Lofty Goals (A850 Evo 8 MR)

[Fit4aking]

All this talk of AWD and A-class really has me re-evaluating my thoughts on running exclusively RWD cars.  I've been branching out, running some FWD's and even a few AWD's that others have been nice enough to share setups.  Still I haven't built or tuned my own AWD car yet.  

So where to start, should I rebuild one of my free-tune-failures, should I buy a completely new car, perhaps I'll see what I have sitting around the garage, so many options, so many choices.  However I do have a likely candidate.  A while back I recieved 2 free cars with pretty nice paint jobs on them from an Anime Artist in Japan.  They've been collecting dust along with several other cars that are on my round tuit list.  I have a Skyline Nur, and an EVO 8 MR that fit the AWD requirement without a drivetrain swap.  Blooze set up a Skyline already so I feel biased away from that one with such an accessable comparison to sway my build and tune.  That leaves the mighty EVO.

Now, since this is going to be a project of mine I need to have a goal.  Find an AWD strong point and try to exploit it.  I've been following a thread for a while on the daught net about two tuning shops squaring off towards a goal.  Setting up a car to run 52 seconds on Tsukuba in A-class, the obvious choice is either a superlight MR or an AWD.  Of course everyone should have seen that they both went with EVO's.  I live in a world of reasonable expectations and by no means would I even consider challenging a top tuner with an ace driver.  I have set a goal for myself, and it isn't 52 seconds but it is A-class on Tsukuba.

I've been able to run in the 55's there all day consistantly, so here's my goal.  I want to run in the 54's.  Not a 54.999 but actually in the 54's repeatabley, consistantly, and not after 50 laps of trying.  

The Goal, Evo 8 MR, 54.850 or lower within 5 laps.  I understand that it will take lots and lots of laps to get to that point and several intensive tuning sessions but I'll feel like I actually accomplished something when I can run a 5 lap race and have my fastest lap be 54.850 or better.  Maybe not much for some of the faster guys but for me its a Lofty Goal.  Now I'm off to find 1.1 seconds off of my current fastest time.  

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I'll post my build first, as soon as I get it down with a baseline for the new wheels.

[Blooze]

lol - guess what I built today...  I will sit on it for a while.

I have a couple cars dipping into the 54s.  I think I am going to have to torque the hell out of the Wheel Nut to get so that I am running in the 54s consistently.  And then dare I say it, think it?  The 53s??

Good luck on this...

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[Fit4aking]

I knew you were sitting on an Ace there Blooze.  I saw your time was pretty good on that track and in an AWD too.

Had about 45 minutes to attempt to build this thing out.  Full grip, full aero, torque build.  I even pulled out Michelins over my 50% off Pirelli's.  With default tuning I baselined at 55.3xx in 8 laps and ran within .200 until the tires started to fade at about 12 laps.  The car is consistantly fast, even faster than my Integra.  I still have to find at least a half second so its no small task.  I may ammend my goal but for now it stands. 

Can you tune .500 into a car, is the biggest adjustment going to be the nut behind the wheel, what really makes the "pro" tuned car that much faster than my version??  Time will tell.

[Drift2XL]

I have nothing to do for the next week or two. I can help you out a bit.

I have an EVO 9 GT built up for S998. It was specifically built for Tsukuba. The tune is old and unstable, but its fast. I can post it if you want, but its more of a handful than I remembered. It did run a 51.590 with slicks and 52.450 with DOT's and a S967 PI limit. I did try it out just now and I moved it down into the 52's but really didn't reconnect with the car. It would take more time to finalize the brake zones and pressures in order to get it to turn in well. There is may be more time in a consistant tune.

Anyways I have already built out two more Evo's, a 6 GSR and an 8 GSR. The 6 ran a 55.2 with the only changes of tire pressure.

The 8 dipped down to 54.931 on lap six. Five more laps took only .006 off (for a best of 54.925), but I had no lap worse than 55.2 either. Same as the Evo 6, tire pressures are the only changes.

I really can't estimate how much time should come off with a tune. I do know there is a ton of grip lost in the default camber settings. I can feel that much already. Might be 3 tenths or more with just that. Outside edges were hitting 220 after only 11 laps.

[Blooze]

Here's my top 5 Tsukuba Cars.

2004 Lancer Evo VIII MR	54.818
2007 Lancer Evo X GSR	54.979
2006 Subaru Impreza S204 LCE	54.988
2002 Skyline GT-R V-Spec II	55.075
2000 Evo VI TME (Unicorn)	55.222

I've managed to knock .720 off my Tsukuba time since I started the A Class AWD project.  Hopefully I can get a bit further along before I hit the wall...

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[Fit4aking]

I'll take any advice or tips that I can on this one Drift.  I spent about 5 laps just running around the track half throttle in 3rd gear, trying to find a nice smooth line.  I think that helped alot and I may start every session by doing that again.  When I get up to speed I'll start to rethink my braking points, as well as when I can really get back into the throttle.  That qualifies as a nut behind the wheel adjustment.

Hey Blooze, those times are nothing to scoff at.  Unfortunately there are a ton of times on this track so from 55.99x (my current recorded pb) to the 54's is several thousand positions.  That just means that even my lofty goal is only going to put me into the top 2000, maybe top 1500 but I'm not really worried about rank only a personal improvement with this one.

The wife has an appointment tonight so I should be able to get on for a bit but with kids that's never a guarantee.  Hope to start really tuning the MR tonight.

[Blooze]

There does seem to a sort of traffic jam at the 55 second mark.  There are about 5000 drivers scattered around within that one second.  There are three of us sitting on the 54.818 mark. 

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[Spiny Anteater]

Can you tune .500 into a car, is the biggest adjustment going to be the nut behind the wheel, what really makes the "pro" tuned car that much faster than my version??  Time will tell.

I would certainly agree that the biggest adjustment is the nut behind the wheel, but I would also say that you can easily tune 0.5 seconds into a car, provided the initial tune isn't a winner to being with. For example, with the R2 Ferrari, I knocked 0.8 seconds off a lap of Sebring Short (64 seconds or so) just by switching from minimum to maximum downforce, so it's certainly possible - the hard part is finding that time.

As for advice, I've mentioned my experiences with the diffs in the Audi in Blooze's AWD stable thread. The settings may not work for you, but they do seem to make the build more "Fit-like" in terms of feel if your other builds are anything to go by.

[Fit4aking]

Tsukuba Tuning: Episode 1

Had some free time tonight as the wife was out with the girls.  Seemed like the oportune time to put the MR through its paces.  I searched over the Career races and found one that was on Tsukuba, and that the EVO was eligable for.  Turns out the Semi-Pro 450hp race does just nicely. 

Race 1 Default Tune (I just remembered that I didn't jot down the build, dang it.)
The car was stable but a bit understeery, similar to my brief tuning session the other night.
-Fastest Lap - 55.390
-Overall Time - 8:30.023
-Reward - $27,468
Not a bad haul for a stock tune on a decent build.  Still off of my goal but promising for no tuning.

Race 2 Dropped 2 psi in the front tires to balance pressures
Car was still very understeery but the pressures balanced out so the car was more stable and more consistant.
-Fastest Lap - 55.673
-Overall Time - 8:29.650
-Reward - $27,784
Getting paid to tune is great, even though I wasn't as fast I was .400 faster overall.  I'll take consistancy gains along with hotlap gains.  The goal is repeatable speed.

Race 3 Added Tonka/Blooze tune (54.5% Bias with a stock 71% SWR)
Car immediately felt more controlled, better balanced and turn-in improved.  Tire temps are out of whack, over 25 degrees difference inner to outer on the fronts.  Rears are 50-60 degrees colder.  Suspension balance didn't improve tire temp balance.
-Fastest Lap - 55.485
-Overall Time - 8:33.726
-Reward - $27,636
An off on lap 5 shot my race time to hell but it does show that I'm not babyin this thing, I'm pushing it.Tire temp issue is causing problems and the changes in the suspension are causing the consistancy of the car to diminish over 9 laps.

Race 4 Camber Change, -0.9 Front, -0.7 Rear
Oh, boy, what a HUGE difference.  Car is a turn in monster, grip is very improved, mid turn understeer in gone, power able to go on much sooner.  Attempted later braking points.  Default gearing rears its ugly head.
-Fastest Lap - 55.579
-Overall Time - 8:26.808
-Reward - $28,735
Much faster overall, much more consistant and over a second faster initial lap.  I spent less time watching tire temps and more time wondering why I'm shifting so much.  Damn default gearing.  Still 50 degrees difference front to back tire temps.

Race 5 52.5% Blooze Tune with same SWR.
Lower tire temps in the front and more rear grip means even faster on the gas, less tire fade over the course of the race, and a very predictable car.
-Fastest Lap - 55.262
-Overall Time - 8:27.826
-Reward - $28,735
Locked up the brakes going into turn 1 on lap 5, shot a promising overall time but set a very quick fast lap.  Moving some of the weight off the front helped tire temps a lot.  Rears still colder, but the fronts are now only 5-7 degreees difference across the contact patch.  Inner tire is at over 200% slip on the tighter turns when getting on the gas, seems diff lockup is too high.

Race 6Lowered Accel Diff setting on Front to 25 (thanks Spiny)
Understeer returns??  Getting on the gas doesn't pull the front around as much so I have to pay close attention to the car all the way through the turns
-Fastest Lap - 55.340
-Overall Time - 8:27.212
-Reward - $29,052
Noticably slower on all the turns and was a gear down due to not being able to get on the gas as soon.  I don't want to undo it yet but I will note that this change makes the car feel much slower and its still setting good times.

Race 7Adjusted the Torque Split to 55%/45%, perhaps this will wake the front back up.
Feels somewhat better and it is pulling the front like it was however the inner wheel spin is reduced.  I think I found how to balance one of my issues.
-Fastest Lap - 55.412
-Overall Time - 8:31.004
-Reward - $29,052
I knew this was good but the times didn't agree.  This set the fastest first lap time in the 58's.  However I tried to leave the car in 3rd gear for most of the track to eliminate all the shifting.  I think using 3-4 instead of 2-3-4 is the ticket, it has more torque than hp so I should use it right!  Default gearing is too long for effective use but I'll address that eventually.

Called it a night and hopped online for a few races, never on a short track so I was in power mode.  As far as the Evo, I think I need to add downforce and see how that affects the changes I've already made.  The times are dropping but no HUGE changes yet.  Far improved over my old PB so I am improving at least because of the car.  This isn't over yet so I'll stick to it, and the $120k I made just driving this thing and watching the saved telemetry made seeing the effects of the changes very good.  I really feel like I'm a crew chief instead of a driver when I look over the replay's.  Now to make heads or tales of all the information.

[Drift2XL]

I didn't get a chance to start on the Evo twins tonight. I should get on them tomorrow night.

I would post the old tune, but its so out of control. It would be a step backwards. And certainly not repeatable. I looked through it and found all sorts of WTH settings. I don't know how I did get that good of a time with it. It is fighting itself all over the place.

Wheel Nut advice for Tsukuba.

•   Dont hit any inside curbing. It may not be that tall, but it will kill your lap.
•   Dive as deep as you can into. I'm turning in on the two hairpins around 50 with a tick of trail brake. Sweeper, I'm just touching the brakes before turn in letting the car wash out a bit, collect the nose and whack the gas. I am starting about a half a lane out and "diamonding" the turn. Entry around 110-115, picking up the gas around 88 with the 8 GSR and 92 with the 6 GSR
•   Get back to the gas...quick. It seemed to me that the 8 GSR/MR and 9 GT have a tick of rear steer on the gas. I'm guessing the progs factored in the AYC from RL car. You can pick it up alot sooner than you realize.
•   It may seem faster to leave it in third. But for me, I can only do that on the first turn. I have to go down to second for the other two to get it to turn in better. And it helped kick in the rear steer on exit.

I don't know your driving. I'm running a 47% front brake and trailing alot more. However, the shortest distance that I found is a 49% front. You can threshold the 49 and stop slightly shorter and coast in. Or with the rear heavy brake start a tick sooner but enter a little hotter with trail brake. I found times are about the same until the sweeper then the slight later trailing can pull a closer line. But not as repeatable. For me anyways.

The Evo 6 seems to have a slight handling advantage through the two faster turns (sweeper and kink) but suffers through the hairpins.

The Evo 8 is pounding the hairpins. But it seems less happy with the 50 extra lbs (compared to the Evo 6) with the faster turns. But the better power curve makes up for it. I was not happy with having to shift into fifth with the default gearing either.

[Spiny Anteater]

Tsukuba Tuning: Episode 1

...

Race 6Lowered Accel Diff setting on Front to 25 (thanks Spiny)
Understeer returns??  Getting on the gas doesn't pull the front around as much so I have to pay close attention to the car all the way through the turns
-Fastest Lap - 55.340
-Overall Time - 8:27.212
-Reward - $29,052
Noticably slower on all the turns and was a gear down due to not being able to get on the gas as soon.  I don't want to undo it yet but I will note that this change makes the car feel much slower and its still setting good times.

...

I can only guess that this is the old driver-style chestnut in operation. Until I made this change i was finding that all my 4WDs suffered at least a bit of understeer (I was running the high rear diff setting before I reduced the front diff setting). Generally I try to modulate the throttle through the corner until I can get onto full power for the straight without having to lift off again (sort of like a very poor Jackie Stewart). With the 40 front accel setting the car would pull to the outside of the corner when I hit the throttle (the same happened on my FWDs as well). As reducing the diff setting on my FWDs had led to some imrpovements I thought I'd try it on the Audi. The result was 0.7 seconds improvement at Mugello Short.

I have to admit to being a little surprised at the understeer returning. Maybe it's just the Audi which improves with that, or maybe it's a tweak which needs to be used in conjunction with the high rear diff settings. I suppose it just goes to prove (again! that one size does not fit all.

[Fit4aking]

The best part about a test and tune session is that nothing is set in stone.  I think that a one size fits all approach can work but also sets the expectation to always work.  This proves that it doesn't.  However, the lower doff setting did change the way the car worked so its not a worthless change.  I intended to make smaller changes in the diff, like an increase of 1% at a time till I find that sweet spot that balances understeer with inside wheelspin.

Oh, Drift, I did notice that the rumble strips are my enemy.  Some of them help the car if used correctly but I need to avoid them mostly.  Another thing I noticed when watching the replays is the brakes.  Only the fronts are glowing even 4 laps into a race.  Its probably of no consequence but I did notice it.  I was trying to limit the amount of things I changed to one at a time for this because I'm not so familiar with the AWD's and I want to be able to go back if need be.  I'll be sure to try your driving changes as I don't think I have the best line around there yet.  I don't like downloading ghosts but I will take time to follow faster drivers online.  I met up with the #1 guy on Tsukuba a few weeks back in C-class and I learned a lot watching him dissappear but I have since erased the replays. 

Thanks for the input, I know that it will all come together in the end.

[Drift2XL]

I finally felt sharp enough to give the Evo's a proper drive. I'll start with the Evo 6 first.

Starting with a default 55.264, I rolled to Tsukuba in a tune car mode. Twenty laps later, Best time was a 54.665. So solidly in the 54's.

Off to the Semi-Pro race as Fit did.
Race 1
Tooling around maxxing out the brake zones, inconsistancy shows. Pushing too far into the turns costing time.
And I ran into the Testarossa at the kink of the last lap.
race 8:20.275  best lap 54.709

Race 2
Ticked the brake pressure back to 47% Ran it again. This time I beat on the TR at the kink. Lost a few seconds there. Still not consistant, I bounced up and down by a second.
race 8:22.661  best lap 54.595

Race 3
Moved the rear decel up I felt it needed to pull in more off throttle. Added more rear center diff bais also. Finally nailed down braking zones consistancy started to show up. All times sub 55 seconds. Got the TR on the second hairpin. Almost lapped the Audi at the line.
race 8:18.466  best lap 54.610

Feeling that was as good as it was going to get I moved on to the Evo 8 GSR. When I went to tune the car I found out why the better times on the "default" runs. It was previously tuned. Whoops! On to the racing.

Race 1
I never noticed the spring rate when I was flying through to mess with the diff. I had baselined it at full weight for C Class. I forgot to reset the springs. Happpy mistake. Car took off really hooked up, yet would turn under full throttle. I got tangled up with the TR on the backstretch on lap 8. It was smoking fast and dead consistant.
race 8:23.748  best lap 54.463

I went and checked the slight differences in the two tunes. And moved the Evo 6 to the 8's exact settings. And went again in the Evo 6.

Race 4
Moved down front DF, Lowered spring rates and sured up the diff settings. Close to perfect. It tucks the nose in off throttle with no or minimal trailbraking. Pumped up the testosterone levels a hair more going in a few feet deeper into the hairpins.
race 8:17.413  best lap 54.534

I lapped the TR clean into turn one. And I almost got the Audi at full speed on the exit of the final hairpin. Dead on consistant. First lap was a hot 57.996 and didn't let up as they were all under 55 secs. And this is the settings I came out with.

The Tune
28  /  30   tires
-1.2/-.9    camb
   5.5        cast
  0 / .2     toe
 1 /  40     ARB
427/404    spr
 6.9/7.2    reb
 4.5/3.5    bump
 80/125    DF
   47%     brake
  8/33      F diff
 20/60     R diff
 27/73     C diff

It is really abusive to the front tires, Rears hardly reach 180. Fronts are soaring past 200 on all sections and past 215 on the inside. For a 10 or 15 lap race, its hard to beat. For a 25 or longer race need to make some changes to even out F/R heating.

The high camber numbers give almost full grip on lap one. Don't have to wait for the pressures to build. Just go.

As far as the build up, I went to IC first. It reduces the boost lag. Then to block and the rest. Full width Goodyears. Full DF. Race weight of low 2300's for the Evo 6 and high 2300's for the Evo 8. I shortened 1st gear for a good launch and lengthened 3rd to hold one shift after turn one. FD was somewheres around 3.50 to top out 4th at the fastest part just before the sweeper.

[Fit4aking]

Thanks for the setup Drift, I'll have to give it a try.

Well another weekend has passed and I did a fair amount of Forzacating (at least by my standards) and I have a few things to show for it.  As for the EVO project, I've run into a wall.  I decided to hit it really hard Saturday night, I was psyched up, focused, ready to go.  Turns out I was mentally there but unable to apply my enthusiasm to the track.  I ran my pre-race 3rd gear laps, set up the race, and then the unthinkable happened.  Rossi was all over me!  He beat me to the first turn, held me behind for almost an entire lap and then nearly punted me in turn 1 of lap 2.  I never even go into the 55's.  Second time around I did a bit better because I was 1st flag-to-flag but high 55's was the best I could muster.  I couldn't get into the flow of this track at all.  I decided to not press the issue and I'll get back into this one.

So keeping in the spirit of Lofty Goals I set my sights on Tournaments.  With all the hype around GTA4, this would be the exact time for me to take advantage of "down time".  I hopped in my favorite R2 Ferrari and had a run at the Hotlap challenge.  Way off pace but I qualified none the less, 1:41.something.  Went for the leaderboard approach, you know, fight fire with fire.  It was Saleen S7 time for me.  I rented, #11 I think, not the Dark Dog, yellow isn't my color.  Put a Blooze tune on it, 52% I think, ran it and was in the 1:39's right off the bat.  Felt really good about knocking 2 seconds off with just a car change, surely not everyone chose the Saleen.  I guess I'm off point, 2 seconds faster and still out of the top 100 overall.  Maybe hotlapping isn't for me, but I already knew that so I shouldn't be supprised.

As a consolation prize I went after any open Tourney, C-class on Mugello looked better than going back to Tsukuba for D.  I pulled out my Tiny Terror and immediately hit the top 60, 57th at the time.  Not bad for a 69 Fairlady but I wasn't breaking the 120's on the straight and that is too slow for that long of a straight, I must be giving up a lot of time.  I built out another car that was painted but not tuned, and RS200.  Non aero, no slicks, lightweight and the rest power, still under 250 though.  The TT is only 200 even so its an improvement.  Bettered it to 45th before deciding to call it quits and hop online.  I'll be at work when the tourney goes green anyway but at least I qualified for something in the top 50. 

If I ever want to be on top of a leaderboard, or a threat in a tournament, anything more than a random player that set his own goals instead of shooting for #1's, I'll need to meet some more of those Lofty Goals.

[Blooze]

Congrats to you!  I took a quick run at that tournament and couldn't even beat the qualification bar... how humiliating.  I looked over my R2 class leaderboard sheet.  I have a great deal to get done there... the class is plumb full of Round Tuits.  Now I'm torn... continue with my A Class AWD projects or jump over to R2 for a while.  I would like to make the top 200, maybe hit on a couple of the Random 30 things and get me some unicorns, I sure as hell don't think I am going to be able to buy one...

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