dukestah’s gtr blog

i did 2 stints yesterday. the car performance and handling is great even when it started to understeer a little bit and the last 2 laps per stint are quite demanding due the light rear. surprisely, i was able to catch position 1. it seems that the gt pack is struggeling with overlapping as well and with lap times around 8 minutes i was able to put 2 minutes between me and position 2. at the end of stint 3 i changed to new tires all around, some battles with the porsches shaved my front tires to 22 and the rears to 17/19. to get a shorter stop after stint 4 i found it would be good to swap all tires because this would hold position 1 after the 3rd stop. at lap 31, the dusk started and it seems that the track is cooling down because the elise started to become more pushy. due some struggling with the porsches (there are only porsches left here?) while overlapping i lost a lot of time on the track and number 2 is coming closer faster than i can handle. unfortunately, the other ngt elise wasn’t really cooperating and blocked me at the exit of galgenkopf and after i drove hard into the back i had a spin and lost more time once again. in lap 9 of stint 4, at exmuehle, i was too hard on the throttle and with a spectacular burn out i accelerated up the hill into an impressive spin. number 2, a ferrari 550, passed me with a condescending smile on his face about this newbie like mistake. i am a little bit afraid of the night because i am not sure if the tires will handle a colder track. that’s the major downside of driving gt-tires on a 800 kg car.

i bought a new wheel last weekend since my old one started to be very shaky and noisy. so i went for the logitech momo racing wheel. my old one is the logitech wingman force and i love the non-tooth-wheel-feeling so the change to the new is some kind of difficult. especially for high speed steering (correction of oversteer …) the old one is much better than the new stuff and i am really afraid of breaking something sometimes. but the precision and the pedals are really great. the feedback is much better (more effect channels) and stronger. unfortunately, i got this swaying and rattling on straights which is mentioned in lot of racing boards. every hint to fix this was without success so this is a little bit disappointing. after a couple of laps to get familar with the new wheel i was able to drive a 7:54 again but i had troubles with the pedals which were working as combined axis. uninstalling, deleting of all logitech wingman software and a fresh new reinstall fixed this problem. so i went for a short test race to check if the setup and the wheel will work but it was quite a mess. the feedback was so strong and the rattling on the straights rendered the car very unstable. i decreased the force to 80% within gtr (150% at the control panel) and i added a small deadzone (2%) for the steering (which i really dislike usually) to get a stable car on the straights.
i did some small adaption of the setup, symmetrical springs on the front, a lifted rear (5 mm) and a stronger sway bar on the front. i thought i am quite used to the new wheel so i started a new 24 h race (the 4th if i remember correct). i started at position 30 to get rid of the pressure from behind for the first laps. but the porsches were acting very strange. the track was quite hot, 37 degrees, and everybody was pushing very hard. but the porsches were sliding and powersteering in each bend so it was quite dangerous to follow, not to think about passing. after 7 laps, i had 4 or 5 spins and 2 crashes with unexpected spinned cars. more then 10 cars were out and my elise was damaged so that i wasn’t able to reach 240 km/h on the straights. due the fact that it was impossible to drive a constant line and the loosy car i was so angry that i cancelled the race.
i went back to the garage to perform another short test session. i set the rear wing to 7 instead of 6 to get more grip on the rear so that it will be easier to break in bends. a short run gave me a 7:54 on a 27 degree track which is quite ok and the car felt much more better. let’s go for race number 5. i started on position 30 again, track temp was above 30 degree, forecast dry (unfortunately), opponents at 105% and wild. the first lap was except a spin of a porsche (what else) in turn one without any troubles. so i started to increase the speed to get close to my 8 minutes laps. the car behavior is great, much more predictable, superior grip and handling. after passing 3 or 4 cars i had the chance to drive 3 laps without passings on difficult parts and i got a 7:59, 7:58, 8:03 (two passes) in a row. then a couple of passings (overlapping the elise and a porsche), the gt’s went for their stops, stopped my furious trip to 8:10-8:15 for 2 or 3 laps. then the track was free again, just a g2-viper in front of me. lap 8 and 9 was really fast, the empty tank, the free track and the returned confidence in me, the car and the wheel leaded to a 7:56 (one pass) and a 8:03 (inside pits). i was able to get closer to the g2 viper in section 3! (karussel-galgenkopf). now on position 11, it was time for the pits, fuel and small repair (touch with a porsche while passing him) took 38 seconds. the tire wear was 5,5 on the front and 4,5 on the rear which is really great for soft tires and this speed. (i now, that are gt-tires and i feel quite bad driving those wheels on my ngt car…) i saved the race because it was late but i learned that i drove the 7th fastest lap with just 4 seconds slower than the fastest lap overall. i think i should switch to gt class with my car to be fair.

well done. after spenting some more time thinking about my setup and the tire issue i made some changes on my setup to improve handling and cornering speed on cold tires. on the gt3 tires i got very small improvements and disappointed by that, i decided to switch to the michelin gt tires. i went back to my former 24 h setup but i kept some of the gt3 setup parameters. for the first test laps i startet on med front and hard rear tires for track temperatures of about 27 degree celcius. surprisly, the car was quite fast, i got close to the 8 minutes with 8:03. adapting the tire pressure to the cold environment (compared to med/hard tires) and decreasing the camper settings once more gave a really good handling. to check the ability to do some fast laps i went for soft tires all around, decreased the fuel to 55 litres and off for the track. first two laps were to head up the tires to about 70 degrees and to get an impression of the turn in behavior. lap 3 was my flying lap and i finnished this lap with a 7:54 and a very spectacular style 😉 due the unexpected good turn in behavior and the great grip i took a couple of bends too close and the first left hand corner (t13) kicked my car on two wheels and my line for metzges feld and kallenhard were far away from being perfect. so avoiding such mistakes, finding a better line for the improved speed and a little bit hotter track will easily lead to a lap time below 7:50. i have to do some more tests because driving on soft tires will lead to the problem that the tires won’t last for 2 or 3 stints but adapting the setup more to medium tires will fix this. next step will be to raise up the rear by another 5 mm and to strengthen the springs on the rear a little bit because of all the sparks in compressions and the banked curves 😉 a complete stint distance (9 laps) will show if i go for less pressure to get at least some sort of heat on the tires or if i go for a pressure which will provide more eval grip over the whole tire surface.

tires, tires, i am tired by tires. i spent another 10 laps on the track to find a solution which tire set would fit to the car and the track. first i found the gt3cup tires would be a good decision, they warm up nicely and keep the heat as long as it needs to get to the next bend. but i found the car still very spongy. the rear is keep trying to pass me and there is a thin line between understeer and oversteer and the car is really hard to handle with throttle balancing. so i went to the garage to change some settings. tire pressure varies a lot so quite hard to find a good cold pressure. to get rid of the side by side bouncing effect i have stiffen the swaybars a little, more strength on the dampers on the rear and for a couple of laps i increased the rear wing to 7. the handling was better now but the lap times are not as expected. so i went to motec to check cornering speed and g-forces and i found what i was expecting, the car is slower in bends. this is definitely a dead end. i will test the ngt tires, maybe i will spend some time on the elise tires as well and if this all fails i will go back to the gt tires.

based on my experience last week i went for some tire tests. i found 8 different tires available, 3 gt, 2 ngt and 1 for the elise and one for the gt3cup and 1 for the bmw. i focused myself to the non gt tires since the gt tire is quite huge and this is the reason for the cold temperatures. surprisly, the ngt and the other brands are less stable in bends, this means, the car is wobbling a lot. this requires a complete new driving style since balancing the car with the throttle won’t work any longer. especially in esses the rear tends to oversteer and if i want to put some more load on the rear with applying some throttle the oversteer becomes very fast a powersteer. the tires for the elise and for the bmw seems not really usefull for my current car. even after adjusting the gear ratios to the new diameter, the car was unpredictable and unstable. the ngt tires are not very different from this so i went out for some laps on the gt3cup tires. after struggeling a little with the pressure i learnded that i need some changes on the setup as well. with some more strength on the swaybars, more pressure for the tires and slightly stronger dampers on the rear, the car is now handy, even if it is not as easy to drive as on the gt tires. but the grip has increased and the powerslides are reduced to an acceptable happening.

out for stint 3. with some more action on the track, overlapping, passing from behind due stops of the gt’s and some battles with position 10-12 after they have pitted, the race was very entertaining. due to the cold tires i had to fight with a sliding car more and more and i had at least one spin every second lap. so going for softs on the rear was absolutely necessary. since it was late in the evening i decided to pause the race after stop 3 and went for some tests. i found the tire brand within the car file and tried to change it to another brand. the different tires are defined by files within the gtr-teams folder. the tuned elise comes with gt tires, which are too fat for this small car. so i tested the ngt tires, but they are not equal in diameter. next attempt, the tires of the original elise. they weren’t bad at all, even diameter differs but i can adjust the final gear ratio to fit the new diameter to the car. testing the bmw tires was not very convincing. so only the gt3 tires are left, which i will test next week. first, i have to write down the diameters with the help of motec and then i can adjust the final gear ratio to get comparable results. but it seems that changing the brand excluding the gt tires will help a little to get usefull tire temps on the nordschleife even if getting optimal temperatur over night seems to be impossible.

out for stint 3. with some more action on the track, overlapping, passing from behind due stops of the gt’s and some battles with position 10-12 after they have pitted, the race was very entertaining. due the cold tires i had to fight with a sliding car more and more and i had at least one spin every second lap. so going for softs on the rear was absolutely necessary. since it was late in the evening i decided to pause the race after stop 3 and went for some tests. i found the tire brand within the car file and tried to change it to another brand. the different tires are defined by files within the gtr-teams folder. the tuned elise comes with gt tires, which are too fat for this small car. so i tested the ngt tires, but they are not equal in diameter. next attempt, the tires of the original elise. they weren’t bad at all, even diameter differs but i can adjust the final gear ratio to fit the new diameter to the car. testing the bmw tires was not very convincing. so only the gt3 tires are left, which i will test next week. first, i have to write down the diameters with the help of motec and then i can adjust the final gear ratio to get comparable results. but it seems that changing the brand excluding the gt tires will help a little to get usefull tire temps on the nordschleife even if getting optimal temperatur over night seems to be impossible.

next stint, i went for the box last night after lap 9, just fuel and some small repairs. the track was cooling down on and on so the elise was sliding more and more. and here i faced a major problem of cold tires, which appears below 60 degree celcius. if you enter a curve, the front tires will heat up and within the curve the grip on the front increases so the car tends to snap steer towards inside of the curve. this renders the car into a very sensitive vehicle. my lap times are about 8:10, placed on position 12 and without any major troubles to hold this position. at lap 12 i was overlapping the first car, the stock elise, and 1 lap later i overlapped the slowest porsches and the m3. at the end of lap 9, it was time again for the pit. fuel, new front tires (they were at 21 and 20, quite impossible to stay out for another stint). i decided to keep the rears for at least one stint because the night will cool down the track more and more and so there would be no other tire left than the softs and i have to manage the car on those cold tires.

ok, to test the tuned elise i started a new 24 h race. opponents at 105%, aggression wild (still with the moded ai files), technical failures set to 75 (i want more cars to finish). the race started at wet conditions but no rain and the track was drying quite fast (3 laps). the start was fine, no crash, no bumps. after a couple of laps i felt quite comfortable with the new elise but i had the feeling that the rear is too low and too stiff. i was struggeling a little with the ferraris but finally i was able to put some secounds between me and the ngt field
on the dry track, the elise is a little bit too fast for my oppinion. i started at position 20 and after 6 laps i was on 13th position. unfortunately, the track was too cold and i drove into troubles with my tire temps. since i already was on soft tires on front and medium on rear, i have no idea how to fix this problem.

another 8 laps to drive. the track is still quite hot and so the car starts to tend to slip more than expected. unfortunately, cold wheel slip is more predictable than overheated wheel slip. the elise tends to swing the rear under braking so i have to go back to linear braking instead of trail breaking. this costs about 10 seconds per lap. the opponents are as powerfull as they have never been for this race so it is really not funny at the moment. i am more than 30 seconds behind the slowest lap times so i am loosing at least one position per lap. off to the pits after lap 48. a complete stop will hopefully fix my handling troubles. but then, after saving the race i went for restart and not for continue by selecting the wrong menu item and gtr overwrites the save game! that’s indeed a strange behavior. since this race is lost i tried to figure out what’s wrong and surprise surprise, gtr creates a save game every time you start a new race out of an existing race. that’s quite pity because i often use saved races to get comparable conditions.
based on the devastating experience with the low performance of the elise on the nordschleife under dry conditions i decided to change the car. i did some tests with other original cars the last days but none of them are what i am looking for. the gulf team exige tuned elise is too powerfull, lap times are way below the ngt cars so this car is for this class too fast. but this car is not crypted so i am able to edit the performance files. after a short research on the web i found a couple of powercurves of similar machines and with the new exige gt3 in mind, i started to create a new 24h elise. i have used the exige powercurve and adapted this to the curve of the honda type-r machine. after a few test laps, i found that the car is still to powerfull due the light weight and i smoothed out the curve to 220 hp at 6200 rpm and a curve which started to produce 200 nm at 2250 rpm, rising to 340 nm at 6200. this provides a maximum of 250 hp at 7500 rpm. this is far away from the 300 ps of the new exige gt3 and my first lap times are above 8:05 with some space left for improvements. so in combination of an adjustable 6-gear gearbox this is a great car for the nordschleife. the fuel consumption is about 10-11 litres for one lap and with the extented tank of 100 ltr (the add-on car comes with just 60 ltr) the fuel should last for 9 laps. maybe i adapt the fuel consumption or the tank so that i can stay out for 10 laps. most of the ngt/g2/g3 cars are able to stay out for 10 laps due the lower fuel consumption than the original gtr elise (12 ltr per lap, the porsches 9-10 ltr).
a quick test with a 50 cars field showed that the modified elise is competitive. still slower on the straights than the fastest ngt cars but a little bit faster in the bends due less body mass. unfortunately, i wasn’t able to complete a stint since it was late in the evening but i am really looking forward to next week for more race action.