Ride Height Adversely Affects Top Speed...

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wills2084

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lengthybaton
So I've read this on a few other forums and thought I'd give it a try and it worked. While grinding away at Indy with my FGT I had it set to -5 mm on the front and 0 mm ride height on the back. With all my other settings my car was topping out at 233mph. I then went and raised my front to +10mm and lowered my back to -10mm and I DIDN'T touch anything else. Next time around Indy I was topping out at 236mph. Interesting the handling didn't feel any different at all either. No sense of understeer at all. I'm going to do some more testing on this. Has anyone else tried or noticed this?
 
onza
raising the front will decrease downforce therefore increasing top speed.
Click to expand...

It also lets more air under the car and reduces the pulling effect of the ground below which probably creates more drag.

As a car moves through the air, it pulls some air along through friction. The ground does the same thing to air that has been sped up by the car. If the ground is close enough, it will prevent the boundary layer on the car's under surface from stagnating (stopping) and reduce the amount of momentum robbed by the air. Raising ride height allows a larger boundary layer to form, which will rob the car of more speed.

On topic. I haven't test this in GT5, so it's news to me that raising height makes you faster. I highly doubt it, but they could have modeled choking of the undertray by having the ride height too close to the ground.
 
Exorcet has it right. the lower a car is, the better the aero will work. But, this doens't seem to jive with the OP's findings. Technically, having both at -10 should net top speed gains above the 236 mentioned.

I can see how lowering the rear helps with top speed ... it cleans up the air at the back of the car so there is less turbulence there. But lifting the front should increase drag, basically negating the effect. the speed gain likely comes from changing the attack angle of the fixed spoiler which reduced drag. You could accomplish the same by simply decreasing the rear spoiler downforce.

If you could, try to lower the spoiler settings and run the car at -10/-10 height. If you have the spoiled all the way down already, then you've found an odd glitch in the handling as it should understeer a bit with the nose jacked up like that.
 

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