TCC Season 7 (Q1 2013) Testing - Phase 1 Closed

We could see just how different the starts are between RWD and FWD. In a XPLR race I went from 8th on the grid to 4th by the 1st turn at Silverstone.

I can't do tonight, maybe can tomorrow, out again Weds.

Duncan, I'll add you ASAP to the doc, but got allsorts of other bits on atm and it's fairly involved adding bits and changing formulae.

I won't be home for another 10 days or so, but will be up for group testing after that. I think we need to concentrate on pure timed runs at first and then group up.

that's true. i always tend to run faster in a group than on my own.

I think group testing at this stage is a waste of time, you need empirical data from standardised testing of each car (i.e. same driver, same track, stock tune), that's the only way to know if lap time difference are due to car or driver, or both.

^^^ Agree with Magic here

Cheers Chris

It's long, boring and tedious but the only way to verify it (ran over 250 laps at Hockenheim National this weekend )

omg!! i did 30 last night around nur gp!!

You also need to expedite the process and get rid of the stuff that absolutely has no chance of working.

The Mini, Lexus (electric), Prius (electric), and Subaru's are those cars.

You'll also find the Peugeot RCZ, '09 Focus, and Mazdaspeed too slow as you go. The Veloster is okay but will be on the bottom end. I did this for Stock Hatch at VM already. Limits were 535PI, 2,500 lbs, 250 hp and the test results from Magic mirror our results of the cars we tested. Some cars on the list here we did not test but those I can tell you won't work. Focus wasn't one but it is a pain to drive and slow in the past two games (it also sucks in Horizon).

That's 8 cars you can axe while keeping the Veloster just in case. That makes the work much, much easier.

That was 6 laps in every car I have and then retests of some cars with different builds (e.g. Kia cee'd at >2500lbs) and lower PIs (RWD).

Interesting results though, especially the mean and median times for the 32 cars tested. Data on the right hand side is based on retesting some RWD cars like the BMW 1 Series at 570 PI, it still ran 35.2, faster than most FWD cars. As for the cars I don't have, Worm has tested 2 of those (FRS and M Coupe), and ran very similar times to what he ran in the 1 Series, so I would expect them to also be in the 34.8-35.0 range for me.



I excluded the Mini, Lexus and Prius from the data analysis, they're significantly slower than the rest. Of the RWD, only the 2008 Subaru seemed off the pace, in fact all the other RWD cars were very similar.

are these race tuned Magic or just build.

Just builds, all run with stock tunes

coolio so barring several its pretty similar , i would suggest any car that cant break into the 35s be dropped to keep the field closer , thoughts ?

Personally I'd keep everything except the 3 cars in purple (Mini, Prius and Lexus hybrid). The mean time is around 1.35.5, so anything +/- 0.5s is still competitive and this will vary from track to track (Sentra will be closer to the mean on power tracks, whereas some of the grippy FWD cars will drop back).

For me the bigger issue is that, at 580 PI for FWD and RWD, if you put any top driver who can tune a car in of the better 4 RWD cars, and they'll dominate the championship, making the other 20+ FWD cars redundant cos they just won't be able to keep up. So they need slowing down to bring them in line with the FWD mean - which is at least a 5 PI reduction, and more likely 10 PI. That would be my recommendation anyway based on driving all the cars over the weekend

i do agree your alternate PI times are much more appealing .

The RWD cars would be more evenly spread through the entire pack then rather than being bunched up in the top 1/3, which really should be the aim of balancing the two groups

i see a resemblance to the Clubman Series when the RWD's were 10 PI lower to prevent one drivetrain being the dominant one. i would agree with having the RWD's at the lower PI.

It's an imbalance in the Forza 4 PI system (due to the fictional track that Forza uses to base the PI's on favouring RWD cars). You see it on the leaderboards too, drive train swapped Celicas, Hondas etc are about 0.5s a lap faster at the same PI as the original FWD car - drop the RWD car by 10 PI and they come back into balance. Forza 3's PI system favoured 4WD cars in a similar way, they corrected that in Forza 4 but now FWD are slightly off. It's just something you have to be aware of when balancing FWD and RWD cars for series.

F4H Koenigsegg at Virtual Motorsports has had the same issues with his VM Classics series, in fact he posted today "Indeed, AWD ,and to a lesser extent FWD, suffer against RWD cars with PI. That's why all FWD cars have an higher average PI than RWD and AWD an even higher average PI." (http://www.virtual-motorsports.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=245&t=3331&start=64)

Those BMW's and the FR-S may need 20 PI instead of 10.

I hear that FR-S is crazy fast, especially on tracks that favour RWD like Maple, so gotta be careful that it doesn't dominate the TCC.

I was 5th in B-class around Maple in the Merc, dropped all the way down to 28th now, look at the times the FR-S is doing!

B-Class Maple Valley Leaderboard
1 NOX ZAGO B/500 FR-S MTC 12/27/2012 0:01:37.509
2 CQR Champion B/500 FR-S MTC 12/28/2012 0:01:37.552
3 CQR VtecTorquE B/500 FR-S MTC 12/28/2012 0:01:37.576
4 NOX LeLe B/500 FR-S MTC 12/25/2012 0:01:37.661
5 FRS forza evama B/500 Celica SS-I MTC 06/11/2012 0:01:37.789
6 CQR Cobblepop B/500 FR-S MTC 12/29/2012 0:01:37.825
7 TPR Rayzer JDM B/500 Celica SS-I MTC 05/23/2012 0:01:37.905
8 ZeraTuLLLL B/500 Celica SS-I MTC 11/20/2012 0:01:37.929
9 CQR Marty B/500 FR-S MTC 12/29/2012 0:01:37.942

28 CQR MAGiC B/500 190E 2.5-16 Evolution II MTC 04/10/2012 0:01:38.254

yeah i imagine cars that fall into the overpowered category will just get dropped from the series rather that having to mix it up with cars having several different PIs.

8 different cars won races last season*, so the balance within the FWD group was pretty good already, getting the RWD cars 'in the mix' but not out ahead of it will make things even better.

*Kia C'eed, Kia Forte Koup, Nissan Sentra, Suzuki SX4, Acura RSX, Suzuki Liana, Scirocco GT & Honda Si Coupe)

The FR-S again was a bit of an experiment, I kinda suspected it would be too good, plus it's a bit smaller and a coupe unlike the rest of the field (except the RCZ which is bigger and the nicest Peugeot just now) and the FR-S can easily be dropped.

I do agree with the 10 PI drop, and I basically suggested this at the start anyway. The slight weight adjustment may not be required to bring the FWD weight up to 2500 but I don't think it will make much difference.

Everyone keep testing until at least the end of the week with the original rules, then we may go with Magic's adjustments and see how the cars re-test.

I will drop the Lexus and Prius from the list, surprised the Mini is so off the pace, it wasn't that bad last season. I may drop this as well. I'm also surprised to see the VW Sciroccos so high up, the basic builds look terrible.

Sounds good Richy, I think 580 FWD and 570 RWD would bring most of the cars together +/- 0.5s from the mean, which is about as close as you can expect (without going down the individual PI's for each car route which is an absolute nightmare). I think increasing the minimum weight to 2500 would be a good idea - it reduces the build options on certain cars, which could give them a small advantage on twister tracks, so it would probably improve the overall parity across the tracks. Also, I think the cars are fantastic to drive, even with stock tunes. There's HUGE interest for this series already, I think we've got 14+ drivers just in CQR wanting to race, plus friends we know outside the club who also love touring cars too who I'm sure we can introduce

I have to admit I was surprised at how good the cars felt with these rules, I was worried they would be too powerful but it seems a return to Super Touring is what was needed.

I will probably implement those changes, but will do so after the first round of testing. I want to see more data from all the drivers (myself included) before we move onto round 2.

I also don't want to go down the route of individual PIs, what a pain