The online racing simulator
Quote from axus :Have you noticed that LFS models tyre deformation and hence tyre forces by the way? Here's a good slowmotion movie where you can have a look at that:
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=14198

I do love that video

However, there are some issues with the tire model. One of them causes a situation where we use much lower tire pressures in LFS than we would in the real world. This leads to some pretty dramatic tire flexing. I do think the flexing is accurate given the pressures we use.
Quote from Vykos69 :with the engine on the side, dont you have to add/remove extra weight on drivers side for different driver, to keep balance? Or how is that done?

the car is very wide and the driver sits fairly close to centerline. with 185 lb driver the balance is about dead even, so 50 lbs difference in either direcion will have very minimal effect on balance. basically adding 50 lbs in the driver seat adds about 33 lbs on the left side and 17 lbs on the right, so if you started with let's say 525 lbs left and 525 right with 185 lb driver, you'd end up with 558 and 542 with a 235 lb guy behind the wheel (likely won't be a girl! ) which is still pretty damned close (only 0.7% left-heavy). maybe schumacher can tell that kind of difference but i know i won't be able to.
That's still leaves the CoG more central placed than any road car, so that's not an issue IMO.
How about a 145lb driver? :P (What? I lost 40 pounds over the last few months... lol)

Regarding the renders... any chance at a nice non-transparent bodied render at 1680x1050 (or larger) resolution? I know Solidworks has some primative texture capabilties, but maybe a nice high-resolution carbon fiber or fiberglass texture could be applied to the model? If done with a good enough texture, you won't notice the crappy seams Solidworks makes It's capable of some pretty realistic renders (if you have Photoworks build 2 installed). f you like, you could wing the main assembly file to me and I can see what I can do render wise once I get my copy of solidworks back.
Quote from dpcars :the car is very wide and the driver sits fairly close to centerline. with 185 lb driver the balance is about dead even, so 50 lbs difference in either direcion will have very minimal effect on balance. basically adding 50 lbs in the driver seat adds about 33 lbs on the left side and 17 lbs on the right, so if you started with let's say 525 lbs left and 525 right with 185 lb driver, you'd end up with 558 and 542 with a 235 lb guy behind the wheel (likely won't be a girl! ) which is still pretty damned close (only 0.7% left-heavy). maybe schumacher can tell that kind of difference but i know i won't be able to.

cool, I was just interested on how it was done. Great stuff.
If you guys have the time, I highly recommend reading the blog. It takes a while to get through, but it is a very good read. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
Quote from MAGGOT :
Regarding the renders... any chance at a nice non-transparent bodied render at 1680x1050 (or larger) resolution? I know Solidworks has some primative texture capabilties, but maybe a nice high-resolution carbon fiber or fiberglass texture could be applied to the model? If done with a good enough texture, you won't notice the crappy seams Solidworks makes It's capable of some pretty realistic renders (if you have Photoworks build 2 installed). f you like, you could wing the main assembly file to me and I can see what I can do render wise once I get my copy of solidworks back.

i haven't had much luck playing with photoworks and it really hasn't been a priority lately. i know it can be done but too much work remains on actually getting the car finished. thank you for the rendering offer but i'm sure you'll understand that i'm not too keen on sending the database out. anyway, the complete assembly is over 450M in size last time i checked... so bottom line is that rendered pix will have to wait but there should be some more photos when testing resumes in month or so.
Quote from dpcars :i haven't had much luck playing with photoworks and it really hasn't been a priority lately. i know it can be done but too much work remains on actually getting the car finished. thank you for the rendering offer but i'm sure you'll understand that i'm not too keen on sending the database out. anyway, the complete assembly is over 450M in size last time i checked... so bottom line is that rendered pix will have to wait but there should be some more photos when testing resumes in month or so.

mmm... more track photos.

BTW, is the prototype planned on being painted? You ought to at least get a graphic made with dpcars.net on it as I reckon pics will circulate the web, people won't know what it is.

Had you ever driven AWD on a track before? If so what car? Just interested as it's (one of many aspects) uncommon for dedicated track vehicles nowdays.

Thanks!
Quote from srdsprinter :Had you ever driven AWD on a track before? If so what car? Just interested as it's (one of many aspects) uncommon for dedicated track vehicles nowdays.

His own car is 4WD

Whilst the rules of LMP's would stop the DP1 due to it's 4 wheel drive system, maybe if some road legal ones were made it could be homogolated as a GT car. Having said that, we would need to strap one of these on ...















Never said about actually having someone who could reach the pedals in the other seat
Quote from duke_toaster :His own car is 4WD

Whilst the rules of LMP's would stop the DP1 due to it's 4 wheel drive system, maybe if some road legal ones were made it could be homogolated as a GT car. Having said that, we would need to strap one of these on ...

As I said, "Had" you ever driven AWD on a track. Obviously he has now. The question is (clearly i thought) had he had AWD track experience before, and what if any his previous opinions on it were.

Second, wth? The engine sits beside the driver, and it clearly states everywhere that there is no current existing series that would allow it to race, with possible exceptions being NASA, and of course SCCA autocrossing.
I'd just like to add to Hallen's comment. I read the entire blog, and I found it absolutely fascinating. I honestly think it's book worthy. Hell, Dean Kamen wrote a book about designing the Segway, and this is a heck of a lot cooler than a Segway

Great looking car, I'd love to see it in the flesh, and I'd really really love to see it in LFS
Quote from 96 GTS :I'd just like to add to Hallen's comment. I read the entire blog, and I found it absolutely fascinating. I honestly think it's book worthy. Hell, Dean Kamen wrote a book about designing the Segway, and this is a heck of a lot cooler than a Segway

Great looking car, I'd love to see it in the flesh, and I'd really really love to see it in LFS

Lol, Segway in LFS???

Yea, one of the guys DP talks with built a Carbon Fibre Bodied Mid-Engined, Honda Powered Mini (original body style), and he wrote/is finishing the book on it. http://www.kimini.com
Pretty cool, but I would wait to see how that works before I'd try it. Besides, I don't think for DP this is as much a life-long project as the Kimini was for its maker, its kinda the current stage in his ever-evolving exploits of the automotive world.
Segway's are cool- it's just that they cost way too much. If they were only $100 or so no-one would ever walk again.
Segways seem like an utterly useless invention to me.
Quote from ajp71 :Segways seem like an utterly useless invention to me.

+1

and then some.
yes, eventually it'll get painted but that's a ways down on the priority list. graphics will definitely happen though, i just need to get it done.

i've driven a couple mitsu EVOs on the track - an EVO VI Makinen (a private import, that's before they were legal here) on R tires and an EVO VIII on street rubber. both were quite fun, Makinen especially. EVOs are set up to drift around corners and they do it very well. you can do loooong controlled powerslides, just pitch it in with a flick of the wheel and then opposite lock and steer on the throttle. i almost bought an EVO actually but then decided the mini was more my style.

also drove a student's 996 C4 on street tires - big, fat and soft. didn't care for it much.

the dp1 proto doesn't really behave like an awd car. it's pretty neutral, very steerable with throttle (lift and the tail rotates, push and the nose runs a little wide but nothing you'd call understeer). you can apply power very early in turns, much earlier than i've been doing so far.

of course the production drivetrain is different, replacing the prototype's quaife center diff with a proprietary setup so we'll see how that behaves.
in regards to the segway - technologically it's an absolute marvel of engineeing. very cool stuff. in terms of usefulness, my personal opinion (and take it as such) is that it's misguided in its intent and was very overhyped (no surprise considering what they've spent developing it). Kamen's background is designing very cool (and hideously expensive) wheelchairs and so the segway is basically more of the same - a mobility device. except he tried to create a mobility device for people who don't need it. americans don't need to be saved from walking. even the mail carriers, who were envisioned as the big market, have overwhelmingly said they prefer to walk and that using the segway they get cold and sore. walking beats standing if you've got to be on your feet for a while. it might help senior citizens who live within a mile of a grocery store shop for groceries, that's about it.

if you take a step back and look at it objectively, you have a big, heavy, EXPENSIVE (read likely to be stolen) device that offers no protection from the element and doesn't have the range or the speed to be an alternative to a car (whereas a bicycle does, in many cases and is vastly simpler, cheaper, lighter and easier to store and secure). segway is not usefully faster than walking, can't be carried onto public transportation, needs ramps to be loaded into a car if you want to take it somewhere and takes up a bunch of space wherever it sits. but at least it's expensive

so yeah, i think the intentions were noble but naiive, the technology is amazing, the amount of money spent to bring it to market is obscene. overall i'd have to concur - pretty useless.

again, just an opinion.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, don't paint it! I think bare carbon fiber looks wicked! You can just see it means business.
Sooo.. any *coughnews#cough@ on an LFS DP1?
My guess is you'll be waiting quite a while for any definitive news.
I'm assuming the whole idea of the DP1 in LFS is only about as old as this thread. I really doubt the devs have time to jump on board to any popular forum idea that comes along. I imagine best case scenario would be that they like the idea and would be willing to consider it whenever they get an opening in the list of things they're doing now.

and BTW, that avtar is a little disturbing...

edit- We really are kind of spoiled by people like DP (several car people have sites similar to his), who actively maintains and updates his site with such frequency. It really is awesome to get the progress reports sometimes daily on what he's been up to. We can't expect the devs to do the same, its not fair to. I believe they're of the mindset of telling when there is something to tell.
Well, yes, at this point 'nothing definitive' is a given... I'm mostly curious of whether DP and the devs got in touch about it. No one's mentionned that.
I already wrote in this thread that I had been in touch with the devs about this a while ago...

Quote from Michael Denham :Crazy timing... I have been following the dp1 since the beginning and just last week emailed Dennis about having the dp1 in LFS. I heard back from him on Wednesday, saying he was interested. The devs also expressed an interest this when I was in touch with them a few weeks ago, so it looks like this may happen once they are at the right stage in development and ready to put more new vehicles in.

They said they were interested, but that their first priority was getting to S2 Final, followed by some work on some other things they have in the pipeline. So, they have not said definitely yes, but they have said they are interested, but if it did happen, they could not give a timeline, due to these other priorities.
Quote from srdsprinter :Sorry, I have to totally disagree. Yeah, he's not driving like a nutter (pushing to and beyond limits), but its a totally unproven brand new car. That spin is on the first day the car ever turned a wheel, on a test session mainly designed to make sure the wheels don't fall off, and the bolts are all tight (in fact, a bolt isn't tight and thus all was not going as expected)

Go to his site and look at his vids of his Mini S, and then go to Past, and look at his Scion XB with 100 HP. He routinely keeps up and Passes GT3 Porsches, Corvettes, and more, all while having Hundreds of HP less. The Westfield Megabusa he put together also has a lot of quality footage. Look at his ducatti collection, where on one occasion a former moto gp champ compliments him on his riding technique (he's an amatuer bike rider).

If you bothered to look(you didn't) Dennis also breaks down the spin you spoke of, frame by frame. By the time the tires locked, to the time the car was gone was such a short duration, there was no way to catch it. It was a flaw in the design of the braking on the prototype. Ask him about it and he will go into great detail about it. It shows very poorly on you to see a spin without understanding any of the unique vehicle dynamics the DP1 has and then simply assuming he does not have "any vague driving talent".
Edit: Linkage. http://dpcars.net/dp1test/da.htm


Dennis is following the thread and willingly participating in the attempt to get his car in LFS. The video wasn't made to entertain or showcase the cars abilities, but to give a progress report of the development of his machine. Again, if you had taken the time to read the site, or the thread, you would have known this.

Lastly, driving full-fendered street-tired cars is far different from light-weight slick-shod open wheelers. He, along with everone else, has no experience driving a car like his. So really, before you knock it completely take a look at what is really going on please.

Wow how many shares did you say you had in this guys company? Or did he just make you head of his fan club and give you a gift certificate for a free lap at some stage?

FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG