Sorry, but it hard to see this ending in anything but tears. I know my car will never take the track without a shifter in it. Never.
I wish I can be optimistic. Tell me something positive. I have yet to see anything like that on these pages. Give me hope.
I would love to see some positive creative postings for a change. It would be enormously refreshing.
One more question, Rennie. You said before that you would use one of these systems in a heartbeat if you were involved in FB. Why would you do it in FB, but not in FA (assuming you had an FA with a sequential box, of course)?
Sir, the GCR is not a transcription of posts on this website.Originally Posted by Thomas Copeland
These discussions will not hurt the class. I am certain that a consensus will come about that allows shifting aids but will attempt to put some limitations on the future.
IMHO the Geartronics & other systems are completely legal as the rules are written. I may not like the investment but they are legal.
Thanks ... Jay Novak
Well, why do I keep reading "ban this", "ban that". And "I'm writing to the CRB".... etc...
When I read this it doesn't sound like a constructive discussion.
Granted this isn't the CRB, but then again maybe this isn't the place to discuss this issue either. Not if it is going to follow along the vein that is has been.
I guess I fail to see any good that will come out of this discussion. One side is just as firmly entrenched as the other.
What can possibly be gained by continuing?
This entire thing has devolved into a flog contest.
I'd use it in FA too, but alas, my Ralt is not a sequential 'box. Of course, since I fairly well lunched the ol' Staffs at Buttonwillow this yearI've been pinching pennies and have not yet decided what the solution is going to look like. I hate taking the weight penalty for sequential, I already have to carry 50lbs of lead as it is.
Cheers,
Rennie
Thomas, it is common after the runoffs are over for there to be heated discussions over the future of a class. Last year FF had the Fit, and many people thought FF was over. FC had the Zetec. Right now, we have the Geartronics and ECUs. I promise, the world is not ending just because a few people on Apexspeed don't share your views.
Okay. I guess I just wish the comments when a little less negative. You can have a opposing view without turning it overwheming negative. It makes it easy for me to see that this might be the end of it. Because where do we go from here?
It''s very hard to read some of this stuff because some of it sounds like pure rage coming out.
I guess I just can't imagine what drives that. My mind just doesn't work like that. It just doesn't seem very helpful.
P.S. Sorry for the post. Guess I was starting to get a little discouraged.
I know you don't have a sequential box, but you seemed to suggest that FA guys are too traditionalist to use a Geartronics. I think the real reason is probably more that their mechanical shifters work well enough to not want the weight penalty. I'm sure there are FA guys that wouldn't mind paying $5k or so for one if they thought it was worth the weight.I'd use it in FA too, but alas, my Ralt is not a sequential 'box. Of course, since I fairly well lunched the ol' Staffs at Buttonwillow this year
Cheers,
Rennie
I'm jealous of your lead ballast. I have managed to get the car to weigh 778 pounds, including the 16 or so pounds of Geartronics, and can't meet 1000 pound minimum once the driver gets in it.
Hmmmmm.
The Pro cars almost universally came with SWOL, so that covers the upshift base; downshifts were never an issue in the Pro series, despite what I've read here. Never heard of any of the mainstream drivers complain about persistent downshift issues, working in the series for a few years (well, maybe with the 008 whose gearbox we affectionately referred to as a sh*tbox...). You could be right about the weight penalty not being worth it, given that most of the late-model Swifts do not get down to minimum as it is. You'd have to ask them - the FA crowd is notoriously close-lipped though!
Then again, if you're seeing the main value of the system as preventing lunched motors, there might be a market there after all...
Cheers,
Rennie
The main values of the system for us are allowing the driver to focus on other things besides shifting, and consistent, good shifts over a race distance. Potential motor savings are nice too, though. The driver in question has always had problems comfortably manipulating the shifter in pretty much every formula car due to his considerable bulk. Also, I can't lie. About 40% of the decision was, "Whoa, that's cool." There are other parts on the car for that same reason that probably weren't worth it from an objective standpoint.Then again, if you're seeing the main value of the system as preventing lunched motors, there might be a market there after all...
Cheers,
Rennie
You still haven't explained how someone is going to go faster if they can just hold down the lever and how that is an enormous advantage over discrete clicks.
This is ridiculous fearmongering. It is making a downshift by clicking a paddle, not brain surgery. You won't find .01 difference in a lap by letting the driver hold the lever down instead of having to click it the number of times you want to downshift.
I don't think programming microcontrollers is voodoo, but I do understand some of the complexities involved. Maybe all of the projects that I have subbed out or worked on were just stuck with incompetent programmers and we just needed you? Development of a similar system would incur huge costs for no performance advantage. There is a reason that only one company is doing this right now. The market is not that big and it is not an easy thing to figure out and most times when you screw up, you are going to be out another engine.
And I always get a kick out of people that think programming a piece of electronics is some kind of vodoo black magic; it's not. This is the kind of stuff I do for a living every day, and believe me, it wouldn't have been science fiction even 10 years ago. Equating this stuff to F1 in terms of level of expertise is disingenuous at best; but speaking of F1, they would not have invested in the technology in the first place if the human component led to the fastest way around the track. FIA totally banned those systems because they were slowing the cars down...
What performance advantage? Also, Brandon builds his car in the backyard, not in the garage.
Besides, I don't think that a club racer pursuing this technology - and doing it in a way that garners a tactical performance advantage - is any more outlandish than that same club racer having a small fleet of personal CNC machines to build a car in their "garage". Nothing wrong or out of bounds for either scenario.
Of course there is a pattern. The difference is in what is purpose built for a race car vs. what is being adapted for a completely different application.
Motorcycle shifters are located in a place that only makes sense when you are straddling the engine and working the shifter with their feet, through essentially no linkage. They work great for that. Once you adapt it to a car, you have to run either cables or an intricate set of linkages to be able to shift from the cockpit. The puny little spring that re-centers the shifter is not really capable of reliably recentering a linkage or one or two cables, especially not as fast as the race cars need them to and with someone's hand on the shifter.
But you know he would have put the CNC machines in the living room if he could have. I know I would.
I disagree, what does 1 missed downshift cost you in lap time? A couple of tenth easily? How about 10 missed shifts in a race?
I am not arguing the legality of the systems, they are legal. However to say there is no performance advantage is simply silly.
Thanks ... Jay Novak
I think Wren was saying that there would be no big time advantage to being able to just hold the paddle down and get multiple shifts versus having to hit the paddle once for every shift.
Looks more like a cross between a circle jerk and a circular firing squad!
In that case, where are my goggles?Looks more like a cross between a circle jerk and a circular firing squad!
Looks more like a cross between a circle jerk and a circular firing squad!
And.....Scene!
That is as good a place to stop as any. Next topic.
Ken
a missed shift is about a 1.5 second slow down using this system. It isn't perfect.
Yes.
Thomas,
This stuff is great, have you looked at the number of posts on this thread! I have people that aren't even members of apex that came down to watch the race that are following this thread many times a day. This drama is what holds outside peoples interest and draw attention to this class. There are people that were my crew for the event even debating with each other about this system.
Okay, you guys win! Richard got me laughing again.
SWOL was typically worth 1.5-2 tenths repeatable. I can only guess at what the gains would have been with semi-automated downshifting, but it would have been considerable given what I've seen of the data traces. Downshifts too early in the braking zone was the most common offense, and typically resulted in a somewhat sideways entry and direct loss of time, when it didn't result in a blown motor. Followed closely by missed downshifts resulting from not unloading the dog faces properly (usually too much throttle application on the blip). Either way - it's lap time.
The braking zone is the highest frequency input level and highest stress level of any operation in a car of this performance envelope. If you can reduce the cognitive overhead of the driver during these types of operations, then you can improve their effectiveness, and that's precisely what happens when you remove the requirement to monitor downshifting operations from the driver; they end up with more attention span that can be devoted to things like threshold braking. Even minor improvements in high stress situations can yield gains. This is part of the reason why shifter karts typically have slightly longer braking zones than their equal-weighted non-shifting 4-wheel brake brethren, despite the fact that shifting them is little more involved than a tap of the finger.
This is before getting into discussions of layering in more intelligence to the process by monitoring things other than engine RPM - road speed, cornering G, longitudinal G, GPS position, etc.
Sorry that you feel you have to resort to personal insults to get your point across.
Wholeheartedly agreed.
Cheers,
Rennie
Atlantics and shifters
Am I correct that most Atlantic cars are 5 speeds?
Is it common practice to gear an Atlantic to use 1st gear at, say, T5 at Road America?
Just curious and trying to compare apples to the closest thing to apples available.
Rennie, no question it is an advantage. However, I don't think it is such an advantage that one cannot be competitive without it. The pivoting master cylinders and needle bearing balance bar are probably an advantage, too. I know Schwietz really likes them. Brandon did fine without them. Same deal with the whizbang dampers. I guess it comes down to how much does it cost vs. how much lap time is it worth that will decide if everyone will feel the need to have it. In the case of the shifter, I think eventually people will realize that a good driver with a well sorted car runs at the front with or without it.
Sir, I believe Atlantics are limited to 5 forward speeds plus reverse.
If you miss 10 shifts in one race you need to pick another racing sport like running or something
lol
Damn this is #347?
Yes, you are correct on the gear count - except for PFM's, but that's another issue. It is not common practice to use 1st anywhere, as the gears tend to be fragile, so - less to do in the braking zone.
It's true that with the current pace of development there are likely to be bigger chunks of time to be found elsewhere - but between two different cars of otherwise identical potential, an extra couple of tenths is an extra couple of tenths right? Like I said at the outset, I think the systems are great, and perfectly legal. If you're in the championship hunt, I firmly believe you'd be leaving time on the table by not having one of these systems.
Cheers,
Rennie
Welcome to the Internets. ALL forums work like this. Look up Godwin's Law for more amusement.
Yep. A rules discussion needs to take into account what MIGHT be allowed, not what the current implementation is. In my field (computer security), an all too common error is to assume that what the hacker is going to do is limited to what the real user currently does. Rather, not to assume, but to not have the imagination to envision something else, still within the boundaries of the "rules".
It seems pretty obvious to me that it's too late to disallow geartronics-like systems.
It also seems pretty obvious that most people want to disallow F1-like driver aided shifting, where they just pull the lever 5 times and the system executes 5 downshifts when possible (whenever the engine catches up), ie preselected downshifts. Well duh, of course that's obvious, it's explicit in the current rule.
So "just" re-write the rule to be more explicit about what constitutes a mere extension of the driver and what constitutes a driver aid. Unfortunately I think it's too late for that unless you disallow the overrev protection (which I do think is a driver aid).
[quote]
This is exactly my point: the shifter system doesn't yield any real (or significant)
The braking zone is the highest frequency input level and highest stress level of any operation in a car of this performance envelope. If you can reduce the cognitive overhead of the driver during these types of operations, then you can improve their effectiveness, and that's precisely what happens when you remove the requirement to monitor downshifting operations from the driver; they end up with more attention span that can be devoted to things like threshold braking. Even minor improvements in high stress situations can yield gains.
[/quote
"car" performance but it does yield "drivers" performance (and safety). I think that is much different because you still need to be a good driver to reap any benefits.
I'm not crazy about the gear not engaging if you shift at the wrong time, I feel like if you f**K up, you F**ked up. But if the system shuts you down for .5 second (or more,I think Wren said) then it's even steven in my book. If you ask me I'd rather have the bad shift than lose a second.
And just to get back on the CF sidepods: I'd think the sidepods would be one of most important places to have added protection. It seems like the closest place a driver can make contact in an accident. I see people talking about these bead seats as added protection, how about starting with the sidepods? some of these things just sound like common sense.
OK, so this is a significant difference between FB and FA. The requirement to make use of stock gear ratios in the FB means that a corner like T5 at RA is a 6 down to 2 shift. If I were "only" trying to make 3 downshifts in that timespan instead of 4, I might still have a mechanical shifter in the car. That extra shift pushes the workload over the edge for me.
Rennie, you and I are in agreement on the performance advantage of the system. I think I can be very, very close to the same laptime on a single flyer, but over a series of laps the ability to consistently brake deep and control the corner entry speed while not risking pitching the car off the pavement is the gain.
Also, this system seems to be easier on the drivetrain than I ever was with the manual shifter. I broke the teeth off of 4th gear earlier this year while at Sebring. It was ugly in there and I took the engine out of service (shared gbox and engine case). Would that still have happened with the Geartronix shifter, maybe yes, maybe no.
This is ridiculous. We are racing cars and not playing video games correct? Auto down blip? Whats wrong with your right foot doing the blipping? What's next ABS and traction control? Is this like Gran Turismo can I turn all the driving aids on?! I want to out drive the next guy on the grid not out spend him. If your havng trouble downshifting maybe you need to get a Stohr paddle shifter with 1 cable. I have no problems dropping 5 gears in a hard braking zone.
-Keegan
That's the argument I was making 7 pages ago. I'm still going to agree with the talented people actually using the system that it isn't worth anything time wise on a best lap to best lap comparison.
Nothing you've said indicates that we are going to see a difference between holding the lever and having to click it somewhere between 1 and 4 times. There are other much lower hanging fruit. These are not F1 drivers (although Schweitz looks like he might have eaten an F1 driver).
You know, I had actually written out some of the same things as ridiculous assertations that people could make, but I went back and deleted it because it is too outlandish.This is before getting into discussions of layering in more intelligence to the process by monitoring things other than engine RPM - road speed, cornering G, longitudinal G, GPS position, etc.
I would be willing to bet eleventy billion dollars that we don't see a shifter for SCCA in the next 10 years that rejects shifts by consider RPM+GPS+any one of those other things that are listed above.
Sorry, but I spend my life having to test things that are solved by just writing some software to accomplish some simple task. Often those tasks are simpler than trying to make a car shift smarter than the driver, especially without using pre-determined gear selections.Sorry that you feel you have to resort to personal insults to get your point across.
"Just fix it in software" is considered to be one of the most expensive approaches to fixing a problem, not one of the simplest.
You won't find that on a spec car grid, much less on the FB grid.but between two different cars of otherwise identical potential
I guess that I should go back to running regionalsThis is ridiculous. We are racing cars and not playing video games correct? Auto down blip? Whats wrong with your right foot doing the blipping? What's next ABS and traction control? Is this like Gran Turismo can I turn all the driving aids on?! I want to out drive the next guy on the grid not out spend him. If your havng trouble downshifting maybe you need to get a Stohr paddle shifter with 1 cable. I have no problems dropping 5 gears in a hard braking zone.
-Keegan
Speaking of traction control, what are we going to do about the paradox that comes about when a bike mfg delivers a stock bike with traction contol that can not be turned off. The FB rules require the stock ecu, but forbid traction control? Is that engine just not a candidate for FB?
There was a lot of damage done by fire to lots of FB cars while peole were still figuring out how to make the engines last. There can be a lot of very expensive damage from blowing a motor since the most common failure seems to be shoving a rod out of the front of the block and spraying hot oil on the headers and a nice oil fire immediately after. The engine longevity is still opinion and no one has the miles on the system to prove it. But, one preventable engine fire will pay for the system.
Sorry, I was not clear. My estimate of 1.5 seconds is based on when the driver asks for a shift they didn't want and get it, or when the shift system screws up and does not do something correctly.But if the system shuts you down for .5 second (or more,I think Wren said) then it's even steven in my book.
Glad to see you are feeling better. I guess it comes down to perception. I didn't think it was getting all doom and gloom....but of course, I don't have a dog in this fight.
In fairness to both sides, I haven't seen anybody suggest that its' advertised capabilities are illegal, maybe I missed it in these almost 400 posts. I think what it is being discussed is where and how the line(s) should be drawn to prevent further development or how to prevent the same thing being allowed in other classes.
I feel that arguing it isn't a performance advantage is absurd. Rennie said it all fancy like, but basically I look at our brains like the traction circle of a tire. The fewer tasks I am asked to do, the better I can accomplish those I am doing. I don't care who you are, not having to think about downshifting will make you faster....a little bit from the perfectly executed downshifts time after time. But moreso by allowing you to do a better job at the remaining tasks.
Enjoy the off-season. Don't get too worked up over internet banter.
As somebody in the class how do you solve that one?
You are allowed to modify inputs to the ECU, so couldn't you modify the wheel speed inputs to always match (Front and Rear)?
You drive a DSR, right?
Does that meant that I never have to spend 10 days in Wisconsin again?I guess that I should go back to running regionals
I think it is not legal under the current rules.
Speaking of traction control, what are we going to do about the paradox that comes about when a bike mfg delivers a stock bike with traction contol that can not be turned off. The FB rules require the stock ecu, but forbid traction control? Is that engine just not a candidate for FB?
No Brandon stay running nationals. You're our national champion for christ sakes and you earned it! This shifter is really slick but it's a pretty big driving aid. This is club racing not F1. We should be duking it out racer to racer. Niki didn't have one and although slower than the Citations I think it was for other reasons not the shifter.
-Keegan
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