Tank Slapping Help

I am just gonna borrow this thread so that i dont have to start a new one. I reckon i am starting to get the hang of tuning my cars now so that they are fairly fast for hot lapping etc but i have one problem. They are all good until they let go and when they bite they bite hard. almost all my tunes end up tank slapping instead of just being a slide i can catch. Anyone got any suggestions what i should be playing with to make them a little more forgiving?

On both the wheel and controller, I have noticed this "tank-slap" trend in the FM4 dynamics engine. The over exaggeration of how a chassis snaps in this game is rather annoying - escpecially on the controller. Less so on the wheel (thank christ), but still evident.

However, setting aside the FM4-core dynamics, there are multiple factors of why a car can react adversly when you are trying to correct oversteer.
: Excessive body roll - stiffen up the roll bars to make a loss of grip more progressive and predictable
: Poor suspension/damper balance - avoid having extreme differences from end to end. Try to keep suspension stiffness differences to a minimum.
: Differential - a "loose" differential will spin up the inside wheel when travelling in one direction, but when you change that direction, that spinning wheel becomes the outside wheel and you will then have a moment or two of unpredicted yee-har!
: What is the wheelbase of your car?! Short-wheelbase car are more prone to twtichy handling from the outset.
: Also, what driving lines are you using? How quick do you turn into a corner? Depending on the circuit and specific corners, try turning in earlier yet slower, and try to balance the car on its nose (ala: delibtratley make the car understeer) rather than trying to correct oversteer, back on the power, correct oversteer ect ect. Also once you are on the throttle, stay on it and progressively feed in the power - avoid stabbing the throttle all the time as this upsets the balance when on the limit.

But how do I personally tune-out a car that is prone to snap-oversteer and/or tank-slapping?
: I dont tune or build a car that "handles on rails" - because apart from the fact that its just boring as shit on a wheel, such tunes/builds are less forgiving, predictable and progressive when there is a loss of grip.
: I Keep front and rear suspension, roll-bar and tyres upgrades near identical. Avoid excessive extremes in your build. Eg: dont have fat front tryes and skinny rears ect.
: I tune it to be more of a neutral-understeer balanced car. I dont mean that I tune a car so it cant turn, but on a RWD car I tune the rear end to be **slightly** more grippy than the front. So when turning in, it holds onto a slight neutral-understeer balance through the corner, which in turn benefits my powerdown out of the corner. (But dont get wrong through, I still have the ability to give it a bootfull of grunt and an armfull of lock when I want!)

Send me a FR if you want too mate and the next time in on I can pass on some more tips if you want. In the mean time, hoped that has helped.

Mitch

if your running sim steering then its just a problem you learn to live with, if not maybe something up with your controller or your car set up.

i dont run sim steering and i very rarely if ever get a so called tank slapper

Thanks guys i will try out a few things i have picked up. Im thinking it probably my diff and roll bars so will have a play with them. I might try the other steering setting as well

The Double D wrote:if your running sim steering then its just a problem you learn to live with, if not maybe something up with your controller or your car set up.

i dont run sim steering and i very rarely if ever get a so called tank slapper

That is true.

The tank slap effect is less evident on the wheel than the controller thankfully, and it is easier to control and correct. But as mentioned above there are ways of learning how to tune, build and actually drive a car to best avoid tank slapping, rather than resorting to turning off/on assists.

well i dont really see sim steering as assist more of a prefence, just not to keen to learn to drive a different way.

and i drift so i purposely get tank slappers

The Double D wrote:
and i drift so i purposely get tank slappers

This in itself will help with tank slappers. I spent a lot of time Friday night drifting my V8, and I think this will help me control the car a lot better comming out of corners. Purposely putting your car in to slides then driving out of them will also help IMO.

^ +1

Send me a FR mate, i'll send u across some tunes and you can see the differences.. Probably the best way around it..

To me it sounds like you're getting the springs. ride height & ARB's all f'd up to be honest.. Maybe tires as well.. There's plenty of ways to tune a car in F4 but only one way to tune it to the way you drive.

Send me a msg and tell me how you drive then we can move forward from there (ie you like it sliding into corners or you want to be able to put the power down as you reach the apex etc), no point setting up a car for someone else eh.

Once you know what you like shit gets alot easier real quick

Im starting to play with sim steering and have found that altering the bump rebound stiffness is a good place to start. This controls how fast one side of the car comes back when loaded up during cornering. If it is high then it will try to come back to normal setting quite fast, this will alter the weight distribution of the car and cause the slapping you are talking about. Of course the are other aspects that will be affected by this, but I've found it is working for me.

Cool plenty of help coming through. Its much appreciated fellas thanks heaps