Objective 1: Individual Gear Ratios
Steps A and B can be done on any long straight at any track you’d like.
A. Find the Torque Band:
I come to the beginning of the straight, and stop the car.
I then launch in 1st, wind it out until I need 2nd gear, but then I shift TWICE quickly into
3rd. At this point you will probably bog the car, but that is OK. I then watch the rpm
carefully to see where it is when the motor really starts to pull strong and accelerate
the car quickly. The rpm where this happens is the beginning of the engine’s Torque Band.
B. Keep the engine in the Torque Band:
Now it is time to get to the beginning of
straight again, stop, and launch in 1st. This time I shift normally through each gear,
and pay special attention to what rpm the engine falls to at each gear change. For example,
when I shift from 1st to 2nd, what rpm does the engine fall to when the next gear engages.
If the engine falls below the Torque Band, I adjust that gear to the right (higher). If it
comes in after Torque Band starts, I adjust the gear to the left. For 2nd gear, I aim to
have it 0-150rpm above the Torque Band start. For 3rd, I do 100-250, 4th 250-400, 5th and
6th 400-500. That slight offset helps for a host of reasons I won’t detail here.
C. OPTIONAL:
AFTER I do the final drive (Objective 2, below) I occasionally come
back to the individual spacing and adjust it for a specific track (not necessary unless
you really need another .25 seconds off your lap time…). To do this I make sure that there
are no straights where I have to upshift too close to the next corner. It **usually**
doesn’t make any sense to upshift right before you hit a braking zone. For example, one of
the short straights at Tokyo where you need to downshift to 2nd for the corner but your car
is topping out 3rd about 2/3 of the way down the straight. Instead of shifting to 4th, I
edit the 3rd gear ratio and make it lower (move to left) so that 3rd pulls nicely right
to the braking zone. Obviously, this could hurt you on other parts of the track, so use
this option carefully (like I said, the gains aren’t big at all – a couple of tenths of
a second per lap…).
Now the individual gear ratios are set and should be the same on all tracks (unless you are going after part C). The only thing you need to adjust track-to-track is the final drive ratio.
Objective 2: Final Drive Ratio
Now that the individual gear ratios / spacing are good to go, I focus on getting the final
drive right. For this, it is best to go to the exact track you are trying to tune for. But
usually I do this only on 3 tracks (although Nurby may need it’s own, as well): one short,
tight track (Tsubuka), one intermediate track (Alpine), one long track (New York Long).
A. Wind the engine fully out at the end of the longest straight:
do a lap, and watch your
rpm in top gear on the longest straight. I aim to have it 200-400 rpm into the red line on
short and intermediate tracks, and about 100 rpm into it on the long track. Again, if it
tops out too soon, move the slider left (smaller ratio) and if it doesn’t reach high enough
rpm’s, move it right (higher).
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