Race longevity settings and techniques

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PARAGON GT

PARAGON GT

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R MK XXV
To all the endurance racer lovers out there . . .
. . . how far can you push your car before having to pit for fuel, or tires?

Meaning . . . How many laps can you complete, posting competitive times, before having to pit again?

"Race" cars that is, not "Road" cars.

I’ve seen many threads all over the board looking for setting to improve lap times, and overall speed . . . but I haven’t stumbled across any threads where people have discussed increasing the longevity of a car on the track.

Do certain manufacturers cars have an advantage over others?
Who has the advantage, and what is the notable advantage?

I have been tuning a couple cars in an effort to in crease their time on the track, and decrease their time in the pits while still maintaining a competitive time on the track against the A.I.. I wanted to see if I was making headway in my efforts, or if I was on par with other people were able to achieve.

All this was in preperation for my first attempt at running Sarthe Circuit 24 hours 1. My first goal was to match the A.I.’s pitting pattern in a given car.
My second goal was to surpass it. And my final tuning goal was to alleviate the mentioned twitchiness that most cars developed as the race progressed.

The car that I decided to run in the event was the Audi R8 on Racing hard tires on front and back. For the first 100 miles or so I managed to pit every 9 laps in need of fuel. As I would pit, the indicator would be blank and I would have around 3 units of fuel left. The tires would be light yellow.

Knowing that I had plenty of tread left to persue another couple laps, I changed my driving style to see if I could reduce my fuel consumption in order to make it another lap.

So after adjusting my driving style, and verifying the results when I pitted (checking how much fuel was left at fill up as I pitted on the 9th lap) I managed to run 10 complete laps before having to pit.

I felt quite accomplished after achieveing this. But I wanted to see if others have been able to achieve this mark.

My next event is going to be the Infineon World Sports Car Trophy with the same car. (litterally the same, no wash or oil change from the 24 hour event.)

In a trial run I was able to run 20 laps before having to hit the pits for tires, which was 4 or so laps beyond what the next closest cars did.

So . . . How am I doing so far?

What have you been able to achieve?
 
Interesting concept, Paragon. Improving tyre-life is something that is present in my set-ups where-ever possible. It usually makes the tuning challenge all the harder and can be frustrating at times but it is rewarding when you manage to calm down a car that used to eat front or rear tyres to more manageable and balanced wear rates.

Driving style can play a large role in tyre wear, primarily diving into corners hard on the brakes and hitting the loud-pedal too early on the way out. Both cause excessive scrub and wear your boots out faster.

But I know I'm preaching to the choir here so I shall desist saying what everybody knows before I embarass myself :embarrassed: :D.
 
Well I'am a late breaking tyre shreading monster so this is important to me when I did the 24 hour at la sarthe 2 I noticed instantly when the oil change died out because on the straight I was going only 249mph when I had my R92cp going 254mph before.

It really depends on the car The bently Speed 8 has much better tyre wear I could go for 6 laps just like the R92cp but my tyres would be much better. I aways had feul left for two more laps. The bently is strange it can only do 7 to start a race feul wise but it gets better gas milage after a few stints, maybe the 5% oil upgrade wore out. I could more than 6 comfortably but I'm actually really good at driveing with cold tyres so I pitted early, I usually had a 45-55 second lead by the six lap, (I used the bently for la sarthe 1)

Your lap stints are impressive though, the twitchyness is frame warp and only really affects yo alot during braking and driveing a high speed but at a lower speed course you might be able to drive it, it only cost me around 1-2 seconds that laps I did late in the race..

The big suppossed secret, to why the AI can generally go more laps without pittings is because they don't max the throttle down even on straightaways, they lightly brake unless they get interfered with by other AI or you... or they just let off the gas, going slower less braking and steady throttle will save your tyres a bunch...
for a player I think the important thing is to identify why a car is having tyre problems wether it's your setting or the way your driveing... for most cars or both the cars I have used for the 24hour la sarthe races, I just jacked TCS up to 7..

I havn't done alot of experimenting I'll try some things out on my Peugeot cause I will be useing that on La sarthe 2 to get me a new bently XD
 
Longevity versus pure speed is soemthing i've dabbled with only when i absolutely have to. Like i drove some car a few months ago in the 1000 Miles event at Sarthe. Towards the end of the race i went in for a pitstop, but wanted to get out of the pits ASAP because my position in the race was fragile.

Anyways, i left the pits too early and didn't get enough fuel, because within a few laps i was down to just 2 bars left! And i knew i would be down further to just a single bar of fuel. There was nothing i could do, so i drove more conservatively (rather than run totally out of fuel and lose more positions). I don't remember the outcome, but i'm sure i didn't win the race. I simply did what i had to so i could at least earn some good 2nd place money.

But usually, i'm the one tearing the hell out of the course. :mischievous:
 
sukerkin: Yes, a lot of what you said is true. Tuning and driving style both have positive and negative effects on the wear and tear on your cars ability in staying out on the track longer. What are the cars that you have worked with, and what are the results.

RzB: I was that type of racer too. I would smoke a set of super hard tires at Infineon in the C60 Judd in 9 laps. Well under what the majority of cars in that race would pit in. That was one of the reasons I started working on my tuning skills. It sounds like I have made some really good progress in my tuning. I have a Bentley in my garage that I will start working on later. That and my Black Beauty collection are on my list of cars to improve upon. (especially that tire munching R92CP!) I can't wait to see what you are able to do with the Peugeot 905. Thats one car that I have never driven, and i'm curious to see what it can do.

Parnelli Bone: I was the same for a long time. But after I started running car in their stock form for most of the races for points, I've gotten into the habit of racing cars as close to stock as I can. Not that I don't go out once and a while to blow the doors off a pack of cars. But for the most part its stock or close to.

Did I mention that I ran the R8 as is? I only tuned adjustable parts already on the car and added racing hard tires.

So what do you think a viable test track for this test would be for a comparison? I was thinking Infineon because it is one of the shorter endurance races, and the track can really tear up a set of tires.

I'll post up my settings when I see more people show interest in this thread.
 
I was able to run 17 laps at infineon with enough feul left for 3 more.. later in the race I did try 18 and managed it easily..

The Peugeot drives great on the cold Super hards compared to other Class C/LMP cars I've driven, and I easily pulled out to a 9 second lead at the start of the race, my opponants were the C-5R GTS, BMW LMR, sauber C9, Nissan R92CP, and Panoz Esperante (Waste of 4,500,000)

I have run this race previously with the black R92CP, and had pitted every 14 laps like the AI, So I knew when the Sauber and the R92CP would have to pit the only AI I was possibly worried about was the BMW, but he pitted on lap 17 the same lap I did but I was already done pitting and driving up te hill before he even went into the pitts, when I pitted on lap 17 I had 38 liters or units of feul left and was 40 seconds ahead of the LMR, the R92cp and C9 had pitted on lap 14 and fell behind the LMR... I lapped the entire feild except the Sauber by the lap 34 when I was suppossed to pitt agian but I decided to push it another lap and dispite some rear end slide occassionaly it drove the fine, I could have pushed for 19 but decided that My lap time would be hurt by atleast 3 to 4 seconds if I did lap 19 on red rear tyres.

By the time lap 39 got done I had lapped everyone and the race was basicly over so I just exited the race... I hope to be able to do 20 or 21 laps that I have feul for, I'm going to try changeing the braking balance so it's only on the front tyres and increasing TCS abit, by the way that 17/18 laps stints was with my normal driveing style also with the top speed gearing that I'm not ever going to change cause it's perfect, the car has been turned into a 5 speed, the top speed I ever hit on this course was only 165, 35Mph below the shift for 5th gear...

I'm going to try this race a few more time with a stronger line-up hopefully wihout any GTS cars because I know the R89c or the minolta can probably get around the course faster than my Peugeot, as it is my top time was only 1:21:Xxx' my average time was between 1:22:Xxx and 1:24:Xxx.

After I try this abit more I want to see if I can match the Mazda 787B's 9 laps at la sarthe 2...

I also got this awsome picture when I passed the C9 on the outside;
 
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Sounds like it was pretty much the same line up that I ran agains't when I ran a mock trial to the first pit stop to see how far I could push the car. On racing hard tires I managed to make it to the end of lap 20 before having to pit. The back tires were starting to lose their grip, so after drifting the final turn I decided to head in. I want to say that I had around 30 units of fuel left. I'm sure that if I switched the back tires to Super hards I could extend the run a few more laps.

I'd like to know how you have the 905 set and how you are running it. (When you shift and things like that.)

Here are the settings on the R8 that I tuned:

Suspension -
SR - 14.4 / 15.5
RH - 70 / 75
SA - -- / --
SB - 2 / 2
AR - 5 / 5
CA - 2.5 / 0.7
TO - 0 / 0
ST - 5 / 5

Trans -
1 - 3.513
2 - 2.243
3 - 1.586
4 - 1.181
5 - 0.925
6 - 0.763
F - 3.500
A - 23

LSD -
I - 25
A - 35
D - 5

Aids -
O - 3
U - 1
T - 2

Brakes -
F - 7
R - 7

Downforce:
I don't have it written down here, but I believe that I cut it back to the first quarter mark from its highest setting.

I don't know if you have the car or not, but give it a try. I have found that these settings will work on other cars nicely, others will need a bit of reworking, but it was a good place to start IMO.

At Sarth-1, in order to make it 10 laps I did the following.
Shifted between 6 and 7 on the tach.
NEVER went above 7 in 6th on the straights.
And, after the tires started to warm up, always stayed 1 gear above where the shift indicater said to down shift to. I would slow down to an approporate speed for the corner, but used the cars torque to accelerate out of the corner to keep the RPM's low.

I didn't use the same stratagy at Infineon because I was just messing around. But I'm sure that it would work there too to extend its time away from the pits.
 
I do have the R8 and it is a great car ran it for a few laps on Nurb, when I first got it, didn't touch a thing. It's a great LMP, they have just as much acceleration as the class C cars but most have more torque, they tend to lose oomph at around the 200's though...(obviously can be fixed with gear but I was talking stock or default settings)

I ran the infineon and made 20 laps, and discovered the Peugeot can drive great on red rear tyres. XD

This time there was a new contender the R89c which was 2 seconds ahead of me on the fourth lap, I thought I had a challenge until he went flying off the course on that long arc turn before the straight away.. I flew by and never saw him agian, I was 40 seconds ahead AFTER pitting... I was disapointed...

My settings are;
(I had been useing a turbo I might get rid of it and change my gear settings to see if the rear tyres fair better)

Peugeot 905 Race Car '92
1057HP (with stage 4 turbo)
851HP(without) -MR-750Kg
459.1 miles (nothing compared to the 3,200 miles on the bently)

Tyres: R1 Super-hards
Brake Balance; F:5/R:1
Driving Aids: ASM 0/0 off
TCS:8

Suspension; F/R
Spring rate: 19.0/19.0
RH: 60/60
Shock bound: 6/6
Shock Rebound: 8/8
Camber angle: 2.0/1.0
Toe: 0/0
Stab: 6/6

Gears;
1st: 5.120 (0-50 mph)
2nd: 3.100 (50-90)
3rd: 2.162 (goes from 90 to 140-145)
4th: 1.594 (shifted into at around 140-145_ can be pushed to rev limter at 205)
5th: 1.242 (auto shifts to this gear at like 198 I sometimes hold till 200 to shift, hold gear down untill you hit 248 if you can't, do not shift)
6Th: 1.145 (tops at 256mph, should never be shifted into by auto cause you'll drop speed to about 234mph and it will just shift back to 5th...)
Final 3.200

If it's a dead stop or a running start all the other Class C and LMP are gona leave you in the dust until you hit 3rd gear then you'll catch right back up to them assuming you drive a good line, if you have a long straight like at la sarthe or nurburing unless you can draft someone just hold it in 5th gear it will do 248mph, maybe 250mph then, the only track with smooth enough road and long enough to shift into 6th without drafting is test course.. this gear setting isn't recommended for motorland or the beginners course XD

..agian when doing a 24 hour race for good gas mileage I would hold back any car to 230 or lower.. (since the AI rarly goes above 218/219 unless there drafting..)
 
I have tried different techniques to maintain tire life and all seem to fail. No matter what car I used I would eat through tires and would have to pit anywhere from 66-80% sooner than the AI on aggressive slower speed courses and 75-90% on the higher speed courses. Its not too bad as I can get about 1-3 sec per lap on them.
 
That was the hardest part about setting one of these cars. trying to adjust the aids.

It seemed that If I turned off the over and under, and kept the TCS at 2, sometimes the slightest wheel hop during a turn would cause me to spin out. It took me some time to balance out the Audi with 3,1,2. I found that it didn't really hamper the cars handling characteristics, but still help maintain the tires.

How are you guys setting your cars?
 
Killer, The Peugeot is a class C car not LMP, and it does cook the tires when the TCS is off I haven't tried it at an low level like 1 or 2...(I might though and see how it does..) I have read other members say in this forum that doing so helps save the tires so I tried it.. I don't think there is a big diffrence between the stock setting of 5 and my setting of 8 though...

And Paragon what kinda of hop are you talking about? in all the LMP/Class C cars I never hop unless its the huge bumps at the 'Ring... Then agian I have super stiff suspension.. I do that with every car just about... and I would think ASM would eat your tires up because it uses the brakes during turns to maintian car stability which would add to the tire wear but since there so low I'm not sure...

I also curious about how much toe angles and camber angles effect tire wear also... I also forgot to put that I was useing full downforce also the default LSD's setting because I really don't understand what to do with LSD or how to improve my car by changing it so I don't touch it...

I had this on hold latly as I had been playing around with my TVR Cerbera Speed 6...
 
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PARAGON GT
That was the hardest part about setting one of these cars. trying to adjust the aids.

It seemed that If I turned off the over and under, and kept the TCS at 2, sometimes the slightest wheel hop during a turn would cause me to spin out. It took me some time to balance out the Audi with 3,1,2. I found that it didn't really hamper the cars handling characteristics, but still help maintain the tires.

How are you guys setting your cars?
Click to expand...

Paragon, when it comes to the LMP/GrpC cars, I actually slather a tiny bit more on all areas to converse the tyres all around, on the fronts aswell as the rears. The main reason is from the wheel hopping you can experience on Le Sarthe or the 'ring, even Trial Mountain too. This has been a pretty good base line tune to conserve tyre life for me and I lighten it in accordance with the track, and how much I want it to get loose around corners. My setup is:
ASM U = 6
ASM O = 6
TCS = 5

Also rzb, if you crank the TCS to 8 it's a bit too much as I've learnt from my drag experience, and hinders acceleration through the gears. If you ease it a little bit you'll see wonders come out of that car and same tyre wear out of the rear tyres.
 
See, when I set my R8 I to run the 24 @ Sarth 1, was initially trying to run with out and driving aids. Unfortunately I was trying to do so with a DS2 and wasn't very successful. While I can accelerate quite well out of the corners on an empty track, when I started running against other cars I was too over zealous on the throttle exiting the corners, I would break the tires loose and on occasion would often spin out.

So to keep me from roasting the tires I started to turn up the tcs one click at a time.
Which was working fine, except for when I reached the corner at Indianapolis. (before T5) As I would come into the turn I would tap the brakes just to slow down a little to take the right hand turn into the sharp left before T5. About every 3rd time the TCS would lock up the back wheels in the middle of the right hand turn, the car would go sideways and I would end up in the sand box.

So to counter that I started turning up the ASM O to keep the back end from blowing out like that. And I ended up adding a click of ASM U to even it all out after the other two felt set.

Overall the car still feels balanced, and the tires can and will break loose if I stomp on the gas, but the duration that they will is drastically shorter than it would be if I turned off the TCS completely. And I can get pretty good wear out of a set of tires on Sarth 1.

As mentioned above, I was able to pull off 10 good laps on a set of racing hard tires, and still had plenty of tire left to go a few more laps, just not enough fuel. And at Infineon I was able to go 20 laps before having to pit for tires on the same set up. I'm sure that I could push a few more laps if I dropped to super hard tires.
 
So what JGTC car seems to outlast the others on the track?

I'm in the process of tuning the Nissan XANAVI HIROTO GT-R (JGTC) 2001 (as seen in my avatar), and while it seems to run fairly well on the track during a hot lap or sprint race, when I enter an endurance race I seem to wear out the front tires out considerably faster than the rear tires.

I ran the 300K @ Grand Valley and the 300K on the 240, and I had the same problem each race. I even took the time to readjust the suspension inbetween the two races. It made a minor improvement, but I still ended up running Super hard tires on the front while maintaining Race hard tires on the back in order to get fairly equal wear between the two.

Any suggestions on what might be the problem? Or is this just typical of the car?

What about the other JGTC cars?
 
My logic says that the front-engined JGTC models always kill the front tyres before the rears as the fronts are subjected to much higher forces during cornering and there isn't overwhelming power to shred the rears during accelerations. You could see how the NSX does, the weight is more on the rear tyres so the wear should be more even.
 
Endurance Tuning Tip

During the course of many of these races and the 1000 miles, many race and road cars will lose "rigidity", even if refreshed prior to the race, resulting in steering instability particularly noticeable during high speed straitaway portions of the track. I refer to this condition as "stick steer". Steering inputs result in the car continuing to turn even when the steering is returned back to straight or 0 degree input. To compensate every steering input must be countered with a opposite input in an attempt to straighten the car back out. This can easily result in a see-saw or hunting condition which can cause loss of control and corner lineup and entry problems. Needless to say, this can be very frustrating to deal with during the course of a already difficult and gruelingly long race.

Accordingly, adding 1 to 2 degrees of "toe in" to the rear and sometimes also to the front, will reduce this problem to an acceptable level if not eliminate it without adversely affecting the overall handling of the cars I've used it on.
If at all possible now I set the car up and start the race with loss of rigidity, to insure the car will drive consistently the same thruout the race, instead of having to adapt to the change when it occurs sometime during the race.
 
Steering inputs result in the car continuing to turn even when the steering is returned back to straight or 0 degree input.
Click to expand...
Cool, interesting theory. And the number 111,813 in your sig suggests we should listen to this advice. By 'toe-in', you mean -1 or -2 in the settings?
 
PF
Cool, interesting theory. And the number 111,813 in your sig suggests we should listen to this advice. By 'toe-in', you mean -1 or -2 in the settings?
Click to expand...

"Toe in" is measured by the plus numbers and the negative numbers are "toe out".
 
SuperCobraJet
"Toe in" is measured by the plus numbers and the negative numbers are "toe out".
Click to expand...

Aaah, so positive toe can cancel (or reduce) the effects of chassis wear in an enduro? Thanks for that, setting toe is one of the many things I can't do in GT4.
 

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