The two(ride height and suspension travel) are actually quite different.
Ride height shows how far off the ground the bottom of the car is. This
doesn't take the plank into account. Therefore you need to get this set
so that it is as close to 10mm at the lowest point on the circuit (usually
when you are braking from high speed to enter a slow corner such as the
hair pin at Magny Cours, or steering through an extremely quick corner
such as Curva Grande at Monza). [The plank thickness is 10mm]
Suspension travel shows how much movement is left in the suspension before
the car goes onto the bump rubbers [packers]. If the graph is at 5mm that
means that the suspension can compress another 5mm before it hits the bump
rubbers, if it is at the bottom of the graph the car is on the bump rubbers.
You should be looking at suspension travel for setting the depths of your
packers. [Set packers so that your replay data will show 0mm suspension
travel on the fast straights.]
If springs are set softly then the chasis of the car will roll and pitch
a lot. This means that generally the ride height would need to be set higher
than with stiffer springs because as one part of the car dives down it
can rub the plank. It also means that the handling of the car becomes less
responsive to changes in direction and coming off the throttle and onto
the brakes etc because the chassis takes longer to get back to its neutral
state. The advantage is that you get better grip as the tyres stay on the
road more over the bumps. Also you get less tyre wear under braking and
steering because it is the springs that tend to take the load rather than
the tyres.
So for spring: soft = better grip, less tyre wear, higher ride height,
less responsive chassis, stiff = responsive chassis, lower ride height,
poor grip, increased tyre wear.
I am not sure about dampers, but they seem to be very similar to springs
in the sort of results you get from them.
Anti roll bars are also very similar in operation. the stiffer you set
them the more they resist chassis movement. So once again stiffer settings
mean better response at the expense of grip and tyre wear. as the name
suggests they only affect roll and so their settings shouldn't make any
difference under braking/acceleration.
Changing the brake balance will alter how the brakes are applied to each
of the four wheels. If you are having a problem with locking the fronts
under heavy braking then move the brake balance further to the rear, so
brakes are applied to the rear wheels before they are to the front. This
will also create more oversteer at turn in (if you are still on the brakes).
Similarly if you move brake balance to the front you tend to get understeer
at turn in.
My general advice is to only change one thing at a time, then go out and
drive some laps, plus look at your telemetry to see how the change has
affected the car. Then if it has done what you wanted it to you could try
increasing the change. If it hasn't worked then you could try changing
the setting in the opposite direction (for example if you made the front
springs softer and found it didn't help try making them stiffer than they
were originally). Also when assessing changes you need to use tyres that
are similar conditions and similar fuel loads as these can greatly alter
the handling of the car. This takes a long time, but overall you tend to
get better results.
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