The real reasons for left foot braking are many and its advantages obvious to those who are good at it.
Besides the faster reactions mentioned, there is also the reason of finesse. It allows you greater control of driving forces than any other technique. In rallying that uses active diffs it actually allows one to choose between different differential settings in real time. It also allows real time manipulation of effective brake bias, provides better control for trail braking by superior control of throttle/brake overlap, etc.
For top level SSs such as F-1, left foot braking is an absolute must on the skills mastery list to have any real chance of competitive racing. This is actually why people like Micheal Schumacher and Aryton Senna were such amazing F-1 drivers, their left foot braking skills allowing for unmatched finesse. And no, heal and toe is NOT equivalent to left foot braking. A single foot contorted to manipulate pedals a once will never be a match for 1 foot per pedal. In fact, many people simply fail to master F-1 and rallycars simply because they just can't get around the idea of left foot braking. If anything it makes heal and toe look relatively easy.
With heal and toe, you just need to get used to multitasking and pressing 2 pedals with only your right foot. This is actually very impractical or virtually impossible to do with a lot of cars, especially with vehicles that have TINY brake and throttle pedals that are spaced a mile away. Can be done in many circumstances, but not without tendon and ligament torturing contortions that will cause permanent damage if practice over a significant length of time, especially for people with feet that requires smaller than size 10 shoes. The good news is that these days there are plenty of replacement pedals/pedal surfaces that improve pedal size and surface area and allow extended heal and toeing without the associated RTS (repetitive task strain).
With left foot braking the learning curve is actually much steeper as it requires a level of pedal finesse most can never master. It SEEMS simple in theory but is actually VERY difficult, especially for beginners. The required mastery of left foot braking is one reason why F-1 cars should remain pedal shifted, since it allows those who master this difficult skill to shine. How one has to stomp on the brake with the left foot in these VERY HIGH downforce cars and then relieve pressure on the brake pedal as speed and downforce decline whilst adding throttle to move effective brake bias to the front. If it sounds even harder than heal and toe, that's because it is.
Besides the faster reactions mentioned, there is also the reason of finesse. It allows you greater control of driving forces than any other technique. In rallying that uses active diffs it actually allows one to choose between different differential settings in real time. It also allows real time manipulation of effective brake bias, provides better control for trail braking by superior control of throttle/brake overlap, etc.
For top level SSs such as F-1, left foot braking is an absolute must on the skills mastery list to have any real chance of competitive racing. This is actually why people like Micheal Schumacher and Aryton Senna were such amazing F-1 drivers, their left foot braking skills allowing for unmatched finesse. And no, heal and toe is NOT equivalent to left foot braking. A single foot contorted to manipulate pedals a once will never be a match for 1 foot per pedal. In fact, many people simply fail to master F-1 and rallycars simply because they just can't get around the idea of left foot braking. If anything it makes heal and toe look relatively easy.
With heal and toe, you just need to get used to multitasking and pressing 2 pedals with only your right foot. This is actually very impractical or virtually impossible to do with a lot of cars, especially with vehicles that have TINY brake and throttle pedals that are spaced a mile away. Can be done in many circumstances, but not without tendon and ligament torturing contortions that will cause permanent damage if practice over a significant length of time, especially for people with feet that requires smaller than size 10 shoes. The good news is that these days there are plenty of replacement pedals/pedal surfaces that improve pedal size and surface area and allow extended heal and toeing without the associated RTS (repetitive task strain).
With left foot braking the learning curve is actually much steeper as it requires a level of pedal finesse most can never master. It SEEMS simple in theory but is actually VERY difficult, especially for beginners. The required mastery of left foot braking is one reason why F-1 cars should remain pedal shifted, since it allows those who master this difficult skill to shine. How one has to stomp on the brake with the left foot in these VERY HIGH downforce cars and then relieve pressure on the brake pedal as speed and downforce decline whilst adding throttle to move effective brake bias to the front. If it sounds even harder than heal and toe, that's because it is.
This article is completely identical to an article I read from Racecar Engineering a few years ago. 
Anyway, an excellent read for those who like to get a more in depth understanding of this remarkable engine and see past its reputation for poor durability and reliability, especially among tuners without the competence levels of racecar engineers.
Anyway, an excellent read for those who like to get a more in depth understanding of this remarkable engine and see past its reputation for poor durability and reliability, especially among tuners without the competence levels of racecar engineers.
Nope. Besides the security programs (which have never given me any problems with LFS), I don't run any other background stuff. Thanks for patch W. I wonder if anyone still has W9 so I can test that out too? I'll test things out as soon as time permits and will report if there is indeed a real difference between patch X and W.
Besides the antivirus and firewall which is almost always on, NO. Thanks for patch W though. I'll try it out as soon as time permits and report if these freezes and loops are likely to be patch X related.
BTW, I wonder if anyone here still has S2 Alpha Patch W or even better W9? If so please post a download link and I'll like to test things out to see if these freezes and loops are really Patch X and latter W series test patches (W39, 40, 41, etc).
Thank you.
Thank you.
Unfortunately, I no longer have patch W9 with me so I can't test W9 out.
All these freezes and loops happened in single player mode for me so for now I can't be bothered to get online and try anything else unless this problem is fixed. I'm also aware of specific server related issues but this isn't one of them, I think it's a problem mostly with patch X itself. Last time I tried running LFS to test it out (yesterday night) I had freezes and loops not just whilst driving but also whilst in the game menus. It goes along the lines of one freeze/loop every 1-2 minutes or so while in the game menus (all menus). Problem seems to get worse with time even with relatively little use recently due to this problem.
Did try out the test patches and W9 was trouble free. Then it started crop up very occasional with the latter W series test patches, so didn't take much notice. Finally upgraded to patch X and now it's at least 2-3 freezes per lap in SO city long.
Hmm, could be a PSU problem then? I do notice that the PSU has been a bit unreliable, sometimes refusing to start. Happens occasionally. But then this PSU problem has been long standing (since March of 2007) and hasn't given me any LFS problems until patch X. Could be that the PSU is getting worse and I'll need to do something about it soon.
What bugs me now is that as I'm not the only one with this freeze and looping problem as someone here have also reported the same issue that showed up after the upgrade to patch X (CommunistFries). Could we ALL have be experiencing the same PSU issues?
Tried lower resolution graphics settings, simple everything, even increased sound lag tolerance. All that amounted to nothing. Same frequency of freezes and loops.
Again I stressed that my system has not had any major changes besides regular security updates and all my problems started after patch X. My current video driver has never had any problems before patch X too. Never had any of these problems in patch W. And again I stress that no other programs are affected.
Juts tested Half Life 2 a while ago and still no anomalies and no noticeable lag, as usual.
I'm all aware of that too and that's why I leave only the security programs on. All these looping problems happened offline so I don't even bother to try it online as the lag could make things worse. And yes, I do update my antivirus program regularly so if there's anything that's there it should be detected soon which so far there is none, even though I scan my computer almost every day. And if there were hidden background Trojans, etc then other CPU and memory intensive programs such as Matlab would be affected too but they're not. Everything else EXCEPT S2x has this problem.
Just checked CPU temp and so far it's well within acceptable range. Besides, if temps were and issue it'll affect games such as Half Life 2 Episode One but I tried that and observed nothing abnormal.
I usually close down everything accept the antivirus and other security related stuff, and what bugs me is that fact that I've run LFS the same way for a long time and haven't had a single problem with it before patch X.
Mine started with patch X. Same for you?
What makes me suspect that it's patch X related is the fact that my other programs no differently from before but LFS itself encounters these problems, and it seems to increase in frequency the more LFS is used. The fact that these freezes and loops NEVER happened before patch X seems to reaffirm my suspicions.
Yes, thought of hardware problems and no, there are no temperature problems. The computer works just fine for every other program, so I think it might be related to LFS's recent changes itself, though ATM I'll like some suggestions on possible causes to the problem I can't think of ATM. Besides, if that were true then all programs that are power intensive would be affected. Just rechecked the fan and it's reasonably dust free.
Wonder what other possible causes are...
It was the Williams BMW team, when Montoya and R.Schumacher were drivers there if I remember correctly. Remember the shark nosed cars with twin tusks as front wing supports and strange front suspension with upper arms longer than the lower arms? That's it.
Well, anyone has any ideas what's happening to my copy of LFS S2X? Any constructive suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Incessant freezeups and loops
So far, LFS has been quite reliable and hasn't crashed on my computer so far, which is a good thing. However, lately (for the past 2-3 days) the LFS S2X seems to have an annoying habit of freezing up mid game and either:
1. Gets stuck in a loop for a finite (sometimes long, up to 30 seconds) time.
2. Gets stuck in an infinite loop like 1. (stuck in looping sound and frozen picture)
These freezeups have never happened before and there have been no changes in software or hardware that I'm running for the past few months.
I'm rather perplexed at this and even tried downloading S2X from scratch for a test reinstall. Same problem.
Note these problems started only after I upgraded to patch X, so I guess it might be a patch X related issue. And all these freezeups occurred in single player mode, so it's definitely not online related.
Any assistance will be greatly appreciated, thank you.
1. Gets stuck in a loop for a finite (sometimes long, up to 30 seconds) time.
2. Gets stuck in an infinite loop like 1. (stuck in looping sound and frozen picture)
These freezeups have never happened before and there have been no changes in software or hardware that I'm running for the past few months.
I'm rather perplexed at this and even tried downloading S2X from scratch for a test reinstall. Same problem.
Note these problems started only after I upgraded to patch X, so I guess it might be a patch X related issue. And all these freezeups occurred in single player mode, so it's definitely not online related.
Any assistance will be greatly appreciated, thank you.
Last edited by Jamexing, .
I've just checked up on a FUGLY twin rear wing F-1 concept CFD study and the basic for results were as follows:
Conventional wing: Around 53% loss in downforce in front and around 27% rear.
FUGLY twin wings: About 24% front downforce loss and about 27% rear downforce loss.
Note these are studies based on straight line drafting scenarios. Things are a bit more complicated in steady cornering and transient situations. Also of important note was that due to the presence of FOUR instead of just the usual 2 vortices from leading edges of wings, the FUGLY wings generate much more complex airflow patterns that could possibly cause unforeseen problems. The FUGLY wings do reduce understeer and overall downforce loss but as the numbers clearly show it's still more than enough to discourage drafting and overtaking. The final conclusion was that this FUGLINESS would have done absolutely NOTHING significant to improve overtaking whilst severely compromising the aesthetics.
And yes, what do you pay aerodynamicists and F-1 engineers for? Sit around and languish in the mediocrity and laziness that has become the dominant lifestyle of choice in the western world? If you had an F-1 team and paid lots of $$$ for it wouldn't you want to get what you paid for? I remember a female aero engineer was fired after only months in work because of the shark nose front end which she insisted on compromised front suspension geometry to such a horrible extent (gains POSITIVE camber under compression) that the cars just couldn't perform as the understeer was absolutely crippling. No mystery why the drivers complained so much, eh?
F-1 is supposed to be the pinnacle of motorsport so it's a matter of perform or die. This includes all members of each team, from drivers to every engineer, mechanic, technician and manager. No exceptions.
If we are to have a WRC car, all we need is to start with the RB4, increases maximum suspension travel to 250mm (aka what WRC cars actually have), enable the use of dual rate progressive springs (main and helper spring setups), enable use of 4 way or frequency selective dampers, increase power to 300hp, increase torque to around 60 kg, enable a selection of tires to cope with anything a WRC car would be expected to cope with, proper bump stops, stronger, more damage resistant suspension, a roll cage and racing seats/harnesses, at least 1 passenger per car (to simulate co driver) and finally an antilag system (aka bang-bang whenever the throttle is lifted).
Very true. 522.2kW?!? Maybe that's just maximum instantaneous energy output rate for say a few seconds like Porsche's chrono pack overboost feature on steroids?
The Tesla was actually a good electric car. Even though top speed was "only" about 130mph but its acceleration no worse than this "lightning" and it was based off the lotus Elise chassis too, so it had excellent handling potential.
One thing bugs me a lot though. 700hp and it still takes FIVE BLOODY SECONDS to get to 60mph? For a car that looks like a sporty coupe? Either the 700hp is a joke or the car weighs at least 2.5 tonnes, or the TC (if any) is so crap that it completely fails to control power output effectively to generate optimal forward acceleration or the tires were a joke or...
In short, something's fishy here. Last time I checked the latest Porsche Cayenne Turbo goes from 0-60mph in 5.1 seconds with a 171mph top speed. All this form an approximately 2.5 tonne vehicle with aerodynamics just slightly better than a brick. So, with 700 hp and assuming typical coupe aero, that car should top out at say 380km/h?!?
In short, something's fishy here. Last time I checked the latest Porsche Cayenne Turbo goes from 0-60mph in 5.1 seconds with a 171mph top speed. All this form an approximately 2.5 tonne vehicle with aerodynamics just slightly better than a brick. So, with 700 hp and assuming typical coupe aero, that car should top out at say 380km/h?!?
If only we had the 11,000rpm gem and a proper AE86 in LFS...
The fact that some here assume that a rotary powered TBO F/R car will no different to an XRT with a different power curve all goes to show the level of ignorance or inexperience we're dealing with here.
Do a simple test. Get 2 cars of similar power to weight ratio, e.g. an RX-7 and Nissan 200SX. Test them both THEN tell me that they handle the same. Better yet, get a properly tuned FC3S with a reliable 350hp THEN another FC3S with similar power and weight but achieved by butchering the car with a bulky V8 engine.
If rotary engines are PROPERLY implemented, the rotary powered car should enjoy better F/R mass balance AND lower polar moment of inertia.
Do a simple test. Get 2 cars of similar power to weight ratio, e.g. an RX-7 and Nissan 200SX. Test them both THEN tell me that they handle the same. Better yet, get a properly tuned FC3S with a reliable 350hp THEN another FC3S with similar power and weight but achieved by butchering the car with a bulky V8 engine.
If rotary engines are PROPERLY implemented, the rotary powered car should enjoy better F/R mass balance AND lower polar moment of inertia.
It means that the car is built TOUGH, nothing more and nothing less. IF anything the Mitsubishi Engineers should be applauded for doing their jobs well, unlike the current level of mediocrity, irresponsibility, incompetence and SHEER LAZINESS that engulfs modern society. And no, Lancer Evolutions CAN NOT magically turn incompetent drivers into Tommi Makinens that can run through the narrow, twisty and treacherous roads of Monte Carlo really quickly. When was the last time you could buy a car under 60,000AUD driveaway AND kill ridiculously overpriced and impractical competition as long as you're a competent rally driver?
BTW, it's these kind of silly and mindless statements that make all car guys look bad to everyone else. It's basically a neon sign that says:"This guy is REALLY ignorant and doesn't really have a clue about this."
Last edited by Jamexing, .
Practically, there is no way a dyno could tell you what the engine actually makes IRL operation, even when the dyno is fundamentally very accurate and precise. The difference in actual power difference between a car with an open/closed hood running on a dyno and a car running full speed at the track with plenty of cool airflow into the air intake and excellent cooling (aka so good that the fan is actually switched OFF to reduce fan parasitic drag) can be quite surprising, especially in these days of electronically managed engines.
Let's look at this simple scenario. A car is on a high speed track and it's cooling system is more than adequate for keeping temperatures in the optimal ranges. With a well designed and implemented carbon fiber hood that's well vented as well, underhood temps are actually quite low as the high speed intake air easily removes all excess heat. With a cold air intake right at the grille opening, the engine enjoys an excellent supply of cool and clean air. The ECU senses this extra air inflow and deems it safe to advance ignition to maximize power and efficiency. Under these condtitions, the actual power produced in operation is significantly higher than dyno tests could measure (assuming an accurate dyno). If there's a well designed and installed ram air intake, the power output actually increases with speed by as much as 5% or more as speed climbs.
Then there's the situation where a poor car is on a dyno revving its guts out in an attempt to generate a good power curve with stale, non-moving air. Poor thing asphyxiates and burns up and the ECU retards ignition to protect the engine. Result? Lousy power curve.
Let's look at this simple scenario. A car is on a high speed track and it's cooling system is more than adequate for keeping temperatures in the optimal ranges. With a well designed and implemented carbon fiber hood that's well vented as well, underhood temps are actually quite low as the high speed intake air easily removes all excess heat. With a cold air intake right at the grille opening, the engine enjoys an excellent supply of cool and clean air. The ECU senses this extra air inflow and deems it safe to advance ignition to maximize power and efficiency. Under these condtitions, the actual power produced in operation is significantly higher than dyno tests could measure (assuming an accurate dyno). If there's a well designed and installed ram air intake, the power output actually increases with speed by as much as 5% or more as speed climbs.
Then there's the situation where a poor car is on a dyno revving its guts out in an attempt to generate a good power curve with stale, non-moving air. Poor thing asphyxiates and burns up and the ECU retards ignition to protect the engine. Result? Lousy power curve.
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