Manipulate the Weight Bias (Original Thread)

[Tonka Crash]

When I taught C programming at the local college, I had two types of students...

My only programming class in college was assembly I took as a tech elective, but I use FORTRAN daily.

What are you writing Fortran on?

$

Stone tablets   The current code base started on a Unix minicomputer with serial terminals in '89 and eventually migrated to Cygwin on Windows a couple years ago. You know how it goes, small company, in house proprietary software, no budget, software rarely gets replaced buy slowly evolves. 

[gs shyner]

One thing I forgot to mention when I started with the TonkaToy/Blooze hybrid on the C-class Saleen.

When I input the game value of the handling, weight bias and TT's default SWR
it generated #s that were ALMOST identical to the default suspension values.

Pretty freaking cool, or not?  (maybe because T10 actually coded this car's bias correctly vs some of the other oddballs with "wacky" bias's)

just a tidbit,
Geo

[Blooze]

It's cool after a fashion...  but a lot of what you see in that respect is similar to 4-2 = 2 after first proving that 2+2 = 4.

In this case, the functions are being used to produce the data that was used to produce the functions.

$

[gs shyner]

OMG!!!
I put the TonkaBlooze xls toon on two B-Class cars I had run previously for the American Muscle Career race
(a 69 SS and a 427 Boss)

I LUV IT!  new ghosts.
Cars ran sweet. Adjusted from a 54.5% to a 55% bias for both but left the Tonka SWR as is.
Cupra testing this weekend.

KUDOS Tonka and Blooze!
G

[Blooze]

...glad it's working for you! 

It kind of boggles once you see how easy it is to use and how well it works.

[larryCR]

So, Blooze, what are your current thoughts on the way wb tuning works in the game? For a while it was looking to me that the only thing that mattered was where the drive came from: F, R, or A. But with the Tonka Tuning Challenge, and the MR balance that seemed to be successful, I wonder if there is still more to it? If you could indeed adjust the balance solely with the springs then it would erase the difference between FR and MR. But does it? Does the game's physics model have more to it than that? Is there some endian polar moment involved too? If you drive a 911 based car it sure seems that way. What do you think?

[Blooze]

Interesting you should ask.  I have been a mulling and a mulling that very thing as of late.

Basically, I am adjusting the Bias and the SWR slightly off the stock values depending on what I think is wrong with the car.  I have found some cars that require a major relocation of the weight and react well to it, but I have found just as many that work fine right where they are at. 

I don't think we have a silver bullet - a specific setup that works on all cars across the board.

What I think we do have is a sound method of manipulating values that I also think we have proven need to be maintained in a certain relationship. 

What we have with the Wb and Tonka methodologies is a simplifed method of doing what I have tried to do always.  Way back when I was uncomfortable in moving individual parameters very far individually - the idea that they operated in a vacuum always wrankled.  The current tools are an extension of that.

Tuning a D classed GTO this morning has me revisting the Tonka functions for production type cars.

So... after muddling around with this for half an hour and hardly saying anything - I guess the smartest thing to say is it is a work in process.  And, bits and pieces are starting to fall into place.

  $ 

[Fit4aking]

Last night I set up 3 cars using the Tonka/Blooze spreadsheet and WOW.  What a difference from stock.  I tooned an A-class GNX, a D-class Z/28 and a D-class 500KR.  What a difference the default values made to the car.  I only dabbled in changing the bias and haven't attempted to change the SWR but each one was far better to drive than stock.  Those were by far the biggest improvements I've seen since I started trying to apply it.

[feuerdog]

OMG, i'm drain bamaged.

With the exception of maybe two or three tangent/link explorations I pretty much read this entire thread from start to finish.

Before my neurons completely fail me and I slip into a thought overload coma, I have a couple of.......things:

1. Wow!  You guys have been busy while I was gone.  What an amazing amount of teamwork and dedication to a project with rewards that can be measured in only tenth's of second.  And people said I had too much math in my calcs.

2. Too many acronyms.  It took me three pages of rereading to figure out what SWR meant.  It is all alot clearer to me now, but not crystal.  I'm still processing the basic WB,....um, process.

3. I need to teach myself about spreadsheets.  The days of using my trusty calculator and pencil are numbered.

4. I knew the Turn10 physics model wasn't accurate, but I am far more dissappointed now that I can see how they acheived their results.

5.  We need to find "Qbix", and see if he can put the Tonka/Blooze calculator into a flash based easy-to-use tool.  Qbix made one of the automatic versions of my calculator and it had metric/standard conversions and all the tweaks.  Very nice.

6.  I don't need to rewrite a 4th version of my calculator!, you guys have created the "next generation" of tool, and it's based more on "fact" and less on "feel", awesome stuff.

[Blooze]

LOL - Chill grasshopper...

The model is working pretty good now, but there are some things with RR and MR cars that have yet to be sorted out.

To wit; even tho they all handle somewhat the same, there is a definite difference between the different drive types when set to the same Bias and SWR.

$

[fndrbndr]

I use the Tonka for FR cars, the FD cald for everything else.

[R2P TALIESIN]

Just a thought, in car design it appears to me that most manufacturers hold as the holy grail a weight distribution of 50/50.

If we are as you have said effecting the weight bias by altering the spring rates is there a reason why know one has suggested setting the weight bias to 50/50 and then to control the handling via the ARB's and to the fine tune using the dampers.

I will experiment tonight should be fun

[landstuhltaylor]

50/50 weight distrubution is only the best at steady-state cornering. At any other time a slightly rearward bias seems to be best.

[Blooze]

Most people would have to make a rather severe alteration to their driving styles and habits to warrant a 50/50 car.

$

[R2P TALIESIN]

After about 10 minutes of running 50/50 and arb set 56/44 to give me in effect a 53% WBR I came to to the realisation that whilst the handling was very similar I couldnt get the rear tires to heat up sufficiently on laps 3456 to compete with a true 53% wbr that had better heat in the rear tires and consequently more grip