Hi guys !!
First of all please excuse my English as it's not the best, I hope you understand everything I have to say :)
Please feel free to move this thread if it's in the wrong section (it's my 1st post here.) I'll post it in chit-chat and in the physics bugs/issues tabs.
It has come to my attention that a lot of people (me included....) are having some problems with the
----BMW M3 E30 GRUPPE A ---- as well as the ---- BMW M3 E30 DTM----- versions.
That would be some severe braking problems (lock-ups) as well as massive oversteer on corner entry. That's why I would like to write a small guide, after winning (again) on Imola by almost a minute on a full grid and a 10 lap race. In the hope that you have much more fun driving the car, and getting better at it, for the sake of competition.
Because winning by a lot is only fun once, but racing closely with others is muuuch better....anyways.
I am using a Logitech G27 wheels and shifter, with no assists, manual shift. I replaced the steering wheel with a 320mm OMP one, but that's not that important.
What is important is that the racing E30 M3, maybe my favourite car in the world, scared the CRAP out of me while braking, in Assetto Corsa, every time on every course.
I can downshift, heel and toe, and modulate my braking, so where's the problem? Well, it's 75% with the car, and 25% with the driver (ME !!!).
Let's start with the easy stuff, the car and the setup. Even though I could understand some modifications I've done to the car, nothing erased that stupid corner entry oversteer.
I tried setting the brake balance all the way forward.....making the rear suspension softer, anti rollbar softer, more or less camber, fiddled with the differential and made it a bit better, but then the car would only lock up the front bakes and go straight on...
So what did I do? Annoyed I read all the descriptions of the setup adjustments till I found : "TOE", I never adjusted this on a car before.....before now !!!
After setting it a couple of clicks to the right (more toe in) on the rear suspention, the oversteer problem was largely improved. With the biggest hit out of the way, you may want to move the brake balance a bit back (say from over 80-82, to under 79), so that the front doesn't plough forward whlie braking. A couple of psi lower tire pressure in the rear, as well as the slightly softer suspension setup, solved the problem of the initial oversteer and brake lock-up problems.
The next problem I was having was the lockup of the differential even while heel-and-toeing with correct rev-matching. Here we come to the elephant in the corner, driver skill, or driver behaviour, to put it correctly. What I was doing was banging them downshifts in a quite rapid succesion, and even if the rev matching was OK (I thought), the diff kept locking up, because I wanted to get the downshifting over fast, to concentrate on braking.....BIG MISTAKE.
The hardest part is coordinating your 3 pedal imputs separately while braking. What I did before was modulating the brake pressure, and pressing the gas and clutch every time for the exact same time (both pedals) and with the same speed.... The key is that you have to separate them.
For example, while rev-matching from 5th to 4th, I would blip the throttle for 0.5 seconds, and let the clutch out in say 0.75 seconds.
For a much lower speed shift, say coming to the hairpin in Imola with the DTM shifting from 2nd to 1st, I would blip the throttle for 1 second, and let the clutch out only in about 2 seconds !!!! So a slower clutch release after having completed the rev-match is key to keeping the differential from locking while doing that.
There is much more to it than this, doing heel-and-toe and rev-matching is mandatory to being able to drive the racing E30 fast with no assists.
Of course, practice makes perfect, and after some fiddling with the setup, many will be able to run a 10 lap race at Imola with 2.02 - 2.03 times in the Gr.A car all day without crashing.
To keep it short..... give it more toe-in, softer suspension and tires on the rear, separate the 3 pedals while braking and take some time with that clutch release.
In hoping that this will help many guys while driving my favourite car in AC, the racing E30.
Have fun while practicing and feel free to ask anything !
Best regards
Vladiiiii
