Packers !!!!

[Kek700]

can some knowledgeable person please explain.

I would like to use them but I cannot see how to utilize their use and cannot find anything on the Internet about it.

They have a travel range and somehow combine with suspension springs stiffness and travel
adjustment so is it easily possible to make a meaningful adjustment.

Also Is it possible to give a pictorial representation of them to help understand their use or
are they just a theoretical part of the physics calculation.

 

[RasmusP]

I've not experienced a car scraping the track in AC.

Can you see/hear/feel the car scraping?

Can you suggest a car/track combo where I might?

Tatuus is a good example too

 

[Tbear]

@Pawel Ziolkowski & @RasmusP
Thanks for the examples... This is a very useful exercise. I tried both at Bridgehampton because it's got to be the bumpiest track I know.

Besides ride height, BH is also a good place to take someone to show them the workings of springs and dampers.

Question ... I didn't see any impact of scraping the cars bottom and lap times ... but I really wasn't pushing. If I get an AC sim car low enough ... will it impact lap times?

 

[RasmusP]

@Pawel Ziolkowski & @RasmusP
Thanks for the examples... This is a very useful exercise. I tried both at Bridgehampton because it's got to be the bumpiest track I know.

Besides ride height, BH is also a good place to take someone to show them the workings of springs and dampers.

Question ... I didn't see any impact of scraping the cars bottom and lap times ... but I really wasn't pushing. If I get an AC sim car low enough ... will it impact lap times?

Glad it was helpful
Lap times.. not so much. If damage is at 100% I'm not sure if it can cause damage or not.

It has a big impact on the handling though! You don't really see it in my video but the Tatuus was all over the place while scraping! Understeer, oversteer, wheelspin...
Also the aero might stall at some point and then either make you slower or lose the car!
But in general, a bit of scraping might not be bad at all
I mean look at F1, that should be the "perfect amount of scraping" I'd say. Otherwise they wouldn't let it happen
Who needs packers? Let's just use the floor of the car, lol! Just kidding, as we know their skidpad must not exceed a certain level of degeneration per race!

 

[Pawel Ziolkowski]

Question ... I didn't see any impact of scraping the cars bottom and lap times ... but I really wasn't pushing. If I get an AC sim car low enough ... will it impact lap times?

Depends on what is scrapping.

Cars like BMW M3 GT2 will scrape with front splitter, so they get sudden understeer when it happens. But the effect can be smaller than you'd think, as around that point the splitter's downforce has significant increase in efficiency balancing it out somewhat.
Nissan GTR GT3 will scrape mostly on the underbody leaving balance unchanged for the most part, just loosing some grip. Thou in this case aero gains outshine the losses.
Tatuus, as Rasmus mentions, can have all of it. But if you run rear too low, you can get back of the diffuser to scrape. This combined with diffuser stall that occurs around that height will give violent spin-out.

In general cars that can scrape are already designed with aero benefiting from low ride height so unless it upsets the balance, there will be a net gain in going low enough to scrape.

 

[Kek700]

@Kek700 One thing of note in regards to going really soft and Eau rouge. It may not work, because during the climb part of it car is getting lighter, so soft suspension will rise it really high completely killing downforce, thus drowning any damper adjustment in terminal understeer of front splitter stall.


Yes your right about soft suspension, when i made the suspension really soft i really had trouble
holding the car for Raidillon . Maybe i could try other combinations with using the soft springs and
the dampers stiff but at that point i had lost the will to live.

 

[Kek700]

Just out of interest i will try and listern for scraping at Eau rouge.

 

[Tbear]

One of the best threads I ever hijacked! Lots to learn here ... Thanks guys!

 

[Kek700]

Just to finalise the point about Spa Eau rouge in case someone is interested.

Had a gt3 replay, from Spa last year.
I am not a fan of replays after my last dealings with them.

This is a field of racedepartment drivers all good some very good.
I do realise this is a very limited sample and probably ultimately has some glaring
holes in its conclusions. ( i am sure at the top level in simracing this would probably
not be representive. )

Ferrari , Bmw Z4 , audi R8 ( usually ) generally speaking these cars manage Eau rouge
without a lift. This was with most of the laps gone so tyres weren’t at their best and a
somewhat reduced fuel load.

Porsche, Mercedes, Nissan, Lamborghini ( sometimes ), in comparison these cars
struggled. Apart from the Lamborghini there was no way they were going to manage it.

But as long as everyone got a good drive up the hill all the cars like the
Bmw Z4 and Ferrari could not really make sufficient inroads on the cars that had to
lift to guarantee a pass.

Even though the Nissan was probably the worst for lifting, its ability to use its
large torque gave it a good drive up the hill.
So i really do not need to occupy my time with this pointless crusade.
Apart from maybe qualifying it seems to be meaningless. A least
for the level i race at.