What's better - Weight Reduction or Engine Tuning?

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Samareye

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Samareye
I want to keep a car at a specific level. Its got everything on it except for the transmission, engine upgrades, and weight reduction. I'm mainly concerned with ruining the quality of drive and the sound of the car, especially since its pretty rare, which is why I've only tacked on a few addibles. What would be better, an engine upgrade (1 or 2) or weight reduction (1 - max)? Something that would give it that extra edge, but preserve the quality of the car.
 
Toronado
Honestly depends on what tracks you think you will use it on more than anything else.
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Hear hear. It's all part of the tune. If I'm going to do the irreversible changes I tend to start with the engine tuning as that causes fewer problems when trying to tune the suspension. Weight reduction can have its advantages, though, such as adding weight back on and adjusting where it goes for better balance.
 
I personally place a higher emphasis on lightness rather than power, so will assess how much weight I can get away with without having a huge power deficit to the likely competition. Such a pain that its irreversible - weight reduction.
 
I've done some comparisons between the two modifications (while maintaining the same performance points) and have found the additional power to be more useful than the decreased weight. Very few tracks require nimbleness that much more than power and said nimbleness can be increased through effective tuning.
 
mhhh in gt5 its power

example:
kei car kup
this ultrafast little daihatzu...
had to choose to add power, or weight reduction

well the car is about 2 sec faster with full weight and bit reduced hp
 
The weight I think influence the acceleration, braking and tire wear most. I use the gforce meter alot and I found that weight reducing don't increase the cornering speed by much. Change to racing soft tires from sport hard tires can increase the gforce by 1.5 times. Thats good for 123% more speed in the corners.
 
Mike Rotch
I personally place a higher emphasis on lightness rather than power, so will assess how much weight I can get away with without having a huge power deficit to the likely competition. Such a pain that its irreversible - weight reduction.
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Can you not just add ballast?
 
I thought it increases it by 1234%!!!!!!

But sadly in GT5 its put an emphasis on power upgrades.
 
It depends on the course and car combination. If you have a 500 hp car that weighs 1800kg, and you're racing at Daytona or Indy, you may want to reduce weight. At the same track/different PP, if your driving a 500 hp car with 1000kg, you may want to add hp. You may also want to consider downforce (depending on the car).
 
pjs123456789
Change to racing soft tires from sport hard tires.
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Racing Softs provide an unfair advantage and seem to be far grippier than what would have been run on most race cars (save for super-softs in F1 or wrinkle-wall drag slicks). I try to avoid them (and Mediums) if at all possible.

McKiernan
Can you not just add ballast?
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You can compensate for the weight reduction by adding ballast as long as the weight reduction was 200kg or less.
 
Mike Rotch
I personally place a higher emphasis on lightness rather than power, so will assess how much weight I can get away with without having a huge power deficit to the likely competition. Such a pain that its irreversible - weight reduction.
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DDAAVVIIDD82
Racing Softs provide an unfair advantage and seem to be far grippier than what would have been run on most race cars (save for super-softs in F1 or wrinkle-wall drag slicks). I try to avoid them (and Mediums) if at all possible.



You can compensate for the weight reduction by adding ballast as long as the weight reduction was 200kg or less.
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I agree.

I compete (well try to - lets say particpate) in Tarmac Rallying in my daily driver, a Renaultsport Clio 172 so it pays to look after my ride as it has to take me there and back.

First port of call would be weight reduction -
IRL remove all unnecessary items in the vehicle - rear seats, spare tyre etc...
GT5 Stage 1, 2 &/or 3
Second would be tyre choice -
IRL semi slicks Toyo Proxes R888's
GT5 Sport Hards, Mediums &/or Softs
 
when you guys speak of not wanting to use race soft tires, what kind of cars (hp/drivetrain) are you running?, for instance my mc f1 wuth 875 hp on race hard tires will whip itself in to a wall all day, without sticky tires cars like that dont track they just skid around all day...you can get by fine with rm zo6's and r8s but with high output torque monsters like the f40 and other cars i have tuned up and lost significant wwwweight...idk...im pretty sure f1 drivers dont say give me the slippery tires i wouldnt want to have the most grip possible...
 
If you have a heavier car with more power, your handling won't be great.


But, if you have a lighter car with less power, you have a handling advantage.
 
As has been posted above, depends on the track and tyres. But it also depends on the spec of car. If the car is lightweight with hardly any power, it will not benefit much from weight reduction. If the car is heavy with lots of power, it won't gain much from the engine upgrade(depending on the track of course).
 
v8ornothanks
when you guys speak of not wanting to use race soft tires, what kind of cars (hp/drivetrain) are you running?, for instance my mc f1 wuth 875 hp on race hard tires will whip itself in to a wall all day, without sticky tires cars like that dont track they just skid around all day...you can get by fine with rm zo6's and r8s but with high output torque monsters like the f40 and other cars i have tuned up and lost significant wwwweight...idk...im pretty sure f1 drivers dont say give me the slippery tires i wouldnt want to have the most grip possible...
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Keep in mind that softer compounds don't last as long and most regulations mandate minimum use of harder compound tires during races. As for my not wanting to use RS tires, it has more to do with inaccuracy than anything else. RS tires have far more grip than any tire readily available for road-race duty and provide too much of a performance advantage. Also, keep in mind I actually follow the B-spec tire restrictions in my A-spec play most of the time, and the only time I do use RS tires anymore is to rough-in the basic suspension settings and then break out the RHs for fine-tuning and LSD settings. As for not having enough grip...don't overbuild your cars (it can be more fun to not be as competitive as with fully-modded cars) or learn to tune the grip back in through LSD tuning, gear ratios, and suspension stiffness. *Deep breath*
 
I think it depends on the car. If you take the Dodge Charger, that already has alot of power, reducing weight will make a big differance. If you take the Lotus Ellis, already a light car, more HP can quicken up the car.
 
With a sort of GT5 club we race several championships. One of them is the STCC, Sunday Touring Car Chammpionship !

From the R'M cars we had to choose out the Lexus ISF, Subaru WRX, Mitsubishi Lancer and the Nissan Silvia Spec-R. My choise was the underdog... The Silvia, the only not-AWD car and a little advantage about the weigt restriction of 1000Kg and the max of 530 PP.

Because the Silvia didn't drive to well with the low weight, I tried a set up with 200Kg extra weight and more power. Because before the 2.0 update it was difficult to remind set ups and preferences... I bought 2 other Silvia's...did the RM again and made 3 Silvia's : Heavy, medium and light.

Between the Heavy and Light set up there was a gap of 30BHP and more than 100 Nm thorque. Only at the slow and streetcircuits it was better to choose for the light or medium set up, the next race is at Monza and I will race it with the Heavy Silvia for sure :D
 
Jai
👍 First thing I always do to my cars.
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True... for most cars. Except most cars weigh more than 900kg. Anything heavier than 800kg can stand to lose some weight.
 
Adding power makes you faster on the straights.

Adding lightness makes you faster everywhere!
 
v8ornothanks
when you guys speak of not wanting to use race soft tires, what kind of cars (hp/drivetrain) are you running?, for instance my mc f1 wuth 875 hp on race hard tires will whip itself in to a wall all day, without sticky tires cars like that dont track they just skid around all day...you can get by fine with rm zo6's and r8s but with high output torque monsters like the f40 and other cars i have tuned up and lost significant wwwweight...idk...im pretty sure f1 drivers dont say give me the slippery tires i wouldnt want to have the most grip possible...
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As DDAAVVIIDD82 said, the F1 spec Pirelli P-Zero super-softs don't seem to have the same grip as the GT5 RS tires, and even if they did, the GT5 RS tires should start to degrade after only a few laps and be almost completely worn out after 15 laps (or less depending on circuit). If PD would get the tire wear correct then I would use RS more often. Right now I only use them when I don't care about realism and want to use the "Magic" tires as a cheat.
 
I did some testing yesterday with the gt one race car at Madrid in the 650pp seasonal (no. 2). Needed to reduce pp to get to 650 so tried just power limiting and just ballast plus a combo of both. Not a huge difference in times but was slightly faster with stock weight and less power. The car was also easier to handle this way. I also tried aero changes but stock aero was the best for this car/track combo. Hope that helps
 

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