27 replies to this topic

[Millennium]

I'm trying to get used to the Honda from the 1965 mod but I find it almost impossible to keep the engine temperature under control. I tried shifting at 11.000 rpm and 12.000 rpm (clean shifts with proper lifting) but after a couple of laps the engine has already reached 105 degrees celcius. Quite annoying because for just a couple of hotlaps I actually like the Honda but than the car's handling and all gets bad so quickly.

In any car the number in pribluda gets red at 94 degrees but is that a general setting or does it suit every car? Or I'm a doing something wrong?

Edited by Millennium, Nov 26 2018 - 09:42 AM.

[twinpotter]

From memory, even though I haven't drove the 65's for awhile. I think I've had the same issue.

Your right the Honda is a canny little car, in the 65 mod. I don't have a solution to this issue and have tried some of the things that you've tried too.

I'm sure someone will come along soon, to shed some light on this issue.

TP :

[Saiph]

I've just done some testing at Grenzlandring/Wegberg with my latest base setup for the Honda RA272 (setup attached). I'm able to stay in 6th gear with flat throttle all the way around the lap. As the tyres warm up the laptimes come down to the low 2:05's. Max speed is about 165mph, which is 11,400RPM in 6th. My temps don't go above 207F (97C). I have Pribluda set to turn red at 210F. Although the car info page in GPL shows the max Honda power at 12,000RPM, I think this might be a bit too high, so I usually try to shift at about 11,500. Try my setup at Grenzlandring (or maybe also Bloodbath) and see if you can maintain high speed without the engine going above 210F (99C). If you can, then try the car at a more 'normal' circuit. If it overheats there, that may indicate that you're not shifting early enough.
(P.S. When I first started to drive the '65 mod, I often forgot that the Honda has six gears.   You are using 6th, aren't you? )

(Edit: The attached setup has a steering lock setting which suits my thumb-operated joystick. If you use a different type of steering controller, you'll probably need to adjust the lock so that the steering feels better.)

Attached Files

•  kb65 hon prc base 007.zip   359bytes   2 downloads

Edited by Saiph, Nov 26 2018 - 01:18 PM.

[Millennium]

Yes I'm aware of the sixth gear.

I will give it a try, I've experimented with ratios before but it didn't make much difference for the temperatures. But at what points is the engine really overheating? In my game the number gets red at 94 c.

[Saiph]

Well, going back to basic physics, water boils at 100C/212F. Most internal combustion engines, especially racing engines, have a slightly pressurized water system so that the engine temps can go a little above 100C without the water boiling. In GPL, high engine temperatures reduce engine reliability, increasing the chance of a blow-up when you take the engine to the top of its rev range. In my experience, a max temp of 210F/99C doesn't hurt reliability much. If you get up to 215F/102C, you're taking a bit of a risk, and if you get as high as 220F/105C, it's quite likely your engine is about to spread itself all over the track. That's why I set my Pribluda to turn red at 210F.

The same laws of physics apply to all engine types, so I keep the same Pribluda setting for all mods. It would also be a little awkward to edit the Pribluda setting every time I change mods. However, the engine temperature behaviour (eg warm-up speed) can vary quite a bit between mods, probably due to differing engine capacity/number of cylinders etc, so you need to keep an eye on your temp reading until you get comfortable with how the engine behaves. But generally speaking, keeping any GPL car at or below 210F/99C will greatly increase engine reliability.

One example of different engine behaviour is the GT mod, especially the Chaparral cars. When the GT mod first came out, I was constantly blowing engines, because the GT engine sounds are quite a bit lower than other GPL mods, especially the '67 cars. It turned out that my GPL "ear" was tuned to other mods, and I was driving the GTs as though they revved a lot higher. Consequently, I was having a lot of overheating problems. The Chaparral cars are the lowest-revving of all GPL cars, and it takes quite a bit of practice to get used to shifting them at the right time.

[Millennium]

Interesting, thanks for explaining!

With all the other cars I can keep doing decent laptimes while keeping the engine under 95c, but with the Honda it's 2 or 3 decent laps and than overheating like crazy.

[Claudio Pablo Navonne]

Very interesting your explanations Saiph. You could explain to me how you do to change the colors (and at what temperature they change9 in the pribdula. Thank you very much.

[Saiph]

Millennium, on Nov 26 2018 - 04:48 PM, said:

Interesting, thanks for explaining!

With all the other cars I can keep doing decent laptimes while keeping the engine under 95c, but with the Honda it's 2 or 3 decent laps and than overheating like crazy.

In my experience, engine overheating is always caused by over-revving. Even when you're trying to push as hard as possible to shave another 1/10th second off your lap record, you still need to stay disciplined with your gear shifts. In effect, the only cure for overheating is to adjust the nut holding the steering wheel!

[Saiph]

Claudio Pablo Navonne, on Nov 27 2018 - 02:58 AM, said:

Very interesting your explanations Saiph. You could explain to me how you do to change the colors (and at what temperature they change9 in the pribdula. Thank you very much.

Hi Claudio. In your main GPL directory (where gpl.exe is located), you should find the "Pribluda.ini" file, which holds all the settings for Pribluda. In that file, you should see a section which looks like this:

[dash]
show = 1
defaultColour = 0xffffff
warningColour = 0x0033ff
fuelWarningLevel = 7
oilWarningTemp = 210

Your numbers may be a little different, as I have edited mine to choose the settings I want.
The 'oilWarningTemp' number sets the temperature (in Fahrenheit) at which Pribluda changes the colour of the oil temperature figure.

The hex numbers named 'defaultColour' and 'warningColour' set the colours which are shown. Each pair of hex digits after the 'x' control the blue, green and red components of the colour, in that order. So the default colour of '0xFFFFFF' has the max value for blue, green and red, and so it shows on the screen as white.

The warning colour of '0x0033FF' sets blue=00, green=33, and red=FF. So the colour is maximum red, but with a slight amount of green added to make the numbers look a little bit brighter, and a little bit orange.

I hope that helps.

Edited by Saiph, Nov 27 2018 - 04:44 AM.

[Andreh]

As I remember, I think the differente mods have different optimal temperatures. for tires. I remember having different pribluda inis depending on the mod chosen. Is that right or I am just a confused old guy?

[Saiph]

Andreh, you are right, and some people do have different Pribluda.ini files for seperate mods. But this thread started off talking about engine temperatures, not tyre temperatures.

Edited by Saiph, Nov 27 2018 - 09:23 AM.

[Border Reiver]

If I remember correctly what Pribluda actually displays for the tyres is the percentage current grip level relative to peak possible grip for each tyre, which relies on both the pressure and temperature being at their optimum values.

If the tyre heat is correct, but the pressure is low then Pribluda could still display this as being "blue", whereas correct temperature but over pressure would show as being "red". This is also true if the pressure is correct but the temperature is either too high or too low. You could imagine this as being a bit like the top of a hill with a fairly smooth top. If you are right at the very top (i.e. optimum pressure and temperature) then you see a perfect green temperature. If you move a bit away from this point in either temperature or pressure you'll still get green colours but the grip has dropped slightly from the absolute peak. If you move further away still onto the side of the hill so you are only e.g. 90% to the top then you start seeing different colours.

I think that Pribluda will let you adjust these cross over points to set the region around the top that indicates as being "green" to be what ever you want, so +/- 5% or +/-10% or whatever. For some mods this is more useful than others since the tyres in each mod can have different levels of "pointedness" for their "grip hills", so some are really pretty broad and gently sloping with a nice, pretty flat top where it is fairly easy to keep the tyres "in the window", whereas other mods are much more pointy with steep sides where grip can really fall off even if you are only slightly in error for either temperature or pressure.

Rob

[Millennium]

Yes, I was talking about engine temperatures in particulair. I don't have much trouble with interpretating tyre temperatures in Pribluda.

I did some more testing but the temperature of the Honda engine was still around a 103/105 c while shifting around 11.000 rpm consistently. And it won't cool down as easily as any other car from the 1965 mod.

Edited by Millennium, Nov 27 2018 - 01:48 PM.

[fajanko]

[Claudio Pablo Navonne]

Saiph, on Nov 27 2018 - 04:34 AM, said:

Claudio Pablo Navonne, on Nov 27 2018 - 02:58 AM, said:

Very interesting your explanations Saiph. You could explain to me how you do to change the colors (and at what temperature they change9 in the pribdula. Thank you very much.

Hi Claudio. In your main GPL directory (where gpl.exe is located), you should find the "Pribluda.ini" file, which holds all the settings for Pribluda. In that file, you should see a section which looks like this:

[dash]
show = 1
defaultColour = 0xffffff
warningColour = 0x0033ff
fuelWarningLevel = 7
oilWarningTemp = 210

Your numbers may be a little different, as I have edited mine to choose the settings I want.
The 'oilWarningTemp' number sets the temperature (in Fahrenheit) at which Pribluda changes the colour of the oil temperature figure.

The hex numbers named 'defaultColour' and 'warningColour' set the colours which are shown. Each pair of hex digits after the 'x' control the blue, green and red components of the colour, in that order. So the default colour of '0xFFFFFF' has the max value for blue, green and red, and so it shows on the screen as white.

The warning colour of '0x0033FF' sets blue=00, green=33, and red=FF. So the colour is maximum red, but with a slight amount of green added to make the numbers look a little bit brighter, and a little bit orange.

I hope that helps.

I've got work for the weekend! It's the kind of work I love!
Thanks Saiph!!!

[Lee200]

Just took a quick look at the 1965 mod physics to see if there were something weird about the Honda engine compared to the rest.  There really isn't other than the Honda produces more horsepower than the other engines.

GPL goes through an extremely complicated (and I would suggest overly so) computation to derive the engine oil and water temps on the fly.  These computations apply to the AI engines as well as the player.  Essentially, the more horsepower is used, the more heat is produced and the faster the car's airspeed, the cooler it runs.

Each car has its own oil and water capacities.  Greater capacity results in greater cooling.  The Honda has the highest capacities of all the cars, but perhaps aren't large enough to offset the car's greater horsepower.

The only fix from the player's standpoint is to use less horsepower/rpm.

Edited by Lee200, Nov 29 2018 - 04:37 AM.

[Millennium]

That explanation makes a lot of sense.

I guess the challenge with the Honda is that it can be so fast but you must resist the urge to use all of that hp all the time. Great car for hotlapping, but a tough car in a long race.

Edited by Millennium, Nov 28 2018 - 05:19 PM.

[Pete Gaimari]

I'm not sure a top speed run is the way to test engine temps. I'm also into combat flight sims. I love the WW2 planes like the P-51. The planes have a big overheating problem. Usually the problem is too much load on the engine with not enough speed. Speed cools the engine through more air going through the radiator. Doing normal laps on a road course will probably heat up the Honda more.

One quick question. Are you blowing the engine in the Honda when it gets hot? If you aren't i'd just ignore it. If it isn't blowing when hot it might just be a poor calibration.

[Robert Fleurke]

I've won different 65 online races with the Honda, at 110C or so, at Pro.

In my experience engine temps are related to their rpm range, more rpm's, more temps. Also their thresholds are higher. I keep different thresholds for different cars based on their engines, and I hardly blow an engine at Pro with 65s/67s.

In short, don't worry Erik

PS: Honda is most sensitive engine wise though with 65s, and 67s.

Edited by Robert Fleurke, Nov 29 2018 - 05:57 PM.

[Millennium]

Thanks, that nice to know! I just did a practice session on Pro with the engine at 109/110C all the time and it seems that the engine will be fine indeed. I think I will switch to the Honda for the last race of the gplracer season. I'm starting to like the way it handles, also a nice challenge to see if I can bring it home in one piece.

Edited by Millennium, Nov 30 2018 - 10:38 AM.