them into the ground, to increase grip and keep that end of the car planted, like it should. --


EDIT:
Agree with fatkrakr above. If this aint backwards then I dont know what is

 

[Dave_Panic]

@fatkrakr

What happened there is most likely - from my experience - that the rear tyres weren't keeping contact with the road effectively and losing grip when they do. small bumps, cresting a hill etc can cause this with lowered suspension settings. raising the rear end allows for more travel and thus better tracking of the road surface and therefore more grip on the rear.

 

[HugeGremlins]

So do the tuning groups in this forum use backwards settings?

Its a pretty organized community here, why not set up a series of tests and record the findings?

 

[TimberW]

Has anyone tried to actually test the settings within small increments on a car which is already tuned?

I mean extreme values of tuning is not such a good way of a test due to other parts of the suspension being related to each other.

 

[fatkrakr]

Has anyone tried to actually test the settings within small increments on a car which is already tuned?

I mean extreme values of tuning is not such a good way of a test due to other parts of the suspension being related to each other.

I spent an hour trying to get the bus to not lose the rearend. I reset everything back to default only dropped the front 20. I had all kinds of grip after that. It was on autum ring , but tried other tracks after with same results. Get a Sambus put all upgrades on and test it yourself see what your results are, I can only tell you mine. 💡

 

[HugeGremlins]

I'll try messing around with it.

Just before i got a car and evened out the front\rear weight (its the black car you get for the time trial Season event)

I wanted to see the tire load indicator changes but as far as I can tell, regardless of what changes I made the load on the tires didn't change.

At rest weight = even
During acceleration = weight at the rear
Steady 200km = weight evenly distributed
Breaking = weight at the front

I saw no variation in load even though I changed springs and ride height each time, imma mess around with it more since I'm noob but could a few people test it out?

 

[JackWilson]

My tests:
I just tried a quick test online with the RX-7 TC, tyre/fuel wear on, grip real, and had the tyre load indicator shown.

Equal Ride height: 0--0
The white circle didnt grow very big.

High Rear Height: 0--20
The rear white circles on the indicator were as big as they could be, right on the edge of the dark grey circle. This shows that the rear tyres are carrying the most load. The rear tyres had good grip on corner exit and I only spun the car if I went full throttle on the exit.

High Front Height: 20--0
The white circles on the rear tyre indicators were not as big as with the higher ride height, but they were bigger than equal ride height. In the corners I had to be really careful with my throttle control or the car would easily spin, mid-corner and exit.

So my opinion is that something is wrong. Having a higher rear should take load off of the rear tyres, but it appears to do the opposite.

Ok re-done the test with a higher ride height to prevent the suspension from bottoming out and causing the bumpers to take the load rather than the tyres.

Equal Ride height: 20--20
More load on tyres than at 0--0. More grip, more body roll.

High Rear Height: 20--40
Same as ride height at 0--20. The rear tyres had more load than the front, could be heavy footed with the accelerator and not worry about the rear tyres spinning, the rear was well planted.

High Front Height: 40--20
What I expected. The rear tyres had less load than with a higher ride height, which dont make sence. The car turned in much better and was quicker through the 1st section of Nurburgring GP/D by 0.5 seconds. You still had to be very light footed or you would easily spin out.

So now you know that the bumpers wernt stopping the tyres from touching the ground and the car wasnt bottoming out in my first test.

Setting the front of the car lower than the rear adds load to the rear tyres helping to keep them planted.
-- It does not give the car tendancy to oversteer and add grip to the front tyres like it should. --

Setting the front of the car higher than the rear takes load off the rear tyres, without making it bottom out, which causes the rear to lose grip and there fore oversteer.
-- It does not add load to the rear tyres, pushing them into the ground, to increase grip and keep that end of the car planted, like it should. --


@TimberW
Yes I have also done this with small increments.
On one my S2000 setups for the Touge I have the front 2mm lower than the rear and this gives more grip at the rear and has less wheelspin.
On my S2000 R1 I have the front set -5mm lower than the rear and this also keeps the rear more planted.
But it also makes the the front push a little on some corners. At first on the R1 setup I had the Front -10mm lower than the rear and the front end felt heavy and the car would understeer, no wheelspin, just understeer on corner entry. Raising the front 5mm helped alot but on some occasions you can feel the understeer.

I saw no variation in load even though I changed springs and ride height each time, imma mess around with it more since I'm noob but could a few people test it out?

Did you not notice the white circles grew larger when the end of the car was higher?? This shows there is more load on that end.

 

[HugeGremlins]

If they did it was barely noticeable, though it doesn't discredit what you have found since I am new to racing games and am probably doing something wrong.

Can I ask what track are you using and how are you testing it? For eg through corners or just driving in a straight line?

I'm gonna try again now with a car that has uneven weight distribution, the car I was using was probably too light & balanced to give noticeable variations.

Also I notice that by default many cars tuned by the developers have very hard front suspension and very soft rear. For eg. the Toyota 86 we just received in the latest patch has 6 front and 2 rear spring rate, the front is 3 times harder than the rear is that normal?

 

[nuclearfire]

I see this topic talked about alot and it seems to me the reversed suspension setting problem is in the PAL version for the most part. evin though i have used tune's posted form PAL users in the WRS and they seem to work fine.
As for me i have used the Apex book that came with the Collectors edition to tune a couple cars and they seem to affect the car's as the settings in the book say they should. i tuned a Nissan GT-R and a DMC DeLorean and a few others for the Ring

 

[JackWilson]

I see this topic talked about alot and it seems to me the reversed suspension setting problem is in the PAL version for the most part. evin though i have used tune's posted form PAL users in the WRS and they seem to work fine.
As for me i have used the Apex book that came with the Collectors edition to tune a couple cars and they seem to affect the car's as the settings in the book say they should. i tuned a Nissan GT-R and a DMC DeLorean and a few others for the Ring

Very interesting. If thats the case then I give up trying to convince people.

And to the above post, all what you asked about my test is in my results above.

EDIT: How do you tell if you have the PAL version, and are these versions worldwide? Or regional?

 

[HugeGremlins]

Negh I give up my results are retarded, basically nothing affects the car :\

Took a Ford Mach and switched between these two

Height Front -20 Height Rear +40
Rear Spring 6.0 Front Spring 15.0
Rear Extension 4.0 Front Extension 10.0
Rear Compression 4.0 Front Compression 8.0

Height Front -40 Height Rear +20
Rear Spring 15.0 Front Spring 6.0
Rear Extension 10.0 Front Extension 4.0
Rear Compression 8.0 Front Compression 4.0

I see no difference in performance or tire load, only by adding 200kg to the front did i see a difference in tire load but it was unaffected by either settings.

I just don't know what I am doing.

I wonder though if you raise the front of the car wouldn't that increase air flow below it? Could that maybe create some strange results?

 

[Moontallico]

I see this topic talked about alot and it seems to me the reversed suspension setting problem is in the PAL version for the most part. evin though i have used tune's posted form PAL users in the WRS and they seem to work fine.
As for me i have used the Apex book that came with the Collectors edition to tune a couple cars and they seem to affect the car's as the settings in the book say they should. i tuned a Nissan GT-R and a DMC DeLorean and a few others for the Ring

Yea, me too. I also bought the collectors edition and used the aid of the Apex book to tune my cars, along with Scaff's GT4 guide, and the settings are acording those guides. So maybe it is a diferent thing for diferent versions or regions.

 

[Motor City Hami]

So do the tuning groups in this forum use backwards settings?

I don't use ride height glitches in my tunes, nor do I see many of the other tuning garages enter tuning competitions with funky ride heights. Not sure if the tuning garages are affraid to put their money where their mouth is or if maybe they've found ways around the glitch that actually make the cars faster than just slamming the rear.

I won't debate that slamming the rear of the car can reduce understeer and increase oversteer. We can all feel that. So what we are all arguing about is whether that feel is backwards from what people think real world tuning should be. It's a game. If it works for you, use it. If you know you're faster doing this, then why do you want it changed? Will it be better for you if they edit the programming so that you can slam the nose instead and still go the same speed?

Stop trying to get PD to change something that may not really be broken. This subject has been debated now for almost a year and seems to have equal numbers who believe in "backwards" and who think "backwards is bogus." PD reads these boards. If they really thought it was a problem, don't you think it would have ranked high on their list of patches in a year's worth of updates.

My thoery (and just like the backwards crowd, it's just a thoery) is that slamming the rear shortens suspension travel and causes the rear tires to lose contact with the road - producing less grip. Why do I think this way and why did I use those exact words? Well, because it is writting into the in-game manual, which was written based off programmer notes.

 

[ElusiveYeti]

What does everybody think is backwards? Did they mix up the front with the rear, or did they mix up with down? I think they mixed up plus and minus because you can lower the front and visually notice that it is lower. However it doesn't do what it says in the description which is cause more oversteer. It acually does the opposite for me and causes more understeer. To me ride height is the only setting that feels backwards. Everything else works like it should roll bars, dampers, ect.

 

[Nismo34]

What does everybody think is backwards? Did they mix up the front with the rear, or did they mix up with down? I think they mixed up plus and minus because you can lower the front and visually notice that it is lower. However it doesn't do what it says in the description which is cause more oversteer. It acually does the opposite for me and causes more understeer. To me ride height is the only setting that feels backwards. Everything else works like it should roll bars, dampers, ect.

Softer front springs should also increase oversteer yet all my cars have stiffer fronts and they dont have a hint of understeer. I think they mixed front and back. Not visually, but effect wise.

 

[Diogo]

Old , but still funny and on-topic !

 

[Johnnypenso]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXVqzHDbQII

In fact, I am yet to see a tune that confirms the theory of backwards suspension.

I recall that in the Schulze TT I ran +60/0 for ride height, as did pretty much everyone else that made it near the top and finished just outside the top 100. In most of the TT's a firm high front end is combined with a low soft back end on the cars that run up front.

 

[Johnnypenso]

I don't use ride height glitches in my tunes, nor do I see many of the other tuning garages enter tuning competitions with funky ride heights. Not sure if the tuning garages are affraid to put their money where their mouth is or if maybe they've found ways around the glitch that actually make the cars faster than just slamming the rear.

I believe this is because the grip boost needed on one end or the other of cars isn't usually necessary. Most cars will rotate quite easily without wild ride height differentials or radical settings and what little differences there are between front and rear grip on most cars, can be fixed by tweaking other settings or with very small ride height differences. You don't need to raise the front end of an RX-8 because it's well balanced out of the box, like many, many FR cars in the game.

on some cars, particularly FF's, the boost in front ride height is invaluable. I had a 1,2,1 finish in 3 races, in a Mini on Saturday in an ITCC preseason race with 0/-20 ride height settings and a stiff front and soft rear with high ARB's on the back end.

I don't really follow any garages, but I've seen a few of Praiano's tunes and many of them take full advantage of ride height differentials to provide increased front or rear grip, so I suppose he is putting his money where his mouth is, he just doesn't talk about it.

 

[HaylRayzor]

I felt like suspension adjustments worked right in prologue. If I softened the front the car would understeer less. But in GT5 I feel like the result is unpredictable. Sometimes it's one way, sometimes another.

Other settings seem to behave as they should, like camber and toe.