How to setup a car in LFS
- Project3 from Bob Smith:
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php? ... ht=Project.
- LFS replay analyzer:
http://www.lfs-database.com/ go to toolbase - standalone programs.
This little guide covers the Formula XR, but it should work for all cars aswell.
How to begin? You can download one of teaminfernos sets:
http://setupfield.teaminferno.hu/ and use it as a base for your sets. Most important by these sets are adjustments for wings, camber and ride height.
Now open Project3. This outstanding tool - congratulation to Bob Smith - is able to directly read and write from and to your LFS\data\settings folder. I strongly recommend not to do so, instead make a working directory outside of your LFS folder. In my case a read-write error occured and i lost all my sets. ALL !
First choose the Formula XR car under current vehicle. Then open (File - open) the teaminferno set and save it immediately as bl1_med in ur working folder (File - save as).
In Project3 upper area (vehicle settings) gives u some sliders to change values while the lower area (Analysis) shows analysis of your changes in realtime. Mostly you move a slider until one of the bars in the analysis section becomes green...
Choose vehicle settings beneath "Display".
Lets begin with suspension and springs. Best choice is to make a neutral set.
Click the "Suspension" tab under vehicle settings. The Analysis area shows now the according Springs tab. Check the Value of "Natural Frequency" in "Springs" section of the analysis area. Set them both to the same value by moving the "Spring Stiffness" slider. 4Hz is a good point of start for an openwheeler, 3Hz for the GTR´s and around 2,5Hz for Streetcars. Now set "Anti Rollbar Stiffness" to a middle value (but check the game which settings it allows) and change the ratio in a way that the "Suspension Balance Diagram" bar becomes green. Red means it will oversteer and blue means understeer.
Next click the "Damping" tab in the analysis area. Check "Critical Damping Info" and set Bump ratio to a value around 70% for front and rear. Set rebound ratio for front around 100% and rear around 70%
Play around with the "Bump Damping" sliders first and check the color of the bars underneath. Try to find a combination where the most bars shows green color. Then the same with "Rebound Damping" but try not to increase rebound values above 100%. Most important are the bars at the right side, "Corner Entry (with braking)" and "Corner Exit (with throttle)". I like settings where the car turns in a little when lifting throttle, my "Corner Entry (...lifting throttle) bar often shows oversteer...
Now check Downforce. You will notice very often that downforce settings in teaminferno sets produce massive oversteer. I recommend to disarm it a bit so reduce front wings and increase rearwings. Try to find a combination where the "Aero Balance Diagram" bar becomes green again. You can see the effects of your changes under "Terminal Velocity" in the Misc Info box.
Next click "Vehicle Settings" Steering tab. Good point to start is:
Toe in front: -0.1
Toe in rear: +0.1
Caster: 5°
Ackermann steering: 50%
Maximum Lock: The maximum which the game allows.
Next Gearing: Simply click the "Auto Space Gearing" button in the analysis area and move the slider in the popping up window so that the sawtooth diagram at the upper right side in the analysis area shows bigger spikes left and smaller spikes at the right side. If u want you can watch the acceleration gained by clicking analysis-acceleration tab and calculate button.
Next Tyres: For an allround set u may want to choose symmetric values for left and right. Reasonable values are:
For shorter races ~10 laps choose Compound Slick R1
Tyre pressure: Rear 150 kPa, Front 170 kPA
Camber adjust: Rear -1.5, Front -0.1
Well, thats it. You have built now a very basic but driveable medium set. Save your work now.
Lets make 3 different sets: One soft version, one medium version and finally one hard version. Name them in the following scheme: FORMULA XR_soft, FORMULA XR_med and FORMULA XR_hard.
Values for different sets for the Formula XR:
Soft set: Natural Frequency ~3Hz / Bump damping ~0.6
Medium set: Freq. ~4Hz / BumpD ~0.7
Hard set: Freq. ~5Hz / BumpD ~0.8
Now copy these 3 sets to your data\settings folder and you can choose them in LFS in the garage. Dont change these basic sets, make copies instead. Name them bl1_soft, bl1_med and bl1_hard.
Time to test your brandnew sets. Very important: only change one value at a time, do some laps and change this value again until you feel fine. Dont try to make a perfect set in 1 step.
Choose the bl1_med version first. Do 3 or 4 laps in medium to faster speed and save it. Replay and watch your tyretemps (F9). Save the telemetry data of the best lap.
No rule without exceptions: You can change now different values. Tyrepressure and camber, also ride height after checking the suspension travel left with the LFS Replay Analyzer.
Change tyrepressure and camber according to your interpretation. The best indicator is F9 tab ingame.
Blue means cold, green is perfect and red is overheated. Also the body of the tyres should become green. The digits above the single tyres shows their temperature at the outer, middle and inner surface. It is optimal to get inner and middle values to similar temperatures while the outer value may keep more colder.
Now start the LFS Replay Analyzer and open your saved telemetry data in the data\raf folder. Choose suspension travel remaining and check it for all 4 tyres. It shows only one tyre at a time. Change ride height so that the car is as low as possible but never sits on the track. You may also check slip ratio and change brakes according to it.
Try out all 3 sets with these steps and finally decide which one is the best.
