Advice & Thoughts Needed

Hello,

I bought a 2006 Vauxhall Astra VXR and I have upgraded it to A Class - PI 530, 248 horsepower, 2566 lbs

I did a test run in Tsukuba Circuit Japan, and my best time was 1.07.001

Is it good or bad?
How can I improve it?
Thoughts?

That is a quick car, but the lap time is on par with my C Class Leaderboard project car: 1940 Ford De Luxe Coupe. Sorry mate, but that car should be closer to 1:00 than that.

Not knowing what your gear/susp/downforce settings are, I can't help you very much. But I can give you a few tips. Camber: -1.0F/-.7R, Antiroll bars: 12.0F/7.0R, Caster: 5.5, Downforce: Max F/R, Final Drive Gears: Set to a top speed of approx 130 MPH. And up the rake pressure until you lock them up at the end of the front straight, then back the brake pressure slightly until you no longer do so.

That being said, I have never tuned that particular car for Tsukuba, but those are my starting points on every A Class car I build for that track. Hope you see some improvement.

Thanks for your reply, I checked my setup and I have similar values.

Any tips on how to do the gear settings?

How does your laptime in the Astra compare to what you have run in B Class?

Defconluke wrote:How does your laptime in the Astra compare to what you have run in B Class?

It is close to 1.11

Oh. just reread the opening post, I thought you had said Vauxhall XJ22o. Okay, add more caster, about 6.0. drop rear downforce to about 100, and add .1 rear toe out. This should help with the terminal understeer of the FWD Astra.

On how to set gearing, I assume you have Race trans? Try a 4.79 final drive gear setting for a starting point. If you are redlining before the last turn drop it some, if not then go up a little. This helps alot on the short straights of Tsukuba.

Hi Agent, the last Touring Car Championship had all the cars set to PI 530, with slick tyres, rear aero, pretty much all handling upgrades, and then power was between 250-300bhp.

Tsukuba was the first track we ran, pole clocked in at 1:01.399. To give you an idea of how close things were, 36th place ran a 1:03.112.

I find the trick with Tsukuba is to not go 'around' the corners in a circular fashion, but to go past the apex, turn sharply, and then accelerate out in a straight line, almost squaring it off. With this method you don't need a great handling car (proved by me getting 4th on he grid with a 1:01.590 in a car that handled like a shoebox across ice), you just need good exit speed out down onto the straights.

Give the car more power, and maybe narrower tyres or something, and see if it helps.

Here's the results from Tsukuba so you can see what's what.

Agent.Politis wrote:

Defconluke wrote:How does your laptime in the Astra compare to what you have run in B Class?

It is close to 1.11

Ok, this helps me to see that you are not the best driver out there but as it is faster than your B Class time then you are doing something right.

Do you use any of the driver aids?

In these lower classes, STM and TCS will always slow you down by quite a bit but you can get away with using ABS. The biggest thing that will slow you down is what type of shifting you use - Auto shifting is very, VERY slow, Manual shifting is better and will save you some time but Manual with clutch is without doubt the quickest in everything below R1/R2 by a long way.

If you want to work on removing some of the assists then I would suggest starting off with a lower class of car such as D Class. Build the car up to have a 6.0 or better handling rating in D Class at D350 and focus on your lines - going to a higher class will only add more power which is unimportant right now. Then remove the assists one at a time until you are comfortable without them while still running the same lines - You should notice a HUGE difference between what you started lapping at and finished lapping at.

The car, its build and its tune will only make minor differences compared to what you as a driver can make.

Defconluke wrote:In these lower classes, STM and TCS will always slow you down by quite a bit but you can get away with using ABS. The biggest thing that will slow you down is what type of shifting you use - Auto shifting is very, VERY slow, Manual shifting is better and will save you some time but Manual with clutch is without doubt the quickest in everything below R1/R2 by a long way.

If you want to work on removing some of the assists then I would suggest starting off with a lower class of car such as D Class. Build the car up to have a 6.0 or better handling rating in D Class at D350 and focus on your lines - going to a higher class will only add more power which is unimportant right now. Then remove the assists one at a time until you are comfortable without them while still running the same lines - You should notice a HUGE difference between what you started lapping at and finished lapping at.

The car, its build and its tune will only make minor differences compared to what you as a driver can make.

In my opinion you don't want STM on in any car, and in anything FWD you most definitely don't want TCS on as that'll just bog you down like crazy.

As for the manual with clutch, DO IT! Go into controls, and make sure you swap the clutch and handbrake, so that the clutch button becomes the button.

Changing up then becomes +

Changing down then becomes +

3 posts to 1K!

Thank you all so much for your replies.

I guess is my driving skills that I need to improve and not the car apparently.
I am currently with a standard XBOX Controller. If I upgrade to a wheel do you think I will improve my skill and get better times?

Agent.Politis wrote:Thank you all so much for your replies.

I guess is my driving skills that I need to improve and not the car apparently.
I am currently with a standard XBOX Controller. If I upgrade to a wheel do you think I will improve my skill and get better times?

This could be just me, but when using a wheel (on the Xbox anyway), my laps times take a severe nose dive, seriously. I think most people around here use a pad, you definitely don't need a wheel though to make it into the top lobbies on TORA.

You just need to keep practicing, join in races, learn and get better. The best way i find to get quicker is to race people who are faster than you and see what they're doing differently, it's worked for my dad (BG Papa H) anyway...

2 posts to 1K!

It takes time to get used to running using a wheel, I now only use the pad when I am painting or to input starting figures into a car in the tuning calculator, With TORA there seems to be a great mix of wheel users and pad users I prefer using the wheel because it feels better for me personally but when you first switch over your times do suffer a bit while you get used to it, it took me about a month to match my pad lap times but now I feel as though I can go quicker using the wheel.

I use the pad for all road courses, and the older MS wheel just on larger ovals. I find that the wheel is great for finesse around large radius corners at 180 MPH, but rather annoying in the twisty bits.

Just thought of a quick tip: there are some great TCC tunes on the SF. Search "TORA TCC", and you will find them, including the Championship winning Suzuki tune. I'd suggest grabbing them, and use them to improve your driving first, then your tuning by trying to make your car feel more like theirs. I did exactly that, but only after the season was over. I found that with the SF tunes, I would have likely qualified for the A Lobby rather than the C that I was stuck with in my own car.

Here is my current upgrades on the car. Any suggestions? What do I need to change?

Vauxhall Astra VXR Upgrades

wood53y wrote:... tuning calculator.

What is this and where do you get it? I've heard about it so much but I can't see it

GRT 458Italia wrote:

wood53y wrote:... tuning calculator.

What is this and where do you get it? I've heard about it so much but I can't see it

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