Rigidity

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rickykaka3

rickykaka3

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Yesterday i tried 2 different sti's, one with improved rigidity and the other without. Test them online at suzuka, 550pp, sh tires. sti with no rigidity did 2.14 the sti with improved rigidity did 2.10 after few laps, my question is: should i improve rigidity on every car? someone that test them both please share your opinion.
 
I tested two brand new Honda S2000's at Bathurst. One with rigidity and one without. There was no other mods other than rigidity. I drove both for 40 mins, ultimately my fastest lap was done without rigidity by 0.5 seconds.

I think if you were to buy rigidity for all your cars as the 1st upgrade, you would be fine. It's only when you buy rigidity after you have the car settings just right that people get upset with rigidity. If you can't get a car set up good with rigidity, just buy another car.

The changes rigidity makes to a car is the same kind of changes people are generally looking for when the tune a car. I would say rigidity is similar to having roll bars and shocks a little stronger than stock and maybe ride height a little lower. So you could have rigidity on a car and set the shocks and roll bars softer and ride height higher than you would otherwise have them, which would be advantageous on some circuits.

Ultimately, rigidity will either improve the cars potential or not, but I suspect it might be different from car to car.
 
Hmmm there are very small amount of information regard to this topic, body rigidity improvement. From what I gather it makes chronic oversteering car to induce understeer.

I could be wrong but my hypothesis is that car like Porsche with its wider rear axle always makes rears to react first under cornering load and do most of the cornering while with softer chassis when the body twists both the front tyres are still firmly planted giving too much grip from the front - oversteer.

With stiffened chassis when under cornering load there is no more body twists and lifts front inside tyre, more load on outside front tyre, less coerced grip from inside and outside, fronts simply give away to the cornering load and slide - understeer.

While PD might be reading this n laughing their @ss off saying "We're not that good, we just programmed it to shift weight distribution forward and backward, nothing to do with body flex."lol

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From what I've found improve rigidity induces oversteer into a car. So if you have major understeer car it will help, if you have a major oversteer car it will hurt it and some cars could care less, the ones that care less are mostly race cars and awd.
Examples
nsx-understeer car rigidity helps
Corvette oversteer car rigidity hurts
Delta could care less.
 
Otaliema
From what I've found improve rigidity induces oversteer into a car. So if you have major understeer car it will help, if you have a major oversteer car it will hurt it and some cars could care less, the ones that care less are mostly race cars and awd.
Examples
nsx-understeer car rigidity helps
Corvette oversteer car rigidity hurts
Delta could care less.
Click to expand...

If my theory is right, if body flex as such even exist in GT6, above mentioned symptoms prove more convincing. The body flex does occur IRL between two ends mainly where engine is situated the body rolls more, because it is heavy. So if rear mounted engine chassis like NSX which shouldn't understeer anyway but when it does the hardened chassis should take away that undue grip from the fronts and give some of it to the rear.

As for the Corvette, although it's nearly perfectly balance car with 49/51 distribution the engine is at the front so the front half should twist side to side more than the rear and it *should* understeer but when in fact it experiences the opposite the reinforced chassis would make rears do more work therefore, more oversteer.

Of couse I could be all wrong and made myself look like an ass.lol

edit: No, I just contradicted myself on NSX case, I don't know why it changes under to over when in fact it should further worsen the result and you should get MORE understeer by stiffening the chassis.

edit: My conclusion is rigid chassis should provide more grip to the INSIDE tyre of HEAVIER end and at the same time puts outside tyre of lighter end under more load.
 
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JujiroMatsuda
If my theory is right, if body flex as such even exist in GT6, above mentioned symptoms prove more convincing. The body flex does occur IRL between two ends mainly where engine is situated the body rolls more, because it is heavy. So if rear mounted engine chassis like NSX which shouldn't understeer anyway but when it does the hardened chassis should take away that undue grip from the fronts and give some of it to the rear.

As for the Corvette, although it's nearly perfectly balance car with 49/51 distribution the engine is at the front so the front half should twist side to side more than the rear and it *should* understeer but when in fact it experiences the opposite the reinforced chassis would make rears do more work therefore, more oversteer.

Of couse I could be all wrong and made myself look like an ass.lol

edit: No, I just contradicted myself on NSX case, I don't know why it changes under to over when in fact it should further worsen the result and you should get MORE understeer by stiffening the chassis.

edit: My conclusion is rigid chassis should provide more grip to the INSIDE tyre of HEAVIER end and at the same time puts outside tyre of lighter end under more load.
Click to expand...

I don't know why it's working that way it did the same thing in GT5 sorta, it "improved" the cars basic handling buy intensifying the cars normal tendencys. O_o

I figured out the chassis bit with my C7 I couldn't get the blasted thing to turn at speeds greater than 170 km/h no matter what I did, so I bought a new one skipped the chassis reinforcement and poof I had a car that turned at 220 km/h no change to the tune. I was even able to skip all the aero so it's bloody quick and nearly bullet proof. I havn't tested it in the S 20 mile race at willow, but I still need to work that tune over the full bore has got so much power for SS tires....
 
Otaliema
From what I've found improve rigidity induces oversteer into a car. So if you have major understeer car it will help, if you have a major oversteer car it will hurt it and some cars could care less, the ones that care less are mostly race cars and awd.
Examples
nsx-understeer car rigidity helps
Corvette oversteer car rigidity hurts
Delta could care less.
Click to expand...
You've the understeer / oversteer concepts swapped, rigidity improvement induces understeer, the natural behaviour of a NSX is oversteer and a Corvette is understeer.

Understeer -> the car does not want to turn
Oversteer -> the car wants to turn too much
 
You're right, I should know better than to post when I'm in a rush and can't proof read.
I got the cars right and what it does to them lol.
 
I generally don't improve body rigidity unless it's an older car with a softer chassis than most modern cars. If I lighten a car a lot from factory also I'd install improved rigidity. Generally haven't noticed major improvements straight away, only ever really noticed it inducing understeer which you need to tune out yourself. It comes down to preference and how much time you want to spend perfecting a car, I really do notice a more responsive feel with older cars pre 90's on stock springs. Hope this helps, I'm no expert in the game still learning myself.
 
You guys are saying PD has messed up the rigidity because you dont understand what it really does. It affects all cars differently because each car flexes differently.

Chassis flex is movement in the frame, like a spring compressing. This means cars that have great setups stock like the s2000 are hurt in stock form by the rigidity upgrade.

This is because the spring rates are set up without the reduced chassis flex. So when you stiffen the chassis, I messes with the balance of springs amd dampers.

This is quickly discovered after a tuned car with improved rigidity reaches around 500 miles. about 300 miles for race cars.

A soft chassis uses softer spring rates, stiffen the chassis and those spring rates are made even softer because.

The more miles a tuned car racks up, the stiffer the car feels. A ideal compression setting of 3 on a fully rigid chassis will make an old chassis jump and jolt.

So every car benefits for improved rigidity unless the needed spring rates to balance the car are outside of the chooseable spring rates.

I hope this helps yoy guys understand the affects of improving chassis rigidity.
 
It has always been my understanding that the chassis reinforcement will stiffen the chassis/reduce flex which should allow the suspension to do it's job in a more consistant and predictable manner. I would recommend it be used on most road cars if you are drastically increasing the power/fitting race tyres, but I think it is largely unneeded if remaining around stock power/performance levels or in race cars.
 
I am building SaReNi United / Reiter Engineering Camaro GT3 using Camaro Touring Car, I still use Improve Body Rigidity. There's no such thing as too much body stiffness, the more rigid the chassis, the better it is for racing :)

My latest Ferrari 458 GT3 replica also uses it, and it makes the car so much better :D
 

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