Changing one thing at a time

The Premise

There's an old adage about suspension tuning that I've often heard:

"Change one thing at a time"

After reading the  Concise guide to Skippy tuning I was tempted to jump in and apply all of the recommendations in the guide.  There's only 6 tuning variables and a recommended value for each.  In an attempt to mirror what I might do in real car, I'm going to change one thing at a time, document the differences I can feel and the difference if any on my lap times.

The Test

First I'll run a practice session with people in it to familiarize myself with the car/track combo (Skippy/Silverstone south) and the general lines taken on the track.

I'll then run consecutive test sessions of 1 out lap and 5 clean laps, changing one variable each session.  Will I be able to feel the difference?  Will it make a difference to my lap times?

Baseline/stock

With the baseline setup in a practice session after about 10 laps I settled on 1:23/lap.  The big easy obvious gains I could see from lines and gear selection stopped and I did around 5 to 6 laps at low 1:23's, with the final touching into 1:22.  Consistent enough, I decided to try the first change, fuel load to 3.1.

Fuel 3.1 gallons (11.7l)

Laps:

• 1:22.154
• 1:22.694
• 1:22.760
• 1:22.000
• 1:22.100

An instant improvement in times but I struggled to feel the difference in the sim.  If I could pick anything it was that braking force was increased, which makes sense; lighter.  However I was searching to feel a difference so I can't say for sure whether I noticed.  The splits kept going green however so I can't argue with the result.

With that done, onto the next change, tire pressure.  I'm hoping this will be the biggest improvement of the lot, as it's a radical change.

Front and rear tire pressures to 22F/22R(152F/152R kPa)

Laps:

• 1:21.703
• 1:21.337
• 1:22.066
• 1:22.557
• 1:21.848

First corner I notice a massive difference.  I hit my normal braking marker and the car seems to leap to slow down.  As I turn in I get a much bigger "bite" and I feel like I almost steer too much into the corner with the same input on the wheel.  Through the next few corners the feeling stays, I can push the car to steer at a greater angle without plow understeering.  Feels much more stable through the fast chicane at the back before the last turn onto the straight.  Before the back end was always threatening to come around  but now I feel stable through there and can get on the gas earlier.

I imagine the time gains will slow now.  Onto the next tweak, SPO +5

SPO +5 ARB 7 Brake Bias 58%

Little did I know, SPO and the rear Anti Roll Bar were already set to +5 and 7 as the guide recommends, so there was no change there for me to make.  Perhaps the baseline setup has changed in the new build?  So I went straight to brake bias.

Laps:

• 1:22.377
• 1:21.403
• 1:21.784
• 1:21.871
• 1:22.049

I notice less tire squeal as I'm braking.  I tend to brake to ~50% and definitely less squeal from the tires (not sure if it's less from the front or rear).  I wonder if that means I can push the braking harder but I don't have the capacity to change that habit quickly in this session.

Not a drastic change and no real difference in times.  I feel like this would be a change that would benefit me in the long run, less lockups leading to less big losses/corrections before corners, making better average times due to minimizing the bad laps.

Conclusion

Loved the process but I'm not totally ready to call the experiment a success.  I definitely felt a difference with tire pressure and less so with fuel load.  Slightly disappointing that I didn't get to fiddle with camber as I feel that could make a large noticeable difference in feel.  I may still fiddle but since anything I do will be taking me away from what is recommended in the guide I may not!

I'm happy with the time gained, 2 seconds I'd say throughout the experiment.  I wonder how much of that was the setup changes and how much was just plain and simple track time!  While 2 seconds is great, I still need to drop another 2 to get into the 1:19's which I see you guys are into in your race pace.

Really enjoyed the process and I can't wait to try it all again with a different car or different setup.

For the Skippy it's now time for me to jump into some races or to spend another testing session with iSpeed, trying out some "One Second at a time" experiments.  Something for another night.

An eclectic note

So, this is just FRIGHTENINGLY good:

Also this video is everything about what I can't do in the Skippy yet (I don't know why I can't embed this one):

http://youtu.be/2YdZJxJskac

* smooth

* hitting apexes

* balanced

* effortless

* fast

Finally, some cats hitting apexes and powering to the track out point:

After doing nearly 50 laps(!) with AB in the Skippy last night as a familiarisation exercise (muchos gracias) I went back to the RUF at COTA and stayed up to 2FrickenAM (Australian Eastern Stupid Time), and finally got down into the high 1:34's.  By geez, I have some consistency to work on and where the top guys find another 3 seconds I have no idea, but now I really do enjoy the S's there and I really enjoy that track I have to say.  That first corner is so deceptive, have to brake so much earlier than it looks.  I still can't nail the 2nd to last corner, it looks easy, but I just can't do it well (I do a fine pirouette).  The fast sweeper just prior is just unbelievably good fun when you know you can plant the right foot and get the boost up, wow, electric.

3 Screen Cockpit Planning

Filed within the "This is how crazy obsessed we become" department, I began to think ahead to a 3-monitor setup extension to the Next Level Racing Wheel stand.  I've personally been having to tear down and setup the wheel stand and computer in front of my 50" Pioneer Plasma TV in the lounge room each and every time I wanted to play.  I also therefore need to compete with my wife's desire to watch a bit of TV now and then, so my racing time is sporadic, and usually very late (once she's in bed).

So with the thought towards setting up a more permanent place within the house, I started a SketchUp model of our spare room to see where/if it would fit.

It's an early iteration of the drawing.  I'm using the dimensions of a potential monitor pick of a BenQ XL2720T, and based it on the wall mounting dimensions, but the screens do look a lot deeper than I thought.

I do want to flesh out the detail of this model (because I'm crazy) so that it looks a bit more realistic than these bounding boxes, but this first iteration has at least confirmed that the original location I thought it might fit in within the spare room, won't!

This does not bode well for the queen sized bed that is currently in this room (not rendered in the pic).

Summit Point - Short Configuration practice

In preparation for the carnage this Sunday I started a testing session at Summit Point Short tonight to familiarise myself with the track.

It's an interesting configuration to someone used to the normal long track.  The short configuration has you cutting through and across from the start/finish point to Turn 3.  In the normal configuration Turn 3 is a fairly tricky high speed/high stakes corner, where most people put a wheel off into the dirt every lap.  In this short configuration since you are approaching it from the cut through at a slower speed there is much less risk and the corner feels toothless.

There's a section of S's at the back that I can occasionally take flat out in 3rd.  On a good run I'll change up to 4th and take the second last corner flat out as well.  This short configuration will be good for close racing as the straight away is much reduced; there will be less of an advantage to getting a great entry out of the last corner.

I clocked a 1.09 in this session.   Replay attached(if I can work out how), many improvements to be made!

An Experiment with Custom Camera Angles in iRacing

Last night while I was trying to get the kids to go to sleep (emphasis on the 'trying'), I experimented with custom camera placements in iRacing.  I wanted to learn how to setup some different views, and thought I might try to piece together a whole circuit set of cameras with a certain 'feel'.

I took the previous nights Mazda MX-5 race at Laguna Seca that Andrew and I raced in and focused the camera on one of the other participants that was in the mix.  This allowed the cameras to see some closer racing.

I went for a low down, 'intense', look, trying to capture the cars pitching in and sliding into the apex, and feel close to the action.  There's still some work to do here, a few spots down the straights where the action isn't as intense as it could be, but generally pretty happy with the result.

Here's a lap of Laguna Seca with the camera setup.



Where am I?  I span out in Turn 4 and was last for the first part so you can't see me here, but managed to finish 4th in the end as everyone else had issues of their own.  Yet another example of keeping going even when things look grim.  Was a fun race!

If you're interested in doing doing your own camera setups, I found this PDF got me started in the right direction.

If you'd like to try my camera set, you can download it here.  The .cam file needs to go in an directory close to where your Replay files are stored, which for me on my Windows computer is C:\Users\psmith\Documents\iRacing\cameras\tracks\lagunaseca\ .  This is a track camera, so needs to be placed within a directory for the named track.

Once you've placed the file there, launch a replay, or start a session and then:

1. Hit CTRL+F12 to bring up the advanced camera editor
2. Hit the Load Track red link at the bottom - this will bring up a file chooser which should show the "Laguna Custom 1.cam" file which you should select
3. Within the "up arrow" camera selector in the bottom-middle you should now see a new "Low Down" camera to select.
4. Choose and (hopefully) enjoy!

Tragic Racing - Race 1 - Okayama Short

The beginning of the Tragic Rcing series didn't disappoint at Okayama Short.

After being too anxious with teh loud pedal exiting the last corner and spinning around Paul struggled to find cornering speed, while Ned couldn't keep 4 wheels on the track.  This left Own and Andrew to fight it out in a nail biter of a finish!

Owen showed  prowess and pressured Andrew into a slight mistake in the penultimate lap and took the lead for the last lap to the finish!

Paul proves he's faster

After starting at Laguna many months ago and having travelled to tracks around the world, Paul returned to epic Laguna Seca.

Finding time nearly everywhere on the track led him to remove 3 seconds off this prior lap time. Yes. THREE SECONDS.

There is still more work to do on the approach to the corkscrew...but there may be more seconds available.

The next test...how many laps can he stay in the 1.46's before finding the cruel Laguna sand...