Blooze/Tonka WBT and 54.5%

[bimmerlovere39]

Some questions I need answered:
1. What are the heaviest and lightest vehicles in FM3, and what are thier allowable spring and damper tuning ranges.
Lotus Elan and Bentley ContiGT

[feuerdog]

The Elan may still be the lightest, but we have SUV's and trucks now too.
The Saleen S331 and Land Rover are both at least 5300lbs each.

I don't expect alot performance wise at the higher weights, but i'd like to take that weight into consideration if possible. Especially in relation to available setting ranges.

[barumba]

I've had some interesting thoughts in the past 72 hours while working on some new weight bias and damping relationships.

1. My calculators bias weight according to drivetype. I think now that this is fundamentally wrong. Blooze had it right where he was rebiasing springs based on weight distribution itself. I think I have found a way to blend the two methods, in addition to other work loads.

2. I have always based bump damping directly on modified spring strength. While this is realistic for the most part, it is somewhat biased to the weight redistribution spring rates. I think I might be able to tie damping to overall weight(or maybe factory weight distribution) in a way that will disregard any post calc biased settings. The advantage of this is better baseline values for fine tuning damper ratios. Another benefit may come from the chassis mass multipliers I use in the base spring calcs, a relationship that will improve the responses of extreme(heavy/light) weight chassis.

3. My new ARB relationship theories are falling in place now too, again, based on weight distribution in combination with drivetype, and not just drivetype, weight dist., or modified weight dist. as I have done before.

Some questions I need answered:
1. What are the heaviest and lightest vehicles in FM3, and what are thier allowable spring and damper tuning ranges.

2. Is damping value a fixed representation of speed(distance over time by inverse value), or is it a measure of resistant influenced by the velocity/force of suspension compression/extension?
The difference would be time based damping vs. force based damping.

This will be of some help. I converted the metric values to Imperial.
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?nmgmdnnl0ta

[feuerdog]

I started to automate my recent calcs from the test tables I was working with.

Two things have manifected themselves while searching for the spreadsheet calculations that would fit the table values.

1. Linear value calcs are much easier to find than proportionally accelerated value calcs. I don't even know if thats how you describe the values i'm looking for, but it does confirm the fact that I hate math and am not good at algebra. That said, I have to now reevaluate all of my FM2 test cars to be sure the linear calcs don't upset what the tables suggested. Meh,....maybe i'll just wait for tuesday.

2. I seem to have stumbled on an inverse relationship to the 54% bias calc. The number I ended up balancing my calcs around is 46%. Whats curious is that it was completely reliant on necessity not forethought. The relationship of +/-4% from a balanced 50% is curious. The flop to the other side of 50% is probably related to how i've integrated ARB tuning into the bias calcs.


My early estimates on determining work distribution for each axle seems to be supporting some realistic relationships. The numbers are coming together to support the fact that a MR chassis is a superior chassis for the distribution of performance driving work loads.
AWDs and FWDs relay on the front tires to do too much work. They do a bulk of the braking(decel load), half of the cornering(lateral load), all of the steering(grip yaw load), and either all or some of the acceleration(accel load), and that doesn't include supporting the weight of the car.
The RWD chassis distributes the accel loading to the rear, and some of the steering(drift yaw load).

The only variable left is where the weight is distributed. I think RWD supercar tendencies indicate that somewhere between 50/50 and 40/60 weight distribution is the most balanced. Luckily for me 46/54 fits nicely into that bracket.
My initial idea of using a table came about from a realisation that as you get closer to a balanced tune, the values mean less and less. The 50/50 MR BMW M3 was the eureka car in this instance. I could detune it as much as 1% or even 2% bias and it was still a highly capable and driveable car.
With my former calcs, 1% seemed to cause an excessive amount of disturbance, but i'm pretty sure that was due to thier inherent imbalances in the first place.

Needless to say, i'm excited about my new found tuning focus.

I need FM3 to be here now, patched and working correctly.

Please T10, please come through for me.

[fndrbndr]

If I understand you correctly, you want a the increase in x to be predicated partly on the value of x.  Adding 10 lbs of weight will have a different impace on a 2000 lb car than a 5000 lb car.  I'd suggest messing around with formulas on the order of (x^2)/y.  We use squared variables to get at this in econometrics, usually just using 1 instead of y and allowing a regression equation to determine the coefficient on x.  Of course, you could also multiply by some figure instead of dividing, just providing a framework.  Without knowing exactly what you're getting at, it's hard to model, but I hope that helps at least a little. 

[feuerdog]

I've had some luck with stuff like:

(x+z)*y = a
(x*y)+z = a

Where z and y are a constants, x is the input, and a is the result. But these are linear results.

Non-linear results are possible with constants and multipliers too, but there are far harder for me to predict without knowing how to solve for the variables in the first place,....the other recent issue has been creating inversely proportional results.

Like I said, my algebra sucks.

I threw a few tunes at the linear calcs and everything seemed fine, so I should be OK. The "sprung mass" calc I use compensates for mass as it is so since that compensation is already contained, the other results should follow though.