Weight Transfer

[ToFu_GuY]

hey...

i was reading another forum at this other site and they were talking about weight transfering..

i no how to weight transfer for MR, FR cars and getting better on FF cars... how do u weight transfer on a 4WD car?

 

[grimreaper 86]

every action has an effect on the weight transfer of any drivetrain,
braking shifts weight to the front,which in turn has an effect in front tyre grip.
and if im not mistaken welcome to gtp

 

[Dave A]

Welcome to GTP, please feel free to look around, also you'll find the Look here before you ask FAQ is exellent and will answer most questions without having to wait for an answer or to look hard for one.

 

[shift2drift]

umm i might sound stupid but, what can weight transfer do to help get faster? isnt it used only for drifting?

 

[Dave A]

It's used for everything from accelerating and braking beter to every kind of cronering. Every movment transfers weight in one way or another so you have to use that transfer in the most effective way possible for each situation.

 

[ToFu_GuY]

um.. sry back to the main point...

how do i do weight transfer for a 4WD?

 

[Purple Platypus]

Originally posted by shift2drift
umm i might sound stupid but, what can weight transfer do to help get faster? isnt it used only for drifting?

Well...soft weight transfers are crucial to going fast. If you transfer weight quickly from side to side, you slide out and drift. So, you want to be careful with the weight of the car, making sure that you don't drift, or you go slower.

Yes, drifting is slower (usually )

Anyways.......weight transfer for 4wd is exactly the same as mr, fr, and ff. If you're in the middle of a turn, you can let off the gas or tap the brake and weight goes to the front end. This gives you a little bit of "lift-off" oversteer, and can be very useful if you're heading out to the outside of a tight corner. If you stay on the gas through the corner, weight stays at the back end, and the front doesn't have much traction. So, you easily get some bad torque steer, just like an ff.

Hope that helps

 

[ToFu_GuY]

thanks... do u have any recommendations of when to use the brakes and the hand brakes..

i mean like if ur goin reallin fast... and u have to turn a corner.. do u use brakes or hand brakes..?

and if u are goin not that fast and u turn a corner.... do u use hand brakes so u dont lose that much speed?

 

[Solid Lifters]

Don't set the suspension so tight. You'll slide around too much if you do. You want the car to lean, just a little bit.

 

[Purple Platypus]

Originally posted by ToFu_GuY
thanks... do u have any recommendations of when to use the brakes and the hand brakes..

i mean like if ur goin reallin fast... and u have to turn a corner.. do u use brakes or hand brakes..?

and if u are goin not that fast and u turn a corner.... do u use hand brakes so u dont lose that much speed?

Well....I suggest ALWAYS using the brakes, and NEVER using the hand brake when you're race driving. Because.....the hand brake simply locks up the rear wheels. On all cars. So....when you hit the hand brake, you lose all kinds of stability and slide around. Also, it doesn't slow you down very much at all. So, if you just want to slow down a LITTLE bit, and just move the weight around a little, I personally suggest (and also do myself) poking at the brake button with the tip of your thumb while still staying on the gas. This works well in those high speed corners that you can't take full speed.

Keep up the practice, and good luck

 

[Duke]

Originally posted by ToFu_GuY
um.. sry back to the main point...

how do i do weight transfer for a 4WD?

To clarify:

Weight transfer is not something you DO. Weight transfer is something that HAPPENS every time you make a control input. In any car, regardless of drivetrain.

To summarize:

Braking makes weight transfer to the front wheels.
Accelerating makes weight transfer to the rear wheels.
Turning left makes weight transfer to the right wheels.
Turning right makes weight transfer to the left wheels.
Combinations of the above occur when you do more than one thing at one time.

Good management of weight transfer is important to making the car handle, whether you're trying to drift or go fast. As others said, smooth weight transfer will allow the suspension to load without overwhelming the tires and causing a slide.

 

[Gabkicks]

Honest to god. this will help u understand weight transfer in GT3. Play Live for speed for the pc... thats all.

 

[ToFu_GuY]

Originally posted by Gabkicks
Honest to god. this will help u understand weight transfer in GT3. Play Live for speed for the pc... thats all.

live for pc...? wut game is that..?

 

[Famine]

The clue is in the original text. Live for Speed for the PC is a game for the PC called "Live for Speed". Clever, isn't it?

Do you have an excuse to be typing "wut" instead of "what" and "u" instead of "you"?

 

[Duke]

Originally posted by Famine
Do you have an excuse to be typing "wut" instead of "what" and "u" instead of "you"?

It saves an ever-so-important 3 keystrokes' worth of his precious time.

tofu guy, let me direct your attention to these rules from the GTPlanet Terms Of Service (rules). Please follow them:

* No slang words that promote laziness, ie; "r", "u", "plz", etc.

* Half decent grammar is expected. Use of capital letters starting sentences is looked upon favorably. Spelling half decently is also encouraged.

Thank you.

 

[ToFu_GuY]

ok ok ok...
sorry...

anyways.. back to the topic in hand... is there a better way of weight transfering on a FR car instead of continually tapping on the accelerator?

 

[Purple Platypus]

Well....if you want to keep weight at the back, that's the way to do it. And....it makes you go faster too

Or.....you can set up your suspension a bit differently. If you want to keep the weight on the back, set that end a bit lower than the front (understeer). If you want the weight more on the front, set the front lower (oversteer).

 

[ToFu_GuY]

Originally posted by Purple Platypus
Well....if you want to keep weight at the back, that's the way to do it. And....it makes you go faster too

Or.....you can set up your suspension a bit differently. If you want to keep the weight on the back, set that end a bit lower than the front (understeer). If you want the weight more on the front, set the front lower (oversteer).

so... i just set my springs like that and all i have to do is just acclerate the corner or i have to do weight transfer as well?

 

[Duke]

Look, for some reason, you're still not understanding.

You don't "DO" weight transfer. Weight transfer is the natural, unavoidable result of making control inputs. It's simply Newton's Laws of Motion set on four wheels and driven around a race track.

If the car is cruising in a straight line at a constant speed (or stopped) the weight is shared among all four wheels - maybe equally, maybe not, but pretty close.

Since all of the car is above the ground, by definition, the car's center of gravity is above the ground. The only way to get the car to change direction is to apply force using the tires. That causes the car to rotate a little around its center of gravity - pitch, roll, and yaw. This motion of the chassis causes the load to be redistributed on the tires in certain ways, like I described above. Read it again:

Braking makes weight transfer to the front wheels.
Accelerating makes weight transfer to the rear wheels.
Turning left makes weight transfer to the right wheels.
Turning right makes weight transfer to the left wheels.

EVERY TIME YOU MAKE A CONTROL INPUT, YOU ARE TRANSFERRING WEIGHT FROM SOME PART OF THE CAR TO SOME OTHER PART OF THE CAR.

With me so far?

 

[Purple Platypus]

Hmm....maybe I put it this way...

You do not do anything called weight transfer....there is no weight transfer button on the controller

However, when a car accelerates forward, sideways, or backwards, one of Newton's Laws (3rd I think) states that the body of the car will want to stay wherever it was earlier.

So....the body stays there, but the wheels move out from under it (partially). Thus, the body is over some wheels more than others. And now....you have managed to unbalance the car, with the weight being mostly on one or two wheels, not all four.
Earlier, I was talking about the suspension. However you have your suspension set up can change the original weight balance of the car from front to back. When you accelerate, you change the original weight balance, whether it was 50/50, 40/60, or whatever you set it up to be (and in GT3 you can't check these numbers).

And all this means that........if you accelerate the car in any direction, the weight will shift around on the 4 wheels. So......ACCELERATION makes you transfer weight. Anything, anything at all, that is acceleration will move the weight around.

btw.....accelerating is:
1. hitting the gas (positive accel.)
2. hitting the brake (negative accel.)
3. turning (centripital accel. - in this case, it's simply sideways acceleration)

 

[grimreaper 86]

Originally posted by ToFu_GuY
is there a better way of weight transfering on a FR car instead of continually tapping on the accelerator?

humm. Are we to assume that when you say weight transfer, you actually mean to say a drifting technique eg feint, braking, lift off or power over.
or have you been misadvised about what weight transfer was?

in what way did you want to use weight transfer, was it for drift(sliding the rear stylishly) or grip racing(fastest lap)
we then may be able to help more.

 

[ToFu_GuY]

oh sorry to not mentioning it...

um... grip turn...
is there any other way to grip turn with FR car instead of tapping on the accelerater?

 

[Duke]

Use the right analog stick instead of the X button. The buttons are supposedly pressure sensitive, but not in my hands they aren't. I switched to the right stick for gas/brake, and it made a world of difference. I get smoother control inputs.

 

[Purple Platypus]

I use the buttons and I get pretty good throttle control....

I put most of the pressure on the tip of the thumb right above the X button (maybe between gas and brake) and just roll it back a bit onto the gas. Works wonders.

 

[ToFu_GuY]

yeah.. i think you can get faster by doin wut purple said...

what i like to do is put my thumb where the bone can bend and press brakes with the top part of my thumb when i need it....

works really well

 

[Uncle Harry]

I remember once hearing a race car driver say that if you are not either hard on the gas or hard on the brakes you are not going fast enough. I can not remember who said it but I always rember those words. This guy did not beleive in throttle control.
I have tried to use the right stick for accelerate/ brake but gave up due to technical reasons, my thumbs. I always steer with the left stick. May be I should switch accelerate brake to left stick and try to learn to steer with the right stick.
Maybe a good place to pratice would be the test track races but I always forget to. After 20-25 laps there my right thumb hurts.
I agree using the right stick would give finer control than the buttons.
I will try to explain why.
A analogue control signal works between either 0 or 4 milliamp at the lower limit and 20 milliamp at the maximum level.
The buttons as have been describe before have 4 levels of sensitivity. That would relate to a 0 signal when not being touched, a 5 milliamp signal at the first pressure point, a 10 millamp signal at the second pressure point, a 15 milliamp signal at the 3rd pressure point and a 20 milliamp signal when pushed down all the way. This gives you 4 stages of steering angle to the left and 4 stages of steering to the right. (or 4 levels of brake and 4 levels of throttle.

Now the sticks will give you a milliamp signal from 0/4 to 20 proportional to the amount you move the stick. Using the stick you can have anything from nothing to maximum and everything in between. I am not sure how much travel the stick gives but the distance you move the stick gives a milliamp signal proportional to this movement.
The stick has to provide better control. It is just up to us to learn how to use it.

 

[dori-san]

LMAO! Quick! Press the button for weight transfer, now turn! HAHAHA like in Midnight Club 2 or something, those buttons that make you magically spring up and ride on two wheels! LOL great stuff!

 

[Famine]

Originally posted by Uncle Harry
I agree using the right stick would give finer control than the buttons.
I will try to explain why.
A analogue control signal works between either 0 or 4 milliamp at the lower limit and 20 milliamp at the maximum level.
The buttons as have been describe before have 4 levels of sensitivity. That would relate to a 0 signal when not being touched, a 5 milliamp signal at the first pressure point, a 10 millamp signal at the second pressure point, a 15 milliamp signal at the 3rd pressure point and a 20 milliamp signal when pushed down all the way. This gives you 4 stages of steering angle to the left and 4 stages of steering to the right. (or 4 levels of brake and 4 levels of throttle.

Now the sticks will give you a milliamp signal from 0/4 to 20 proportional to the amount you move the stick. Using the stick you can have anything from nothing to maximum and everything in between. I am not sure how much travel the stick gives but the distance you move the stick gives a milliamp signal proportional to this movement.
The stick has to provide better control. It is just up to us to learn how to use it.

Interesting, but incorrect. Sony say the D-pad and other buttons have 32 degrees of sensitivity. I can balance the car's steering and tach at almost any point in the range almost indefinitely - try it yourself with a stationary vehicle.

The only exception is the full-tune Escudo Pike's Peak, which has no 4000-6000rpm range - it just skips from one to the next.

 

[Tedehur]

Originally posted by Uncle Harry
I remember once hearing a race car driver say that if you are not either hard on the gas or hard on the brakes you are not going fast enough. I can not remember who said it but I always rember those words. This guy did not beleive in throttle control.

I read or heard something like this years ago (maybe even decades ago now that I'm thinking at it) and I always remember it too. The idea was : when racing you should always be flat-out. When you can't for some reason (that is mainly when the track turns) you should brake as hard as you can until it's safe to be hard on the gas again. The result is that you should at all time be hard on a pedal, and fast drivers are the ones who have the best feeling about when to press which pedal.
That's perhaps the reason why I have awful times on some tracks

 

[Duke]

Solo II (autocross) guru Henry Watts says "If you are not using the brakes with great vigor, you should be using the accelerator with great vigor." This is pretty true in general. But in cars with the ability to break the drive wheels loose on command, there are many times that you need to have a soft touch on the throttle for long enough to get the car reoriented and settled.

Smooth control inputs are everything, in the game and IRL. Jackie Stewart (anybody remember Jackie?) put it this way: imagine there is a large bowl bolted to the hood of your car, with a tennis ball in it. Now imagine trying to drive fast while keeping the tennis ball in the bowl. If you throw the car around too hard, the ball will fly right out. But if you brake, steer, and accelerate smoothly, you can work the ball way up the side without losing it.