The info mentioned all of it: I used to be too decelerate the straights.
The possible offender? I used to be additionally too sluggish by means of the turns.
This was the fast interpretation from the VBox Motorsport data-acquisition crew when evaluating my laps to one among my competitor’s.
VBox Motorsport had invited us, together with a number of different journalists and influencers from the motorsports world, to an intensive coaching session at Circuito Maspalomas. It’s on Gran Canaria, nowhere close to right here.
[Live thread: Learning how to best use Racelogic’s VBox products]
We’d principally give attention to the corporate’s HD Lite, a intelligent, simply deployable data-acquisition system with built-in HD video seize and a full suite of information instruments that may be learn and interpreted in VBox’s Circuit Instruments software program.
We plan on transitioning our observe testing to this platform, because it ought to dramatically enhance the extent of study we are able to share.
Anyway, again to me being sluggish.
“I don’t really feel tardy” was, after all, my first response.
However then we seemed deeper on the pace traces. Seems the preliminary evaluation–which was fully legitimate and definitely probably the most statistically possible reason for my lap time deficiency–turned out to not be totally appropriate.
When wanting on the pace hint, we may see that my entry and mid-corner speeds (in crimson) usually outpaced my competitor’s (in blue). And there wasn’t the telltale stairstep previous the minimal nook pace that normally signifies getting on the gasoline too early.
As an alternative, we noticed easy negotiation by means of the nook adopted by an acceleration hint that climbed at a gentle fee.
My competitor’s curve, although, had a extra convex form. It bulged upward, displaying a larger fee of acceleration out of the nook.
It additionally confirmed an upshift from second to 3rd a lot earlier than mine–adopted by a shift from third to fourth that I by no means made as a result of I by no means acquired inside 500 rpm of needing to make that pull to fourth.
My competitor’s acceleration fee started to path off by the tip of the straight, whereas mine continued to limb pretty linearly. By the braking level, our high speeds on every straight had been nearly equivalent, however they had been in fourth gear and I used to be in third.
So why, then, had been they hanging as a lot as half a second on me down these straights? If our terminal velocities had been equivalent, how was their bulged acceleration curve price so many tenths? And what was making it to start with?
To reply the latter query, we began with the techs who had been sustaining the NB-chassis Miatas we had been driving.
“Are these vehicles all equivalent?” we requested. “One looks like it could be down on acceleration.”
We discovered that a few vehicles–mine included–had been geared up with a 3.90:1 closing drive from an NB Miata initially fitted with a six-speed transmission, whereas the remainder of the vehicles had the 4.30:1 rear from the five-speed vehicles.
All of the vehicles had been geared up with five-speed transmissions, giving the 4.40:1 vehicles an actual mechanical benefit by means of the meat of second and third gear. By the point I acquired effectively into the powerband in my leggier third gear, it was time to hit the brakes.
Now we now have to reply the query of why two vehicles with equivalent terminal speeds on the finish of a straight–and I even had superior terminal speeds now and again–had been getting outrun by vehicles with much less high pace. The reply is the realm below the curve.
Prime pace is nice, however in case you take longer getting there, you finally spend extra time at a mean decrease pace for a given distance traveled. Whoever has the next common pace over a given distance goes to cowl that distance sooner, whatever the terminal speeds on the finish of that distance.
A extra difficult query follows: What’s superb?
our acceleration curves, one other 500 toes of straight would have possible seen me wringing out my tall third gear and overtaking the rate-of-acceleration contest whereas my competitors was struggling in the course of fourth gear. However we didn’t have one other 500 toes of straightaway.
When evaluating two pace graphs in Circuit Instruments, we may simply use the delta graph–displaying the place one automobile was gaining or dropping time in comparison with one other–to see that we had been dropping a lot of time in the beginning and center of every straight. We had been then dropping time at a decrease fee towards the tip of the straight–proper on our strategy to overtaking the delta battle had the straight been longer.
So, what’s superb for a given straightaway isn’t just the configuration that produces the best most velocity however the configuration that produces the best space below the acceleration curve.
However I didn’t have entry to a different mechanical configuration, and ceaselessly you gained’t, both. So, how do you employ this type of info to profit from what it’s a must to work with?
In my case, I targeting maximizing any benefit I may achieve by my sometimes increased high speeds whereas mitigating no matter benefit I may discover when the scenario arose.
This technique took the type of closely concentrating on threshold braking, holding that pace so long as I may, and taking as deep a braking level as I may get away with, even when that meant adjusting my method angle to have the ability to brake later and tougher.
On nook exit, the place my competitors had their most clear benefit, it meant taking a very line of defense to interrupt as a lot of my opponent’s momentum as potential. Clearly blocking is just not allowed, however that doesn’t imply it’s a must to use all the observe on the exit of a nook, both.
Being overtaken by the automobile with the extra favorable gear ratio is likely to be inevitable, however by throwing off an opponent’s exit sufficient to barely delay their throttle software may maintain off that go lengthy sufficient to carry place down a shorter straight.
And the lesson right here is that these methods are simpler to make use of whenever you take pleasure in really realizing the place your deficiencies are. That’s the place knowledge acquisition comes in.
With out the information, all I actually know is that my lap instances are just like everybody else’s but I’m getting dog-walked down the straights.
With the good thing about the information acquisition, I can no less than pinpoint particular areas the place I’ll have had a momentary benefit so I can give attention to maximizing the time I spend in these moments and leverage them as a lot as potential.
The opposite query this example brings up: Might we now have found out this situation with out leveraging knowledge acquisition?
Sure, after all, however the mystery-solving curve may have been a lot, for much longer and required much more trial and error and experimentation. Wanting on the goal pace traces massively streamlined the method and pointed us to the suitable questions that rather more rapidly.
Additionally word that we didn’t use any esoteric capabilities of our knowledge tools. A easy pace hint was probably the most useful device in our arsenal when it got here to fixing this thriller.
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BTW, I noticed a few minor typos within the article — the OEM rear finish ratio for the NB 5-speed is a 4.3, not a 4.4. Additionally, at one level the article says that the opposite automobile was ending the straight in fifth, which does not appear to be mirrored within the knowledge (beginning in 2nd, 2 shifts places it in 4th).
As for the conclusion:
Additionally word that we didn’t use any esoteric capabilities of our knowledge tools. A easy pace hint was probably the most useful device in our arsenal when it got here to fixing this thriller.
I’d argue that an RPM hint wold have solved the thriller sooner, as a result of the gearing ratio discrepancy would have been instantly obvious within the knowledge as a substitute of one thing you needed to infer from shift factors. 🙂
Mmmm what occurs when you do not have entry to the opposite automobile’s knowledge???
codrus (Discussion board Supporter) mentioned:
BTW, I noticed a few minor typos within the article — the OEM rear finish ratio for the NB 5-speed is a 4.3, not a 4.4. Additionally, at one level the article says that the opposite automobile was ending the straight in fifth, which does not appear to be mirrored within the knowledge (beginning in 2nd, 2 shifts places it in 4th).
As for the conclusion:
Additionally word that we didn’t use any esoteric capabilities of our knowledge tools. A easy pace hint was probably the most useful device in our arsenal when it got here to fixing this thriller.
I’d argue that an RPM hint wold have solved the thriller sooner, as a result of the gearing ratio discrepancy would have been instantly obvious within the knowledge as a substitute of one thing you needed to infer from shift factors. 🙂
Thanks for recognizing the typos. I am a zillion miles away however I am positive the CFla-based internet crew will get th ecorrections made.
As for an RPM hint, I do not fully disagree, however an rpm hint would not essentially immediately reveal the next mid nook pace the way in which a pace hint would. When you simply checked out an rpm hint, you’d additionally see decrease rpm on nook exit, and it could possibly be simply as simple to work below the idea that that additionally meant decrease cornering pace, therefore much less exit pace, therefore much less straightaway pace.
Finally I feel the actual takeaway message is that individuals are inclined to get actually intimidated by knowledge, and so they can get overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of data they automobile produce. It is a truthful and cheap worry. However the actuality is you actually do not want many channels to provide a TON of usable information.
JG Pasterjak mentioned:
As for an RPM hint, I do not fully disagree, however an rpm hint would not essentially immediately reveal the next mid nook pace the way in which a pace hint would. When you simply checked out an rpm hint, you’d additionally see decrease rpm on nook exit, and it could possibly be simply as simple to work below the idea that that additionally meant decrease cornering pace, therefore much less exit pace, therefore much less straightaway pace.
Finally I feel the actual takeaway message is that individuals are inclined to get actually intimidated by knowledge, and so they can get overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of data they automobile produce. It is a truthful and cheap worry. However the actuality is you actually do not want many channels to provide a TON of usable information.
Yeah, an RPM hint by itself is just not helpful. RPM + pace hint seen collectively would make it very obvious, although.
A pace hint by itself will establish drawback areas and can allow you to infer causes as to why the realm is likely to be an issue. IME, although, to essentially remedy these issues you need the driving force enter traces. Throttle place and brake strain will affirm (or reject!) your inferences (within the case offered above, a throttle hint may have definitively dominated the “late to throttle” argument). TPS and brake strain traces may even give significantly better suggestions whenever you return out to attempt to repair your pedal work. You can also make an analogous argument for steering angle, however I do not discover that I really use all of it that usually — I assume steering is simply simpler to get proper than brakes or throttle! 🙂
I’d say that 95% of the time I am knowledge I am utilizing the three major traces of pace, TPS, and brake strain, plus the derived hint of delta-time when evaluating two completely different runs.
My ’06 automobile apparently doesn’t have brake strain or steering angle accessible within the OBD-2 stream. All I’ve seen that’s helpful (utilizing Solostorm) is throttle place and RPM.
I’ll look into whether or not I can graph out the pace hint. Proper now I simply use the course segmenting characteristic to look into the place I used to be faster, aka shorter section instances, to select which part to give attention to. So I do not see a bonus of the VBOX for my scenario, although I welcome feedback.
A truism generality from drag racing is that vehicles with comparable horsepower can have comparable entice speeds, however that different features of setup will drop elapsed instances. Clearly if JG was solely in third and competitors was in fifth, there was some huge distinction in gear ratios. But when a selected nook was in his /optimum/ powerband for his transmission, his rear finish would give him a bonus AT THAT POINT over the opposite automobile that was not, and if the transmissions had been equivalent aside from rear finish ratio then the drop ratio between every gear could be the identical. If the drops between gears are too giant to remain within the optimum torque vary (onerous to consider with a 6 pace) then the upper numeric transmission would have slighly tighter drops and that too may find yourself as a bonus.
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