The Bench

[Blooze]

@ Drift: The only thing I have seen is the 3 clowns in the Benchmark Time Trial...  I sure hope they don't have to have a wipe to get rid of just those 3 records.

Wuff... busy, busy, busy.  And funny thing is, I don't understand why.  Thing is, I am retired - I don't have to do a damned thing.  I keep having to tell myself that.  There is no deadline.  If I want to build a car out of process, then build it.  (Process at this time is - D Class: Test Tonka v 3.02.01. 

I am trying to dodge the pressure to get after the Season thing and stay with it till I am done.  The thing is, I just really am not ready, or inclined to get all a tangle with the big time R cars.  My reaction time is terrible, and I think I need new glasses.  T'other day I ran a Kaido track with my R2900 B09 and I was in panic mode the whole time, trying to stay out of the fences.  I kept shifting into reverse.

So, I will build a few more D cars - for one, I want to see if I can come close to the Audi S4 '04 with the Audi S4 '00.  I want to tighten D Class up a bit before I move on.  I'm currently #17 and I still have a few tracks to go.

So the "Hurry, hurry, Season Guy" in my head is just gonna have to stay put...

I wonder where that damned kid is.  I'm payin' him good money to keep this place swept up.  I'm gonna have to have a piece of his ass this morning, if he ever gets in...

$

[Fit4aking]

I'm in no way retired so my Forza time is still a hot commodity.  I've found that I am slowing myself down this time though.  Not on the track as much as with what I want to accomplish.  I'm just starting my F-class v1.2 in an attempt to get a handle on them, again.  I doubt I'll rerun any of the tracks I've already completed until I can classify them as 'low hanging fruit'.  For the moment I'm chugging right along and knocking a few tracks off each session and then moving to a different segment of the game to keep things interesting.

Season play is at a crawl at the moment due to the R3 World Championship.  My Monte Carlo is well up to the task but I'm not up to par driving wise.  To aquaint myself with the R-classers I went to the time time trials.  That opened up a whole new world to me.  I don't completely suck at this game, only mostly.  I can run with a majority of my friends list and that makes me feel a lot better than the time's I've put up in hotlapping.  Nothing says "FAIL" to me like seeing double digit percentiles on leaderboards, or I've set the bar too high for myself.  Dunno yet.

On a side note the B5 ('00) S4 was a really, really, nice B-class flowing track car in FM2 and it had plenty of grip to run mid-length full grip tracks as well.  At least as an alternative to the hum drum usuals.  I had hoped to run through the Audi's in FM3 but am completely unsure of where I want to go next.  If you're having success with it than its promising, I'll have my eye on your Audi dots!

To hell with the Season guy and his annoying press into R-classes, I'm staying put and workin through at my own pace.  I just need one all around car in each class to play around online with....hmmmm.

[Blooze]

LOL - single minded ole farts...  Ain't nobody gonna boss us!     No Siree, Bob!

Hey, these Jimmi Dean breakfast sammiches ain't bad...

$

[fndrbndr]

I'm trying to push through the R2 championship.  I've done it the cheap way, though, building out supercars to the top of the class and just blowing away the competition.  I won R3 with an FXX and am in the process of taking R2 with a Koenigsegg right now.  The only temptation I've resisted is taking the R1 Mazda down to R3.  I'm at least using the same car throughout.

On a semi-related note, the K-car seems to provide some support for your default drift tune theory.  Maxed out to the top of R2, that car is uncontrollably twitchy in stock form.  I was drifting in no time, but taking way too much time to get around corners.  I didn't want to spend a lot of time on a car that I KNEW was just going to hang around long enough to win me a championship, but it got to be too much and I hit up the tuning menu.  The rear springs were WAY stiff, and the shocks were set to insane.  (Less than 30%, IIRC.)  Anyway, closing that ratio to about 4:3 and softening the rear made the car a ton better.  At this point, I'd be comfortable racing it online, if I had any interest in racing R2 online.  It's twitchy, but controllable. 

[Spiny Anteater]

I know exactly where you're coming from with that koenigsegg fndr - I've found exactly the same problem with the #2 Saleen. Upgraded but with stock tuning it was almost undriveable. It wasn't just twitchy, it seemed to have an incredibly soft front end and really stiff rear. It took about an hour of tuning just to get the thing raceable without losing that S7 turn-in. Then just when I thought I had it, the race of doom was unleashed

Basically, I've been progressing through career by random choices through the weekdays and running the championship at the weekend, and building a car up to fit the race. The only time I haven't done this was when it tried to put me in the Peugeot championship when I only had the 2 career gift cars (A and R1 classes) - the championship is D or E (forget which) and I refused to PI Blitz the AI. Then last night, I ended up in the GT1 championship (i.e. R2 Saleens, Vettes, Astons and the like). Just a heads up to everyone, the 2nd race in that is 11 laps of the Amalfi coast circuit!!! And the AI definitely used TCS and STM

[Blooze]

The #2 Saleen, huh?  I tried to get that running and had one hell of a time with it compared to the #4 Vette.  I finally sent the thing back to WIP with a note on the windshield.  Something is wrong with this car.  Fix it or Sell it!!

I wonder how that will go...

$

[Tonka Crash]

The #2 Saleen, huh?  I tried to get that running and had one hell of a time with it compared to the #4 Vette.  I finally sent the thing back to WIP with a note on the windshield.  Something is wrong with this car.  Fix it or Sell it!!

I wonder how that will go...

$

I was worried it was just me.  I threw assists at it and nursed it around a couple tracks, but this has been the worst handling car I've seen in FM3.  I came up with the idea of the Tonka Toy because I liked how the FM2 R-Classes handled by default and noticed that there were distinct trends in their setups.  This car breaks the mold. 

The Saleen #2 settings don't look out of line compared to the other R-Class cars other than it is the most aft balanced car I have data for.  It's balanced the same as FM2, but is a helluva lot twitchier than I remember it being from FM2. Could this be the constant ARB balance biting us?

[Blooze]

I went off and did me a little sight seeing over this here dilema...

Attached is a spreadsheet with some of my seeing.

• The new version is about 100# lighter
• The ARB are quite a bit lighter, and on the 55% Ab
• The Springs are major stiffer.  But, we were thinking those were only half the springs last year, and this year we're acting like the value is the two combined.  Either way - the springs are major different from this year to last.
• The Total Rebound is heavier for a lighter car this year, by 10 clicks.

On a hunch, I cleared the decks, uninstalled those few parts I'd bought and reset the tuning.  I went and drove it on Old New York and Iberian Short.  It was not bad at all, after a bit I was laying on it pretty hard and it was staying where it belonged.

Then I added all that stuff back on.  The Hp and Tq really take a jump.  Now I went and ran the reverse of those two tracks.  (picking off so Leaderboard Flotsom here ).  Now she was a bit squirrelly.  However, it wasn't strange squirrelly.  It just acted like it needed the normal "I got too much Power" things done to it.  Specially, knocking the Diffs down, and softening the rear ARB (do that with a Sb change to 46% maybe?)   Anyhow, I remember being pretty cocky when I set that up, throwing a myriad of changes at it on the initial setup. 

Maybe I'll shed this super tuner hat and pay a little more attention...

$

[Fit4aking]

Just figured I'd pop my head in and let you know I was busy chasing some of your dots last night.  Filling in several gaping holes in my F-class overall time meant I was stacking myself up against my friends list.  On more than one occasion I was wonderin if I was going to be able to run on par with the Blooze-man.  I'm happy to say that on some tracks I could and on some I just couldn't. 

Its never been a hard nosed competition but I do think you tend to set a high standard that at least some of up strive to match.  So in the firendliest way possible, "I'm coming for you Blooze, me and my Alfa have our sights set and are making some progress in your direction."

On another note I levelled up to driver level 44 and recieved the S7 that is under scrutiny so I can join the fracus with its tendancies.

[Blooze]

Those are nice words to say Fit, thank you!

LOL - it looks like I'm gonna be chasing you in the F Class!

$

[Fit4aking]

I've been plugging away on F-class and specifically that little Alfa.  Last night something clicked and it all fell together setup wise.  I was fighting the car around, tuning by feel, and not making a lot of headway. Something was just off about it.  I tried softening up the Rebound dampers just a tad, only by .2 on each, and the damn thing starting turning like I wanted and the on-throttle oversteer issue seemed far more muted than before.  A quick QR run put it 2 seconds ahead of my fastest car, TWO SECONDS.  It has more top end than my FWD power car, better transitional stability than my Fit+, and handles better than my full grip, full aero 914.  This will be the baseline that all others are compared to in my garage.

[TheJohnNewton]

I'll let you guys set all the bars before I come in and destroy you all!!!  Heheheheheheheheheheeeeeeeeee  <---- evil laugher. 

Ok really I'm just trying to work my way through career and build up bank before I worry about hot laps.  Looking at my stats I only have like 10 minutes in the tuning section, lol.  That will change once I get through career.  I need to win the lottery so I can focus on what's really important in life... Forza!  I think I'm around level 36-37 so no S7 yet.

[Blooze]

Well, I done all the damage to D Class that I can, or care to at the moment.  I'm in 4th place, but to move up to 3rd I would need to knock about 4 minutes off the class.  That is a little more work than I care to get into right now.  So it's on to...  B Class!

I like B Class.  You finally got enough PI headroom to build the cars, but not so much that you can just go out and buy "Race" every thing.  So, I'm looking forward to it.  Does it seem to you guys that the PI dollar goes a lot further than it used to?

I really, really like the Seat Leon Supercup!  But, I am afraid it just isn't going to be the twisty track swingin' dick I hoped it would.  It just doesn't have the top end.  Like that fancy Peugeot, it just ain't got no legs.  Anyway, my Subaru '08 is taking top honors for any twisty that comes along.

I been running all these B Class races and now the Season Guy wants me to jump back into an R2 rig.  Kyle Busche might be able to swap rides at a moment's notice, but I need time to acclimate - that or turn the AI down to Dolt...

And so it goes...  how's your forza world today?

Oopsie - coffee's done.

$

PS:  This comes under the heading of an "Oh, duh!" moment.  I ran the 400 Hp AWD drag event just cause I could and I wanted to get it out of the way.   About halfway thru I realized I was running with ABS on and the Braking line to boot...   

[fndrbndr]

I'm not sure that the PI "dollar" goes further.  It may just be differently distributed.  For example, moving up a tire compound used to be worth about a class once you get into the more powerful cars.  That isn't the case anymore.  The difference between slicks and DOT's seems to be less.  I'm not sure whether DOT's are better or slicks are worse.  The similar feel is back, which is a little disappointing, but I digress.  At the same time, upgrading rims seems to have a much larger impact.  There seems to be  a "dead zone" of about four or five PI that you can't really hit (or at least I can't) with rims this time around, leaving me to use the driveshaft to get those last couple of points. 

Just my .02.  YMMV

[TheJohnNewton]

Is it weird that I found it fun to run a stock 79 Camero in the first race of the F class NA championship?  I guess it's that nostalgia thing.  Takes me back to the high school years.  Man those things had no top end but they handle pretty well.