No ABS Tips?

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Ian_83

Ian_83

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PleaseD1e
Hi,

I've started to race without ABS, previously I always had ABS set to 1.

I'm using a G27 with the standard brake spring.

I was just wondering if anyone could offer me any useful tips/hints to help me adjust to no ABS? I think that I'm half-decent already, but I'm always willing to learn new things and no doubt others on here that have been driving without ABS will know more than I do.

Cheers,
I. :)
 
cadence braking.
most of the time, lighting up your taillights is enough placebo effect to lineup your car.
easing off throttle, easing on brakes, never instant off, never instant mash
raising ride heights
slow in fast out
If using racing calipers, bbalance 1/1 is often enough
experiment
employ courtesy tactics
don't be a hothead on apex entry speed

just some off top of my head
 
The first step is to set up a proper brake balance:
That just takes some experimenting per car and it depends on your input device. I use a modded DFGT pedal set which I've added a LOT of brake pedal resistance. Do some straight line brake testing to get a B/B you're comfortable with. Personally I like to utilize a lot of pedal travel so I keep fairly low settings. I don't like the brakes to be so sensitive to lockup.

Practice, practice, practice! You're opening up a new level of physics by disengaging the inherent deceleration stability assist that ABS has. I'm not going to go into any driving techniques as those will simply be using a more "real life" driving style. No more pedal mashing and magic stabilizer!
 
Thanks for the replies so far guys. :D

From what I discovered so far; I prefer having a longer brake pedal, so lowering the brake balance is the way to go, although I haven't quite found a sweet spot on my cars yet. Having the balance too high is too risky, especially for a (no ABS) novice.

I drive a lot of FF cars, so I tend to have the rear brake balance a little higher than the front to avoid locking the front tyres up, or just getting them too hot before the corner entry. I'm currently racing with the Honda Integra DC05 touring car base model (what used to be the RM) and I'm finding it quite nice to drive with no ABS. I haven't found the perfect balance yet, but there is something quite rewarding about driving it without any aids. 👍

I guess the biggest learning curve is from general practice, listening to the tyre's more and being more aware of the amount of braking force being applied.

My biggest fear is locking up the brakes while racing online with others. I don't panic, but you know what it's like when the pressure is really on...it's easier to make a mistake when the pressure is on.
 
I found racing cars with their stock racing brakes are quite easy to control with no ABS, same as road cars with stock brakes, but throw some racing brakes on a road car & it becomes a different kettle of fish.

BTW Welcome to the no ABS club.

Ive been practicing for 2-3 months now & its great fun.
DS3 user :)
 
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Ian_83
I'm using a G27 with the standard brake spring.
My biggest fear is locking up the brakes while racing online with others. I don't panic, but you know what it's like when the pressure is really on...it's easier to make a mistake when the pressure is on.
Click to expand...
Trust me you NEED brake pedal mod 👍
 
I'd definitely suggest modding your brake pedal (provided you don't mind violating your warranty). I use the Nixim spring, myself; the GTeye spring also sounds good. The stock G27 brake spring is extremely weak and makes modulating pedal pressure precisely rather difficult. (Swapping the old brake spring into the clutch and the clutch spring into the accelerator is a good move as well, the loud pedal will feel too stiff at first but the extra throttle control is a great boon.)

Other than that, just practise practise practise. It takes time to get a good feeling for it. I've been running no ABS for a few months now, and only recently have I become really comfortable with it.

Ian_83
My biggest fear is locking up the brakes while racing online with others. I don't panic, but you know what it's like when the pressure is really on...it's easier to make a mistake when the pressure is on.
Click to expand...

I know that feeling... surprisingly, since ditching ABS I've only crashed into my fellow racers maybe twice due to lockups. :D Once you have a decent feeling for where the threshold is for a given car and corner, you can actually lock up slightly without losing much in the way of time or position.

Welcome to the no ABS club, it's a lot more fun and rewarding than using the magic brake assist. 👍
 
Johnnypenso
Brake balances without racing brakes can be much higher now for example but the principles are the same.
Click to expand...
I was wondering, as I've got some sky-high settings and have heard people online stating they tried ABSlessness in earlier games that left their mind made up regarding use at present. I don't have any experience with any of the past iterations and only know that 6 is pretty lenient. (Then again, I'm also on a controller and perhaps my input here is null and void.)
 
TexRex
I was wondering, as I've got some sky-high settings and have heard people online stating they tried ABSlessness in earlier games that left their mind made up regarding use at present. I don't have any experience with any of the past iterations and only know that 6 is pretty lenient. (Then again, I'm also on a controller and perhaps my input here is null and void.)
Click to expand...
In GT5 you only had one set of brakes. You could easily lock up many cars with settings as low as 1/0 with 50% pedal travel. In GT6 they introduced racing brakes and tweeked the stock brakes so that you could use higher settings without ABS before locking up. It's a welcome change for anyone wanting to drive with no aids at all.
 
^^^ Yeah, GT5 was practically impossible without ABS turned on. There was just no travel in the brake pedal and locking the brakes was super easy. The brakes had two modes......on and off. :lol:

GT6 seems to be much better, lowering the brake balance really does remove a lot of the braking force and increase the pedal movement. I've found that on a couple of cars, I lowered the BB and then had to increase it again due to a lack of brakes.

Is the G27 brake spring easy to swap and are they available from somewhere in the UK?...... EDIT// Just looked at the Nixim link. Great website, plain but informative. 👍

I might look into getting some good quality headphones so that I can hear the tyres better. I'm currently using a Turtle Beach PX21 which is pretty good, but when I don't need the mic, I'm sure that a good set of headphones would give me better quality sound.

Do people generally have the BB biased to the rear (eg: 4/5 or 2/3), or is it dependent on the car?
 
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It's dependent on the car, I recently discovered the Ferrari GTO, down powered to 500pp on Sport Softs tyres with no aids, you can go BB 7/8 and Still not get a hint of red tire anywhere, around the Nurburgring track, give it a try online, and watch you wonder how you're not using Racing Softs instead.

nice base settings: (Rideheight 110/110, all dampers to 3, no camber(rear 0.5 maybe), Front toe 0, rear toe +0.05, LSD 10/7/(10~15) , default tranny, Springs 8.25/9.97 (self tuned for London seasonal, consistent low 55s laptimes, no aids, left foot no abs braking), try various BB settings, they just don't lock.

racing calipers, are really for pilots that want to do quick last second car alignment when flying around the track, I don't recommend racing calipers for cruising, nor for heavy constant braking, nor for the faint hearted. I see the difference for example, take a stock Audi R8 on sport softs, you will improve your laptimes by a hair on Racing calipers, But, your braking style and amounts are not the same methods, as those with standard calipers.

oh, another golden tip for no ABS, slow down in current gear and drop those Engine RPM's WAY low, before downshifting. its much harder to tame a car when the whole powerband is coupled with your brakes in corners. keep the RPM's low, in a higher gear for stable and consistent higher speed in bends.
 
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Ian_83
^^^ Yeah, GT5 was practically impossible without ABS turned on. There was just no travel in the brake pedal and locking the brakes was super easy. The brakes had two modes......on and off. :lol:

GT6 seems to be much better, lowering the brake balance really does remove a lot of the braking force and increase the pedal movement. I've found that on a couple of cars, I lowered the BB and then had to increase it again due to a lack of brakes.

Is the G27 brake spring easy to swap and are they available from somewhere in the UK?...... EDIT// Just looked at the Nixim link. Great website, plain but informative. 👍

I might look into getting some good quality headphones so that I can hear the tyres better. I'm currently using a Turtle Beach PX21 which is pretty good, but when I don't need the mic, I'm sure that a good set of headphones would give me better quality sound.

Do people generally have the BB biased to the rear (eg: 4/5 or 2/3), or is it dependent on the car?
Click to expand...
I use the GTEYE and it was easy to change. There are step-by-step, full colour illustrated instructions that are very easy to understand. Kristian is an uber professional and I can't recommend this product any more highly.
 
Ian_83
^^^ Yeah, GT5 was practically impossible without ABS turned on. There was just no travel in the brake pedal and locking the brakes was super easy. The brakes had two modes......on and off. :lol:

GT6 seems to be much better, lowering the brake balance really does remove a lot of the braking force and increase the pedal movement. I've found that on a couple of cars, I lowered the BB and then had to increase it again due to a lack of brakes.

Is the G27 brake spring easy to swap and are they available from somewhere in the UK?...... EDIT// Just looked at the Nixim link. Great website, plain but informative. 👍

I might look into getting some good quality headphones so that I can hear the tyres better. I'm currently using a Turtle Beach PX21 which is pretty good, but when I don't need the mic, I'm sure that a good set of headphones would give me better quality sound.

Do people generally have the BB biased to the rear (eg: 4/5 or 2/3), or is it dependent on the car?
Click to expand...

BB adjustment depends on a lot of factors. Drivetrain, car weight, tire choice, race tuned suspension or stock street. Since you're running a FF with racing brakes on a light car, you should be able to run a pretty high bias. I would run as much brake as possible. Rear bias will definitely help rotate a FF car. In GT5 I used to run a tuned DC2 Type R on SS tires that would oversteer on entry. I used to tune all my GT5 cars with heavy rear bias running ABS@0.

Most all my driving in GT6 is stock street cars on Comforts... a lot of driving on CH tires. I keep a front heavy bias keeping with what a real life car would have. But Comforts generally need a very low BB.

Surround sound headphones really help hearing your tires. I've got some Turtle Beach PX5's with multiple output settings. Love the immersion factor.

That link Johnny posted is real helpful. There were some threads about ABS0 for GT6 but I couldn't find them them in a quick search.
 
I haven't used abs for a long time. Never going to use it again. Once I switched off abs... I realized that i have learned bad braking habits. Then you have to balance the bias to your style, and learn the different grip thresholds for each tire.
(my bias for an FR car is 7-4) with high grip tires... 5-3 with lower grip. but thats my preference that i am comfortable with.
I think My style is "threshold braking". I usually start the initial braking at a higher level around 75% to 80% (straight line) for a split second to barely lock the tires, then i ease off down to around 50% when entering the corner. Sometimes locking the tires acts as a really good defensive smokescreen too haha! Thats the plus side of no abs.

One thing you will notice is how the car rotates and behaves with different bias settings.
I try to get all my friends who call themselves "hardcore" to try not using abs and they just cant do it... Or they don't want to try if they can't pick it up right away.

We are the aids free 1 percent!

From my experience it was a steep learning curve for me.. Especially because i turned off the red blinking suggested gear at the same time and realized i depended on that alot, therefore not learning braking points. But once you gain the muscle memory for braking... It allows you to focus and react on the different tire sounds you hear! So now I am so used to braking without abs i barely have to think about it anymore and its an amazing feeling of accomplishment. I just wish there were more people like me in the lobbies. Also now for some reason i can brake faster than when i had abs! Im not sure if its placebo because of my lap times.
 
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