2Fast4Me - #3 Peugeot 905C

[Spiny Anteater]

The next stop in the Random Car Tour of Mystery is R1 Class. While this should lead to me taking huge chunks of time out of my overall times due to a combination of not having run many times and the R1 times generally being the fastest class, I fear my slowing reflexes are going to let me down here. On the ovals that's not too much of a problem, but the only "real" track I've tried so far was Laguna Seca. I couldn't help but notice that Blooze has also run this in the 905C (the Peugeot which is not DLC), and if I'm honest that time took quite a bit of beating. Now part of that may have come from me having just run the 'Cuda in the monthly challenge and not being used to R1, but I think the old guy may just have got his Peugeot working right

[Spiny Anteater]

I think that I'll probably end up running a high downforce tune on all tracks except the Speedways, Motegi Oval and possible the shorter Sunset Peninsula tracks - this tune is from the Speedway. Looking at the scoreboards, there's faster cars than the Peugeot out there, but the difference is less than between the top undrafted times and the top overall times. This tune will do 199mph on the Speedway, but needs a draft to hit the 200 mark. The Motegi Oval gearing is very similar, but on a (very) good lap you can still take the sharper bend in 6th.

Tune:
Tyres: 28/28
Gears: FD - 3.68 3.49, 1-6 - 2.69, 2.19, 1.82, 1.58, 1.37, 1.23 2.31, 2.02, 1.79, 1.61, 1.46, 1.34
Camber: -0.7/-0.6
Toe: 0/-0.2
Caster: 5.4
ARBs: 18.65/17.10
Springs: 355.8/375.4 361.9
Ride Height: n/a / n/a
Rebound: 6.0/6.2
Bump: 3.5/3.6
Aero: 136/317 (Min)
Braking: 46% Front/100 % Pressure
Diff: 40 35/25

Benchmark:
0-60: 3.066s 3.082s
0-100: 5.350s 5.167s
Top Speed: 199.7mph 199.6mph
60-0: 77.3ft 77.7ft
120-0: 196.6ft 194.8ft
g's@60: 1.56
g's@120: 1.85

EDIT: The parts in red are the new settings following a slight reworking of the low downforce set-up - it's still not particularly fast compared to some of the other cars, but at least now it only seems to be losing time in a straight line rather than all over the place. The revised gear set is for Sunset Peninsula infield - a slightly more widely spaced set of gears might work a little better on the full Speedway.

[Spiny Anteater]

And now for the high downforce tune - this one seems much more competitive than the low downforce tune. I think the 905 is carrying the infamous Forza drag fudge factor with it...

Tune:
Tyres: 28/28
Gears: FD - 3.26, 1-6 - 2.69, 2.38, 2.12, 1.92, 1.77, (1.53) (Diamondback - 5 speed setup)
Camber: -0.9/-0.7
Toe: 0/-0.2
Caster: 5.4
ARBs: 12.45/11.40
Springs: 404.3/489.4
Ride Height: n/a / n/a
Rebound: 5.7/6.4
Bump: 3.3/3.5
Aero: 407/950 (max)
Braking: 46% Front/110% Pressure
Diff: 35% Accel/25% Decel

Benchmark:
0-60: 2.901s
0-100: 4.717s
Top Speed: 183.2 mph
60-0: 72.7 ft
120-0: 178.5 ft
g's@60: 01.65
g's@120: 2.06

[Spiny Anteater]

Unfortunately, I'm running into the old R-Class problem. The cars really are not very well balanced. I didn't have this problem with the Audi because it is the leaderboard car in R4. In R2, the Ferrari couldn't really live with the Saleens. If anything, I think this car may have an even bigger problem when it is compared to the Ferrari F333 or the Audi R10.

In high downforce configuration, it's not a complete lost cause as it is only slightly slower than the two dominant cars. But in the low downforce format the car seems to be a real dog's dinner. If anyone is thinking of using it all i can say is steer clear of the low downforce set-up, or at least mine. It's just unfathomably rubbish

[Fit4aking]

I love this car Spiny!!  Its one of 3 R1's that are in my rotation.  I think all of my cars are high downforce so I wouldn't have any experience the other way.  I really like how it revs to the moon like the Ferrari and the fact that the body has the wing way out off the back of the car means it uses (what I call) the cheater aero.  Never had any complaints from me but against the F333 it really isn't a match with a skilled driver.

Look forward to your findings, I'll see if my version (or my Caddy) can run with it.

[Spiny Anteater]

I must admit that in the high downforce configuration it's not too bad a car - I can even place amongst the Ferraris on some tracks. It's just the low downforce tune where I've had problems, though I think part of that may be that the gearing is too short in the lower gears. However, as I've only used the low downforce tune on the Speedway (where it was ok, but nothing special), Motegi Oval (where it was at it's best) and New York (where it flat out sucked) I'd much rather that I had problems with the low than high downforce setup. The only other track I was going to run the low downforce set-up was Sunset Infield Short, and I might have to play around with the rear bump damping and gearing for that - then maybe go back to New York (shudder!).

I ran the high downforce configuration in the endurance at Sebring last night. It didn't have the top-end speed to pass the AI cars so my only real overtaking point was the last corner, but it held up pretty well being right on the tail of Taylor and Helary until their final pit stop on lap 30. As I was 2-stopping, i ended up taking an easy win in a time a whole second quicker than my Audi R8 from earlier in the year.

As for the leaderboard cars in this class, i didn't get on with the ferrari when I had a go at tuning at the start of the year - just too much sliding around at the back end. The R10 Audi by contrast - what a car! I really felt that that one suited me, especially with full downforce.

[Spiny Anteater]

Just a quick update on the low downforce tune. A reworking has stabilised the rear end so it's now much easier to drive (or at least less of a handful) - I'll definitely be retrying New York after this. The main changes were to the gearing. I now have a much longer first gear while gears 2-6 are much more closely spaced than before. Other minor changes were to open up the accel diff a little, slightly soften the rear springs and also to drop the bump damping setting a bit at the back.

The change to the brakes isn't really a change, just a mistype first time around.

PS: Fit, are there any particular tracks you were after a reference time for?

[Fit4aking]

For some reason I tend to run Road Atlanta the most in R1.  At least for the top speed tracks that is.  I know Sebring is the norm for R1 but after all the career races there I get sick of running it, too many bad AI memories.  I've done pretty well there in my Panoz as wel as in the Caddy so I should have reference times for all of them there.

[Spiny Anteater]

I've not run Road Atlanta yet (well, not the long version at least) but I have run Sebring, including that enduro race. The best time I got there was 1:42.865 which was actually enough to beat my Audi R10 time. Then again, I think I might be starting to get into the swing of this R1 lark, although that time is still nothing special only just breaking into the top 4000.

As I said, I've not run the Peugeot at Road Arlanta yet, but my target will be to beat my #2 Audi R8 on 1:06.835...

[BarbecuePete]

I have noticed on running the Audi R8's that a high downforce tune (front and rear both max) that I can take clear seconds off lap times compared to the standard aero setting, you can brake a lot later and get on the power much earlier... I'm sure the same should be true for this car, it sounds like it from what you have said so far... Also I would suggest using the high DF tune on the Motegi speedway, the extra grip you will have in that final turn easily gives more time than a few extra mph down the straight... I think you could easily knock half a second off the lap, maybe even a full second... It will even work on new york... I wouldn't even bother with a low downforce setup except on the Nissan speedway where you do just need to go as fast as possible...

[Spiny Anteater]

I know what you mean about the high D/F setups being good on the road courses - I noticed that when I knocked a second off my Sebring Short time with the R2 Ferrari when I bumped up the downforce.

That said, the Peugeot is almost certainly faster on the Motegi oval with a low downforce set-up. For some reason it just seemed to work really well there, even on that last corner I was only down to 5th gear and even then the revs were well up on a good lap. In fact, I was spending over half a lap running in excess of the top speed achieveable (182mph) with the high downforce set-up.

As for New York, I did try the high downforce setup, but although there was a small increase in speed around the corners, the low speeds there resulted in only a slight increase in cornering speed due to the lack of airflow over the spoilers. That ended up being more than cancelled out by the higher speeds on the straight. The only other tracks where the low downforce setup seemed to work were the Speedway as you mentioned and Sunset Infield Short. On Sunset Long, there was very little difference in times, with the high downforce setup being slightly (i.e. about 0.05seconds) faster and also being much more consistent.

Incidentally, the next random car is another R1 - the #2 R8 so I'll be interested to see how I compare to your times.

EDIT:

Got this one finished off tonight, and was very surprised to see that the total time for all tracks had dipped below an hour. Obviosuly this car is not as bad as I thought it was, although I still feel there is no doubt that it isn't up to F333 or R10 standards. Judging by my run at Road Atlanta chasing my R8 ghost, i would say the cornering ability is up with the R8 but it just lacks on the straights which is in line with what I've said before. So, without further ado, the times:

PR: 153.514
FR: 114.764
TR: 116.240
QR: 149.246

I think the high levels of downforce show here as this is the only car I have so far with a lower Flowing Rank than Twisty Rank. I wonder if the same will be true with the R8...

And, overall, the time was:

59 minutes 43.282 seconds

which puts me squarely between Larry and Blooze in R1!

[Blooze]

Good job there Spiny!

That was an interesting observation.  I went and checked all of my leaderboard sheets.  All of my R1 cars were faster in the FR than in TR, as were the R2 cars.  In R3, they were almost identical, and from R4 on down, the FR times are longer than the TR times.

A new phrase/term just popped up in my head... Turn Density.

Hmmm...   

  $

[BarbecuePete]

A new phrase/term just popped up in my head... Turn Density.

Hmmm...   

As in number of turns divided by length of track???

[Blooze]

That could be a way to quantify it.  But there are other properties of a track that could figure in as well.  The hill in BoomSlayer is one.  The distance between the turns, but then the number of degrees and the distance of the turn as well.

I suppose one could come up with a way to quantify all of those things and calculate a terminal velocity for a track.

$

[BarbecuePete]

Wow  , thats some hard thinking going on right there Blooze...

I wouldn't even know where to start to try to work out gradients, distances and angles of turns in game.... 

I guess the Nurburgring wouldn't be the place to try this out first though... LOL