6TH AND 7TH STEP: Tuning & Testing.

TWO IN ONE

I know, i know. I separated this two phases before, but i realized that these two kinda belongs together. Accept it, let's get it on!

The Cuberunner looks fabulous. Now it just need to go as cool as it looks. In this guide i'll show you some setup and tuning techniques,
and some great testing locations. There are many segments where you can fine-tune and modify a car's driving characteristics. Tires, mass, engine, springs, and downforce.

TIRES:

A frequent mistake is when you leave your traction setup on 'Auto' mode. That's not a wrong thing, if you use a custom wheel for an aircraft.
But, for a car this setup causes goofy handling, and unrealistic top speed, sudden acceleration scenarios, and so on. So for a starting setup i'm using 70% forward and 80% sideways traction numbers on both axles.

Sometimes, like here, this setup is enough for low HP cars. The sideways traction should be higher than the forward traction on the driven axle.

MASS:

The CoM point is ideal near the bottom of the frame. Keep the mass number between 2500-4000 lbs (1000-2000kg) More important is the CoM's X-axle postition. It needs to be exactly in the center. Every little extra offset mass will affect the CoM's X position.

The good news is if you were aware about the part mass during the building phase, then you don't have too much job with it.

ENGINE:

You don't need to put a herd of horses under the hood, keep it realistic. This VR6 is a low HP engine, so 190HP should be more than enough. Now let's make a quick top speed test.

Well, it looks like that's still too much horsepower for this car, so let's try with 150HP to get a more realistic top speed. I also reduce the tire traction numbers with 10%. Now the top speed is around 260-270km/h (That's 165 bald eagle/baseball field) Which is impressive, yet credible top speed for this little car.

SPRINGS:

Springs are great way to add sporty characteristics to your ride. My base setup is 250% in both settings, that gives a 'casual' handling style for this mass For off-road cars however, less damper is the perfect one. Softer springs can handle jumps better. For the Cuberunner we need a little bit softer spring setup

DOWNFORCE:

You cannot believe what a difference can be done with a well made diffusor. But the brick-shaped Cuberunner is not the perfect car to demonstrate this I want to keep this drift-happy setup so i have nothing to do with the downforce here. But let's check out the Myrone's downforce settings.

If you look closely, you can see the Myrone's diffusor and front splitter is not just decorations. They are tiny wing panels! If you put them correctly, they can turn every uncontrollable widowmaker into a proper time attack machine! This however requires a lot of experience and testing. This is like: Put a tiny wing on the front. Go to Gold Prix try it out. It's not better. Go back, place the wing panels a little bit down. Go to Gold Prix. and continue until you get a perfectly controllable car.

Try to set the CoL point as low as possible. That should work. Watch out, the odd setup can cause some terrible rollovers and crashes!

TEST:

When everything is done, and everything is perfectly set, then it's time for the final testing. Easy job, drive, drive, drive! I prefer testing on the Gold Prix track because you can go back if you fell out of the racetrack. Do some laps, maybe a clocked lap. If you can make a proper lap then the car is ready!

Here's a little extra stuffs. Since the cuberunner is a rally-spec car it would be cool to test it in a rally track. So i took it to Snowstorm to see what can this baby do in the snow. To be honest it performs pretty good, similar to a real RWD car.

The car is now ready to release. Now we just need a great post around it and some cool screenshots.
Thanks for the reading, have a nice day/night/evening

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USEFUL TIPS:

-Take it easy with the downforce settings. Every little movement can make a difference. When you put a wing part on the front, be sure to put one
on the back.

-You can also tune the brake balances with overload mode