Incoming wall of text in 3... 2... 1...
(...) A higher extension value means that that side of the car is SLOWER to RAISE, yes?
High extention settings always mean the car is faster to raise.
1-At braking, front comp work with rear ext.
2-Then turn-in, it's front comp/front ext with rear ext + front ar bar + a little of rear ar bar.
3-Then apex it's front/rear comp in the outside of the apex, and front/rear ext in the inside of the apex. Front train comp/ext have a major importance, and rear comp/ext too so eveything need to be balanced. You have AR bars there too.
4-Then escape is front ext / comp and rear ext + rear ar bar + a little of front ar bar
5-Then accel is front ext / rear comp.
That was the elements listing that work during a curve, meaning you have to find a balance somehow for each transition between them.
The following is highly theorical because each car have different problem and thus have to be validated by multiple tests.
You want to have the less differences with the elements, but some to increase effects:
Damper force is SR * damp score. I will alway talk about this in this § when i mention comp / ext compairisons.
* From phase 1, you want front damper force > rear ext force to counter the weigth transit from rear to front because too much weigth transit in front mean the tire loose traction in front (ie too much weigth to support) and straigth bang to the wall.
If you take front comp forces >> rear ext forces, you will have usually strange results depending of the car. Either your front is floating around like on the LFA Nür, either that's massive understeer like on any FF. This setting is not easy to find esp in GT6, was easier for me in GT5.
* From phase 2, weigth distribution comes in at 50%. Same story as point 1 but with front comp/front ext. Rear ext have less importance here if the weigth distrib is like >50:<50.
* From phase 3 you want ideally ext < comp with the weigth distribution taking full effect here. If you took balanced springs that mean front = rear but this means there's problem with phase 1,2 and 4,5. You can try to counter this via AR bars.
* From phase 4, weigth distrib is fully in effect again, and increasing due to lateral forces and speed increasing. Treat this as phase 2 with the associated dampers.
* From phase 5, it's phase 1 inverted.
Dampers is always at the expense of something else.
GT default setup is x/x - x/x where x is whatever comes by default.
It's always a good thing to try comp @ x / x-y and ext @ x+y / x with AR @ x/x+y with balanced springs under "my" school of tuning on front engine cars, usually with low RH/ high SR, x = 4 and y = 2 but you can vary with x=3 and y = 1 aswell. I definitivly try c4/3 - e6/4 - ar 3/4 on each tune aswell sometime to good results. I think this should be the default setup.
But a lot of people think different.
The STRONGER rear EXTENSION dampers make the weight slower to go to the front. (slow forward tilt)
No that's where you're wrong. Strong rear ext mean the weigth will be catapulted to the front.
So, for POWER oversteer.
You hit the gas.
The weight shifts to the back.
The WEAKER front EXTENSION dampers make the weight FASTER to go to the back. (fast rearward tilt)
Wrong also. Weak front ext mean the weigth will go gently to the back, to be absorbed by high rear comp.
The weigth will shift from front to rear there, that's front ext / rear comp mainly working there ie a 3*19 working with a 9*24 in my Zonda.
More weight in the back while the car is rotating, gives the rear more inertia and so you are MORE likely to power oversteer if your rear extension dampers are STRONGER than front extension dampers.
You're generally rigth about the physical effect but rear ext have little to say in phase 4 or 5 as I said earlier.
As I said, too, there's exceptions.
Exemple in phase 1 : weigth in front is good for traction until the tires you got reach their limit. Then you loose traction and then go check who were watching you there in the public.
Exemple in phase 4 : neutral weigth from phase 3 will go to rear. If it goes to fast and make your tirs under too much load, you loose rear traction and tail chase. The "way of how you tail chase" can be fully controlled via LSD : initial and accel settings.
Accel and decel settings are either sensitivity, from GT4 official guide, accel/decel are "% of slip difference allowed".
Accel 15 mean a inside traction wheel can turn 50-15/2 and outside 50+15/2 : the inside wheel can turn 42.5% when the outside can turn 57.5% (or 57.5/42.5 = 35% more than the inside).
On FR/MR : If the outside rear traction wheel (for the Zonda) gets more than +35%, for exemple when it loose traction and slip freely, you will have say outside tire turning 200% (or 2000% i don't really know) more than the inside because it's free and the initial comes in effect with it's special effects.
ie high initial will correct with amount quantum of strength but not esentially come back faster to a non slipping/allowed diffenrence situation via accel/decel because those high quantum of strengh can make a car change direction : say your car is outside 200% / inside 100% meaning outside wheel turn 2 turns for inside 1 turn. Initial will comes in effect and slow the 200% + quicken the 100%. So you get say at a moment 160% / 140% and at these speeds the tire loose traction at 135% : bam the LSD tries to correct both tire at the same moment : next is 140% / 160% meaning a change of direction, then 160 / 140 change again, then 140 / 160 forever (you should have slow down anyway to go back under 135 / 135 !). Initial seems to be little too much
That's why I think the exact opposite of some people say high initial = high correction = faster to unlock. Because the correction can make the second tire loose traction and there it's locking / spining / change direction forever.
High accel/decel is faster to lock I agree. An adapted initial is faster to unlock (not low or high). There one "rigth" initial value whatever your car is setup. Susp /camber have an effect on it, but it minimal (ie +/- 1 click). That's very important to know. Accel / decel is quite the same story but it's more dependent of the susp since they will act in case of emergency when you loose traction or not working anytime when turning around allowing difference in wheels (the LSD will always try to come back under accel/decel sensitivity).
When loosing control if your car always change direction, that mean your initial is way too strong (+ your camber allow too much difference in lateral force on your wheels). If your car have understeer problem in apex, that mean your initial is too week. If your loose traction forever your initial is too strong again, etc.
That's why accel on rear propulsion cars are generally < to front traction car, because of where the weigth is in phase 4 (that is what makes a outside tire to slip) and the opposite on decel (front traction car decel < rear propulsion car decel).
4WD... well... I have to translate my feelings in words before talking about that. I will write an article on this.
Remember, you want to go close to the tire limit, either by adapting your tune or your driving but never reach it !
Tires is the most important part for the control of the car, it's 50%, sups is 35%, lsd is 15% (in GT5 lsd was way more important, like 25%).
