Car Setup Help
A few drivers have asked for setup guides, help and other tips for getting better at rFactor. Well rather than keep all the trade secrets to myself, i thought i'd share a bit. It's mostly a list of useful links that i use, but they have served me fairly well during my time in F1A. Before i get listing though, i should mention that you should only go through this if you understand how to drive a car properly. That is to say you can do at least 10-15 laps in a row without going off track with lap times within a second of each other (sometimes the best of us struggle with this, but its important for car setup!)
So anyway, ill just list the links and put a bit of a blurb next to each and you can go through them at your leisure:
* Setup Matrix - basic setup guide, best one for beginners
* Car Setup and Troubleshooting Guide - pretty self explanatory. find your problem in a table and it tells you what to do to fix it. Looks to be written for sports cars, but the principles seem to apply quite well to rFactor and F1, i use it all the time.
* Springs & Dampers - getting a bit more advanced, the wording isnt the best but its a pretty good read if you want to learn more about dampers and suspension.
* MoTeC - for those really committed (like i was once), some useful stuff on MoTeC
These are some other links which I found recently, theyre setup guides for LFS (another open source racing sim). I don't know how well they relate rFactor but they are quite comprehensive:
* http://en.lfsmanual.net/wiki/Main_Page
* http://www.setupgrid.net/help
Other links:
* http://collier-racing.com/ILMS/Setup_Guide.htm
A few basic principles I live by when setting up my car are listed below. Bear in mind that these are things that i find that work best in sims, and probably dont relate to well to the real world. These are what most in the community would refer to as 'alien' setup tips (i think you can understand the term):
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* set the ride height to the minimum and compensate with the 3rd spring/packers
* use the softest springs available on the rear and a little harder on the front. This should provide the most grip and having the front harder than the rear should give you good stability.
* use the softest possible rear anti rollbar. Front anti rollbar is a bit trickier but i usually never go softer than the equivalent spring setting on the front.
* use the softest tyre compound possible (whatever will get you the distance you want to complete, ignore the temperatures, unless they are crazy, like 125C+ which will be orange/yellow on rF colour scale on the LCD)
* use the lowest tyre pressures possible. if you find you are bottoming out a lot and the tyres get really hot when they didnt before, youve probly gone too far
* set the pump and power diff settings in the single digits (0 - 9%). This is mainly the best setting for those not using TC as it offers the best traction. If you are using TC you can usually get away with higher settings. The coast setting is up to you, depends how stable you like the car under brakes - if you want staibilty, got above 50% for this setting. I nearly always keep the preload very low ... dont ask me what it does, lol
* set the steering lock as low as possible. If youre not getting close to full lock on your wheel at a comfortable range (what i mean here is if you run 900 deg rotation, then full lock is a bit stupid looking in an f1 car with that setting!) ... so if you dont get close to 180 at least, youve got too much steering lock. That'll eat your tyres, wreck stability and cause you to over-compensate when you have little 'moments'.
* try to set your brake bias as far to the rear as possible. this will help corner entry, any front wheel locking is causing you to lose time.
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Probably the only other tip i can give you regarding car setup is that everything that happens to the car is because of weight transfer. for example, if you lose the back of the car under power that means the weight is not going from the front of the car to the rear quick enough, or just not enough is being transferred at all (and extend that example to every handling problem you encounter). so with that in mind, when you stuff up on track, try to sit still for a minute and think about what happened ... did you just stuff up? if not, what happened to the car, where was the weight, where did you need it?
As a rough guide, springs set how much weight will be transferred (they set the static ride, how the car reacts to weight when its sitting still) - harder springs resist weight and vice versa. dampers affect how fast that weight will transfer around the car. harder damper settings will slow that rate down, offering more stability though too far can cause unresponsiveness (change of direction becomes difficult, though ive not really encountered this in rFactor too often)
As a final note, please ask questions! It was quite refreshing to see people asking for help on the forum when they got a bit stuck with the bumps at Germany. I'm more than happy to help when i get the time, but what really ticks me off is when I'm in the server doing my practice and someone is hounding me for setup advice. sometimes i don't mind, but please understand that others are practicing too, so dont be shy in asking for help but do a little preparation before asking and do it via PM or on the forum. Anyway, ive stickied this thread since it might be useful long term. Oh and any expert drivers in the league, feel free to contribute or offer your opinion. The more knowledge we compile the better
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Base Setup - a little somethng i put together for Germany you can use as a base for future races
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Originally Posted by travyd
