Broken FWD Copa Cup B (junior cars)?

Are the FWD Copa Cup B (junior) car broken? I'm referring to the 130HP 2000lb ones. The FWD cars which look like the old 70s GTi, Rabbit and Passat are absolutely horrible to drive. No amount of tuning seems to be able to fix those cars. This somewhat applies to the RWD Chevette too, although you can make it somewhat driveable with some tuning. The only decent car to drive in that class is the Puma.

I've driven a Passat when I was younger and don't remember it being so bad. I've never driven the race version of those FWD cars but have driven race prepped Honda Civic/CRXs, Sentras, etc with similar power to weight ratios and they handle nothing like those cars and are surprisingly fun/easy to drive. Anyone with some real world experience driving those cars care to comment?

Usually with low powered cars like those, you get the car turned in early and just mash the gas. Since the car is low powered and FWD, you point the steering wheel where you want and the car just pulls you out of the corner. A little lift throttle over steer to get turned in early, mash the gas and you are off to the races.

But these cars have a few fundamental problems. The lift throttle oversteer is severe and you can only do so much in the tuning menu to fix the issue because you either run out of tuning range or the setting you want to change isn't accessible. Basically under lift throttle oversteer the cars are uncontrolable and you're going to lose the rear end. Then there is the problem of getting early on the throttle which just makes the car plow and understeer (like a high power FWD car that is overloading the front tires), instead of it pulling you out of the turn. On a low power car, the front tires shouldn't be so overwhelmed with the application of power. I've driven plenty of FWD cars to know that.

I would expect them to drive more like the Megane RS275 in Project Cars2, just much slower. My testing was done with traction control and stability management turned OFF. Will there be a patch to fix the handling on these cars? Or do they really drive that bad IRL?

 

I also find them undriveable.
Such low powered low weight vehicles should be fun to drive but they are too difficult to be controlled. I think their physics is broken.

 

Yep, given their rated power to weight ratios I would expect these cars to be easy to toss around, point and shoot type cars, that encourage close racing but they are super hard just to keep on track. I agree the physics model on these cars might actually be broken but I don't know since I haven't driven one of these IRL. Currently as it stands, the Puma can be upto 4 secs faster per lap depending on the track compared to the other Copa Cup B cars (Chevette, GTi, Passat and Rabbit).

If it is broken, I'm hoping it is fixed soon because this game really lacks fun and slow cars that are easy to drive and promote close racing.

 

Yeah I've wanted to use these cars more, a large grid of these slower cars should be fun, but I struggle with them too, always assumed it was just my technique, but I really struggle with the lift off oversteer and especially gear changes - if you dont heel and toe every shift I find it almost always instantly puts the car in a spin, I dont quite understand the physics behind that, I get that if you haven't rev matched and you release the clutch when the engine is spinning faster that its going to unsettle the car a bit, but is it really instant spin each time? But like I say maybe its just my technique and need to be practicing my heel and toe more regularly..

 

These cars behave very differently from class to class and it is difficult to understand why. There should be more information provided in-game about the different cars, for example which tyres are provided (racing slicks / semi-slicks / road / vintage racing) and what kind of differential they run. Also the torque curve as shown in some other sims.

 

Drive fine to me, just takes a bit of balancing the Brake/Throttle at the same time, pretty similar to how an extreme setup fwd car drives, you would never ever just turn in and coast, brake and throttle input is needed at all times, or a slight lift followed by full throttle, do not let off and then panic by hitting the brake, you will find out the hard way very quickly lol.
But yes everything can be improved.

 

What realism settings are you driving with? TC and STM ON? Have you driven these cars IRL by any chance?

My 2nd biggest problem is with the application of power on the FWD models. The 1st is the extreme lift throttle oversteer. They have very little power and just overload the front tires and cause the fronts to completely wash out. It just doesn't feel right to me based on my real world experience but I could be wrong.

 

After testing the Copa B cars some, I would suggest checking your settings to make sure you have enough gain on your FFB and maybe increase the minimum force as well if your wheel feels loose on corner entry.

From my testing, these cars basically drive like drift cars (no idea if that is realistic) in that you overdrive them into the corner, the rear steps out on corner entry, and then you need to let go of the wheel and let the tyres naturally self-align to correct the slide before getting back on the throttle. Without that self-aligning force you just spin every time and I can imagine they will be extremely frustrating. Once I picked that up, they actually became kinda fun to drive, although I can't imagine drifting through all the corners is actually very fast.

 

As Simmo said they are driveable but you basically have to balance the car on the throttle the whole time, even under braking. A quick search for onboards and it doesnt look to be the case IRL, these guys arent even heel toeing let alone having to balance on throttle whilst braking.

 

A low powered front wheel drive that snap oversteers in every corner cannot be like irl. There must be something broken.
I expect understeer in corners, no oversteer.

 

I don't think they are "broken"
I just tested them, and they are fun to drive. (No driving aids)
I don't have snap oversteer,
They drift a little with a nice not to weigthy feel on the wheel.
Controllable with brakes and throttle,
Just don't do any sudden things.

 

Fwd is the opposite to what you would expect, lifting the throttle will give oversteer, applying the throttle will bring the car back straight/understeer, where Rwd applying throttle will cause oversteer, lifting will straighten the car/understeer, in most circumstances/not always the case, just an easy way to predict a cars behaviour.
I think a lot of the cars have strange tendencies on and off throttle, could be a diff setting or just the physics needing further tweaking.

 

Yes, but this kind of lift off oversteer cannot be real. Otherwise there would be millions of dead people more every year, killed by their own car.

 

Yep looking at the video you can tell the drivers don't have to use the throttle and brake at the same time. And the car doesn't seem as loose on turn in. Plus on these low power cars they are using the throttle as an ON/OFF switch as one would expect. That tells me the physics on these car in the game are definitely wrong/broken and need to be fixed.

You can't tune the diffs on the cars in these series. They have very limited tuning.

 

Yeah definitely not behaving like RL based on the few vids I watched.

 

Yeah i wouldn't be surprised if these cars have open diffs, which might be the issue in game physics engine.

 

Yes but people aren't flying into corners at 100+mph and lifting off /hitting the brakes, i'm sure if you drive the car in game at around 40mph the car will be very easy to drive, although i agree the cars could be better.

 

1st, if the car had open diffs, the inside tire would just spin when it gets unloaded during corner exit. The RPMs would go up and the car wouldn't accelerate but it would hold it's line. It just wouldn't be fast. But the FWD Copa Cup cars in the game understeer indicating they have a diff, it's locking during acceleration but it's overwhelming both front tires due to power and lack of grip, which shouldn't happen IRL. Based on their specs they look to be underpowered.

Also all the crazy lift throttle oversteer happens at any speed including 30mph turns. At higher speeds it leads to crashes and low speeds it causes the car to snap loose leading to a lot of lost time. I've raced plenty of race cars IRL to know this is not how any racer would setup their car and go racing. That would just be a disaster on track.