I ran this question By Mike at DSC Sport and he asked me to post it here so that he could answer it for all to see.


I run One Lap of America every year and two of the events are skidpads that are run at the Tirerack facility in South Bend, IN. They kick off the event with a wet skidpad and close the event with a dry skidpad.

My question to him was is there any benefit to be gained in tuning the dampners for the skidpad? Wet or dry. Since it is a constant state turn, I would think that the dampners would have little/no effect on the mechanical grip of the car. If there is a benefit to be had, in what areas should I be focusing?

I look forward to your answer.

 

Subscribed.

 

Sorry for the delay in responding.
I understand your question and have to admit I was trapped myself in the same mindset (passive vs active) follow me on this.
In a rain race at Watkins Glen in IMSA. I created a rain map may that was really my dry map with a way softer shock calibration table. Basically I just used the shock cal table as a global offset. When the race started I had a good rain car real soft too soft, had a big roll rate big grip in the tires but was really rolling too much 2 laps in I knew I went too far and was giving up lap time. Only problem was I created a 20sec lead to the class I was in and was racing
a class up and was in 5 place overall and started in 15th. The problem was I needed more platform and wanted to go to the dry map. What I realized is that I was generating half the Gforce and was better to go to the dry map!!!!!!!!!!!!!
lesson learned was if I was running 1.6g in the dry I was only pulling 1.0g in the wet. what i really needed is what I am using the PTM rain mode for. this allows you to tune the front grip vs rear grip. in the PTM I pull 20% out of the front and 10% in the rear.
I hope this is of value in explaining the PTM features of the software
Ill try to attach a screen shot tomorrow of the PTM mode it features tuning in each PTM selection

 

Hey Mike - below is a screen shot of the C7 config with velocity for the Tractive shocks. It looks like you're taking 10% out both front and rear.



Based on your comment above about taking 20% out of the front and 10% out of the rear I assume it should look like this?

 

Poor sha, Darn your good real good yes on all points on the tractive shocks I was pulling 10% front and rear and its probably close with the tractive although I would go 15% front 10% rear. typically you look for lots of front grip in the rain it is usually the limiting factor in lap time. plus remember you usually go full rear aero in the rain.
I would go softer on the magnetic due to the nature of the mag shock it is all low speed 0-2 inch/sec. you have to be careful with mag in the rain and keep them relatively soft because of this.
your tractive damper that we created the valving for has way more range we have tuned them from 0-20 inch/sec they feature a digressive piston and shim stack and have a huge range

 

Also here is a new one for you look at this accel table it features launch control and traction adder. the last cell is the launch cell or the leave the cell above is the slope angle to release of the clutch or in the auto car release of the brake. With less than 0 mph with clutch pushed more than 60% throttle you can just blip it. the last cell at the bottom is direct to the shock cal table nothing else. the rear compression is soft the front rebound is stiff good rear grip and controlled weight transfer so the rear tire is not overloaded. the decay starts when the clutch or brake auto car is released during this time no other table comes in to the next cell up , then when decayed all other tables g force ect... come in way big grip lots of fun . the traditional accel is now the .1 to .8
I will have a new UI in the nex week to reflect the new Launch firmware

 

Question for you: A value of 40 is a 20% reduction from a value of 50. If 50% in the PTM settings leaves the shocks alone (100%), is a value of 40% actually reducing the shocks by 20%? I'm wondering if that's why the wet setting is so soft.

Or is the math not coded that way? Curious how the PTM values actually affect the shock table numbers.

Btw, I actually wrote to the DSC controller for the first time today and it was awesome!!! It feels amazing to want the suspension to behave a particular way, then plug in some numbers and make it happen. Thanks!!! This is definitely one of the coolest things I've ever bought for a car.