Another Random D-Classer - The Trans Am (including guide to gear set-up)

[Spiny Anteater]

Well, the Random Number Generator has put me in D Class again, so I'll be doing things a bit differently this time. Instead of running all the tracks, I will initially just be running the PR, TR and FR tracks plus the Speedway. Then, if any of these tracks are faster than I achieved with the Civic, I will be running all of that type of track.

The car I ended up with was a Trans Am, and rather than break down the suprisingly fast Screaming Chicken, I bought Trans Am number 2:

As you can probably tell from the rough edges, this is one of my paint jobs I'm fully expecting it to beat the Civic on the Speedway and at the Power tracks ... and for it to get heavily beaten on the Twisty ones. As for Flowing tracks, only time will tell.

What I can tell you at this early stage though is that, following lessons learned with the Infinit, I will only be making up 2 basic tunes - one for the Power and Speedway tracks, and one for the Twisty and Flowing tracks.

[Spiny Anteater]

Speedway/Power Build

Upgrades
Power: Sport Cams & Valves, everything else Stock
Platform: All Race except Stock Weight Reduction
Wheels: Stock Tyres on 215/55 R15 on Stock rims
Aero: None

Tune:
Tyres (F/R): 28/28
Gears (Suzuka East): FD = 2.35; 1-5 = 2.89, 2.21, 1.77, 1.45, 1.21 (6th not used)
Camber: -0.9/-0.8
Toe: 0/-0.2
Caster: 5.4
ARBs: 30.98/17.62
Springs: 844.7/479.2
Ride height: 5.5/5.5
Rebound: 12.3/7.9
Bump: 8.1/5.3
Aero: N/A
Brakes: 47% Front/100% Pressure
Diff: 40 Accel/25 Decel

Power: 444bhp
Torque: 489 lb-ft
Weight: 3788lbs (it's a heavyweight)

If anyone is after a Charger alternative in D Class, I can certainly recommend this one (see below)

[Spiny Anteater]

Twisty/Flowing Build:

Upgrades
Power: All Stock
Platform: All Race except Street Weight Reduction
Wheels: Stock Tyres on 235/55 R15 on Oettinger Type RE rims
Aero: None

Tune:
Tyres (F/R): 28/28
Gears (Sunset Infield): FD = 2.35; 1-5 = 2.89, 2.00, 1.51, 1.23, 1.04 (6th not used)
Camber: -0.9/-0.8
Toe: 0/-0.2
Caster: 5.4
ARBs: 29.98/17.02
Springs: 816.7/463.2
Ride height: 5.5/5.5
Rebound: 12.0/7.7
Bump: 8.0/5.1
Aero: N/A
Brakes: 47% Front/100% Pressure
Diff: 40 Accel/25 Decel

[Spiny Anteater]

OK, so that's the build and tune for the Flowing and Twisty tracks (or to be more specific, this one is for Suzuka East, but it's only the gear sets which change between the tracks). This one is pretty competitive offline against similar cars - I ran it in the Big Block race at Road Atlanta and it came 4th and got the fastest lap against a field of B and C Class cars with hard AI.

But, with 2 TR and 2 FR tracks run, it seems that the Civic has the edge on both these tracks. The car just doesn't have the grip to compete through the corners, and doesn't have the PI to allow Street (Y-rated) tyres, or even much of an increase in width. As Detrick has pointed out elsewhere, this thing is very heavy too - even with the weight reduction it's not far short of 3700 lbs.

However, it's a different story with the power build. I'll get that up in the next few days, but it's already set the fastest non-Chevelle time in Exhibition at Silverstone National and in the Speedway race it's got the best Trans Am time (unless someone else has run one, then run something faster). To be honest, there is a small part which worries that the power build may be construed as a missile, but it doesn't feel like it to drive. granted you have to be careful, but apart from at the peak of the torque curve, you can still floor it in 1st gear, provided it's not from a standing start. It's really just the times it sets which make me wonder - they are well into missile territory. But, I'll post the build, and if the concensus is that it's a missile I'll withdraw it. (For now, all I can remember is that it was 444bhp on stock tyres)

[Blooze]

I wouldn't worry about it being construed as a missle build.  There are those that are going to think that no matter what you say or do just because the car is a US Muscle car.  What I found with running the Muscle Inc. D cars is that they all compete quite handily on the power tracks.  Because they have power.  I was able to set a number of top 500 times on the RWT with the Baracuda in Muscle Inc D Class (S^4) trim.  One could hardly call that a missle unit.

I say rock on dude, you're going a good job.  I like the way you're doing this.

$

[Snyder005]

There are only 2 cars that can be missiles in D-Class, the Chevelle and Charger, simply do to this fact:  These cars can stuff over 600 horsepower (double check this), at the cost of stock springs and dampers.  Any other car can't get more than 400 horsepower, before it goes into C-Class.

For example, i had a 1969 Camaro SS in D-Class, running stock power and full platform upgrades (no weight reduction.)  I was still able to run a top 250 time at Road Atlanta, but the car was in no way a missile car.

[fndrbndr]

I'm with them on this.  Recall that there was a 300-400 and a 400-500 hp subclass for S4.

[Spiny Anteater]

Thanks for the clarification guys. To be honest, the car doesn't feel like a missile to drive. Granted you have to watch the throttle coming out of and through corners, but you can easily use full acceleration down the straights. I suppose I just got a bit worried when I looked at some of those leaderboards and was surrounded by Chevelles

I probably won't get the power build up until tomorrow, but I will say that Cams and Valved make that torque peak more manageable

[Spiny Anteater]

Well, the power build is up, and if anyone wants to try out the Trans Am I can certainly recommend this one. Having managed to set the best non-Chevelle time on Silverstone National in Exhibition a few days ago, I was very pleased to repeat the feat tonight at both New York and Sebring. As I'm a long way from the best driver, I think in the right hands this could really motor.

While the huge drag co-efficient does blunt top end speed, for a powered up muscle car, this really does handle well all things considering. For that, credit must go to Feuerdog on whose v.5.11 calculator these tunes are closely based. At the moment, I would go so far as to say that this is the best of the random cars built so far, although that is probably because it is very heavily biased towards power. The Ferrari is biased towards the twisty tracks, and I think that showed in it's times where it was pretty competitive. The Civic is a very good all-rounder, and wasn't embarassed when racing at Tsukuba a couple of nights ago, but isn't particularly strong in any one area. The Infiniti can race well with Fender's 2000GT at Laguna, but is most at home on the fast tracks where it's slippery shape can come into play. But, so far, the star of the show appears to be this power build Trans-Am - it seems to be challenging the missiles on the power tracks.

I'm pleased with it

[Spiny Anteater]

Oops! Guess who forgot to put any times up for this this thing"!

PR: 211.715 (closer to the Infiniti than the Civic)
FR: 166.053 (the slowest so far for me)
TR: 162.585 (again the slowest so far for me)

The QR comes out at 210.188, although as there are two different builds in there it is of questionable value. This QR is about 1.5 seconds quicker than my Civic time, which supports the idea that if you change the builds the lowest QR in a class is going to be from the car which can load all the main set of parts for one particular build without loading the parts from the other (e.g. a Mugen Integra with all the tyre upgrades, but nothing else).

[backfireNL]

I'm still looking for a car in D for the power tracks, i'll give this one a try 

[Spiny Anteater]

Cool! Let me know how you get on with it.

[backfireNL]

Cool! Let me know how you get on with it.

I'm starting to love it I still have trouble with FR cars and specially the muscle-cars, but it's getting better. However this is by far the fastest powertrack car I have in D-class! It easily destroyed all my previous best laptimes on any track with even a small straight.

After building the car I drove it stock for a while, didn't like it so tried your tune. Still couldn't really get along with the car, the main problem was that I had a hard time cornering on the limit of the car. For example one lap would be fine (and very fast) and the next lap I would kill myself while under the impression that I did the exact same thing as the lap before. So I ended up softening up the ARB's/springs/reboud/bump settings while maintaining the ballance front/back. For me this makes the car maybe not faster but very easy to drive. It felt kind of wobbly at first but I can "feel" (and anticipate and react to) the weight transfer in the car much better now. The replays also look fantastic now, because I attack most corners with a subtle drift angle now, might not me the fastest way but at least its faster then me crashing every other lap 

Well, the power build is up, and if anyone wants to try out the Trans Am I can certainly recommend this one. Having managed to set the best non-Chevelle time on Silverstone National in Exhibition a few days ago, I was very pleased to repeat the feat tonight at both New York and Sebring. As I'm a long way from the best driver, I think in the right hands this could really motor.

I noticed your times cause I was practicing with the car on exhibition mode myself. You are fast! I noticed the d-class exhibition nordschleife race top 20 had 3 muscle inc members in it, with you being the fastest non-chevelle/charger   

I'm not sure what tracks exactly you or anyone considers Flowing tracks. (list anyone ?) But I noticed you didn't run the sebring club and suzuka west exhibition races with the transam. Is this because you think this are flowing tracks on which your civic might be faster ? If that's the case I'm happy to inform you, you might be wrong  I drove top 100 times on those races easily the first time around. (speedway-power build with my softer settings)

I do feel the setup I'm using is a little TO soft at this stage  so i'm planning on testing some more when I find the time and post the final build when i'm "done"withe the car.

[Spiny Anteater]

First of all I'm glad you like the car. The muscle cars generally require a different driving technique to the more normal cars, and you do generally end up with a subtle drift when you drive them - as you said this looks good on replays.

From what I can gather, softening the settings (such as springs, ARBs and dampers) does make the car easier to control because when the car does run out of grip it tends to let go more gradually and so is easier to catch than a stiffly sprung car. Afficionados of Feuerdog's set-up may notice that my springs are generally softer than v.5.11 (90% to be exact). The idea is that allows more front-rear weight transfer (as you're now noticing) which in the muscle cars helps with traction out of corners. The ARBs are run at 110% to counter the extra lateral roll that would result from this. I've also lowered the diff settings compared to Feuerdog's calculator as I find that reduces the impact of on-throttle oversteer. If I can offer one piece of advice with any muscle car - finding the limit through a corner is less important than being able to get on the accelerator early.

As for a list of flowing tracks, I'm sure everyone has their opinions, but I'll put up a post of my ideas soon.

[sk15kev]

Spiny, I am loving this car big style (power build)!  I have such a smile  on my face while racing it, especially on Silverstone National.

It is so well balanced that even without TCS, when it steps out it is slow enough for you to catch it. I was expecting to be squirming all over the track as I normally do with muscle cars. I find high speed corners quite difficult, such as the last slight bend on Silverstone after the hairpin, where if you are right on it and not careful the car will just float off the track.

I would like to ask how you came to those gear ratios?  When I was pluggung them in and moved the FD slider way to the left I thought "what the hell!".

Hats off to you Spiny, she's a good one!

-Kev