what follows is a write-up of my efforts to get familiar with a car that I liked in FM2, but hadn't even driven in FM3. I'd apologize for the threadjack, but I think it's germane, and honestly, I wanted to do something like our old FM2 build threads in this section, so here goes . . .
OK, so I got curious and bought this car in-game just to see what it was like. I had a relatively good one in B class in FM2. I just finished fighting through a C-class RWD event, and have a couple of thoughts. These are observations for road racing and hotlapping, and may not be valid for oval racing, drifting, or drag racing.
Issues and Observations
1. A custom gearbox may be in order. At Suzuka, I found myself reaching for a gear somewhere between second and third on the transition between the esses and the straight.
2. I usually go custom suspension all around anyway, but here, I would probably get different sway bars IRL. It sets for a single turn nicely, but you end up oversteering without knowing it, and transitions in the esses are a bit iffy. The car doesn't like to have its weight tossed around.
3. The car seems heavy. Yes, I know, that's because every car seems heavy to me. I'd pull out the non-human ballast incrementally. You might be able to save some PI by only taking out some of the weight.
4. The car wallows a bit. It's not as responsive as I'd like. Some of this is the suspension, but I'll look chassis stiffening next time I'm on.
With these considerations in place, It's time to look at what this car might and might not do well.
Target Tracks
Twisties-It's going to take some tuning to be a solid mongoose. The car's basic feel is pretty good, and it is pretty benign at the limit, but I'm not sure it will ever be light enough to contend with the Miatas, 240Z's, and RX-7's you'll find at Tsukuba. It certainly won't contend with the AWD leaderboard cars.
Flowing tracks- If the sway bar issue is easily resolved, this car could do well on these sorts of tracks. The powerplant seems to hum right along at speed. When the car cooperated, it felt good ont he esses, and showed some real potential. I'll try this car on Mugello and Maple Valley when I'm testing upgrades.
Power tracks-No determination as of yet. The car didn't seem to hit a wall on the Suzuka straight, but I'm not sure what would happen if I took it to Sunset Peninsula's infield course or over to Sebring. The car's usefulness as a power car will probably be down to how much power you can cram under the hood at your desired PI point. It seems sufficiently slippery, but it's not a 2000GT.
Drag-no idea.
Oval-see power.
Drift-I'm not a drifter, but this car seemed to like a little angle going through the esses. I inadvertently pulled off a 2,000 point drift, which is something I can only rarely do on purpose. I won't be building it this way, but there's probably a reasonably good drift car in here somewhere.
Target Class
The car starts out in C. There are basically three options for builds on this car. The first is to keep the power stock and turn the car into a superstocker. Upgrade the chassis/suspension, lighten the car, drop in a few hipo parts, slap on some better rubber, etc., but keep the car a Z as much as possible. There's probably room to create a pretty solid C-class all-arounder with that approach, but you'll probably have to keep a lot of weight, and it will take some experimenting to find the optimal combination of tire compound and width for your driving style.
Moving up to B class, you can basically take the all-you-can-eat approach to the plan I laid out for C. Go with race weight, a roll cage, full-width slicks, and probably the race transmission. Just use power to fill up to the top of B class. Adjust aero to taste, and you're good to go.
In A, you're looking at an all-out race car. Think a GT class Rolex car. Same as above, but add lots of power and some adjustable aero. The aero will probably help most on the flowing and twisty tracks, and will cost you some top end on the power tracks.
Don't know whether that helps you or not, but I certainly enjoyed going through the process again. Up next: picking test tracks.
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