The challenge is to see how can get the max stats it’s kind of confusing when everyone says min-max when trying to get high stats is big part of challenge
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Within the realistic engineering choices in the era, yes. If not, that is min-maxxing.
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Min-maxing is the art of making a car to beat the challenge with no care taken for realism. No manufacturer would have made a sports car with a luxury interior, V12 engine with 6 eco carbs, independent rear suspension, -5 quality Standard 50’s safety, with a clutched differential to mitigate wheelspin, and a high focus on aerodynamic quality to make it fuel efficient and fast. But a min-maxer would try to do exactly that. They’re trying to get the highest stats in places that matter at the expense of everything else.
A realistic approach would be to look at actual cars from the time (the inspirations, for example), and design similarly to those. You’ll make compromises to the design - maybe swapping in better seats for more comfort, even though added weight harms sportiness, or choosing a less prestigious engine option because it doesn’t harm the weight balance as much - in an attempt to build a good car and win the competition.
Effectively, the two approaches have the same goal: Victory.
The min-maxer will optimize all the fun out of the game, choose options that don’t make sense historically, and build a car that meets all the criteria and would be awful to own IRL.
The player will have fun choosing compromises between various engineering elements, choosing options that real manufacturers may have made themselves, and will build a car that meets most of the criteria, but would be a good car IRL.
Then there’s those of us who are here for the memes. We’re not setting out to win, we’re setting out to have fun. We’re doing weird and wacky things because, well, let’s face it, it’s just a game and it isn’t meant to be taken too seriously.
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What were the largest relevant rims and tires commercially available in 1959? My Google-fu isn’t turning up anything useful.
And what’s the verdict on DOHC-4?
In the host’s opinion, is race car homologation within the bounds of realism?
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14 or 15 inch rims would have been pretty much the standard for your average car for this time period. Some smaller entry level cars used smaller rims, but those don’t seem to be what Raymond is looking for. There where a few 16 inch rims about, but those seem to be mostly limited to offroad utility trucks.
As far as tires, side profiles were typically above 95 and width was often less than 195-205. I’d say a 205/95/15 would be the biggest realistic wheel and tire combo.
As far as DOHC 4v, that would have been basically Formula One levels of fancy. DOHC of any form was quite rare during the 50’s, Jag and Porsche are the only ones that spring to mind to have used them in this period. At any rate, I don’t think there would be much point to using them for this CSR, since engine’s this old tend to struggle with high rpms without bottom end stress, which makes the benefits of DOHC rather minor.
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To add on to the tire stuff: there did exist tires at the time whose profiles in modern terms were close to as little as 80. The Chevrolet Corvette at the time did use 6.70/15 bias-ply tires, which corresponded to around a 195/80R15 modern-size tire. Quite importantly, radial tires were not actually any lower in profile during this age, and I repeat that lower-profile radials should either be bonked for realism or altogether prohibited in the ruleset.
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on the topic of tires, the body i chose can’t go above 720 mm tires, that combined with 15 in wheels shows as 80 profile, would that be realistic? because it certainly looks like it
That would be a research based realism bin. As long as the tyres look right and aren’t mangled to hell with advanced trim making them either much larger or smaller, there is no need to do prescriptive bans on tyre sizing.
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I am not referring to how the tires look. I am referring to somebody having the ability to use the radials’ lower minimum profile limit to make 60-profile tires with something like 235 profile in 1959 for sheer performance reasons.
Which could be a realism bin from lack of research, as I said. No need for direct regulations on it.
Some french cars used 400 mm at the time, which roughly equals 16 inch, so rare but viable, I would say.
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On the general subject of tyres, which in retro challenges like this, having too wide of tyre and easily be a negative against realism. Luckily, Coker tire, one of the main sources for replacements for cars of this era, has a rather nifty chart changing bias ply sizing into radial sizing. This should give a good idea of what tyre sizes are common on cars of the era and be a good way to translate sizes from places like carfolio that only give the size in something like 8 x 14.
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The profile restriction/skepticism makes sense, but radial tires per se should not be penalized, IMO. They were uncommon, but from what I understand, not significantly more expensive. They’re made differently from bias-plies and changing that scale of factory tooling, plus changes to suspension engineering, just weren’t worth the trouble for a while, particularly to the Big 3 in the 50’s and 60’s.
The lowly 2CV came with 135x400 (15.75" rim) Michelin radials since 1948.
According to one source (Consumer Reports Aug. 1968), one benefit of radials is lower service costs.
Well think about it this way, for whatever reason (be it economic, supply, taste, etc) they weren’t as common in the US in the time period of the challenge. In Auto, however, without any sort of penalty there’s literally no reason to not use them for this sort of challenge except for realism, which people are very happy to minmax away from.
When is the start date? I have a car prepped, just awaiting final details. Benchmarked 1959 GM products - mainly Pontiac but it also has some Chevy and Buick vibes.
Thanks for the input
Luckiky, I was considering that the current radial penalty wasn’t enough
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False. Bias ply have higher load ratings (allowing narrower and therefore quieter and cheaper sizes), and are better off road.
Perhaps consider it in context of the rest of the design? If it’s otherwise a conventional Yank Tank, up go the eyebrows; if it’s otherwise exotic and modern (even if cheap; see: 2CV), especially if handling-oriented, then kosher?
Or, if you must penalize - because the main real penalty for them was having to reengineer production machinery and suspension tuning, add a penalty to ET or PU instead of service costs?
Will the noise limit remain at 50, then? Raymond doesn’t seem to mind something figuratively loud, so why not literally loud, too?
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Democracy wins with a 59-41 vote on the poll, so the way techpool is now will remain unchanged.
And a few things regarding tires: the radial SVC penalty has been increased to 20%, and I recommend that you look at tire sizes of real 50s cars to avoid getting CONSUMED. That is all.
SUBMISSIONS OPEN
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By the way, how will rules work regarding convertibles? They usually fare worse on stats
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