by Jimmy Storie on Mon Mar 24, 2008 1:18 am
Don't worry about the power on the Lambo, it has plenty.
You need to put all the race mods on, tyres, brakes, weight reduction all the bits other than engine mods. Then squeeze what else you can on, whether thats just an exhaust or intake, that is unfortunately all you'll get on it.
The Gallardo rewards consistent driving and is quite a forgiving car at the same time. But if you drive sloppy you'll get know-where. The key is to keep the speed up, you really need to keep it in the revs, which won't work if your on automatic gears. Get used to shifting yourself, practice your cornering and learn to feel the car in / out of corners. Before long you'll be breaking later & putting the power down earlier. You want to spend minimal time coasting ( no power or brakes ) because when you do you are losing time, and ultimately have less control of the car.
It will allow you to slide round corners to a certain degree, and setting your torque ratio towards the rear will encourage this. On my 930 car i have the torque split 15% front & 85% rear, making the car handle more like a RWD. To compensate for the extra power going through the back you'll need to adjust both your suspension & anti-roll to suit. Generally i'll take the front AR to between 5-8 & the rear 30 - 35. The suspension is quite difficult to get right, the smallest adjusments can make a huge difference. I always leave the springs / damping / ride height and tune them for every track, basing my tune on the stock setup, and just tweaking it bit by bit until it feels right.
The springs and damping are quite difficult to get right. Through trial & error if worked it out that my style of driving requires quite a stiff car, show make adjustments accordingly. However this does not mean setting the springs stiff believe me, it has adverse affects. What you want to to is make the springs fairly soft ( maybe half stock setting ) and counter this change by increasing damping stiffness and the rebound stiffness. The ride height i alter as per the track raced, flat track = low ride height, big kerbs & small bumps = mid way, laguna seca like tracks = quite high.
For the alignment etc. i basically leave this as is. Again i make small adjustments to the camber only, based on the particular race track. I don't alter TOE or CASTOR.
I always have the aerodynamics set to full.
Tyre pressures can also make a difference to the way the car handles. By default i turn mine to 29 / 29 psi. I find that with a rear wheel drive car lowering the rear tyre pressure by even 1 will affect the car. On the Lambo i tend to set the pressures to suit the torque setting. If the torque is even ( even power going to all wheels ) i'd leave the pressures the same, but on mine as i've changed the torque to the rear i lower the rear tyre pressure to compensate for this which allows the tyres to get up to working temperature at an even rate. ( hot air expands / more power where theres more heat typically )
The brakes is more down to your own ability & confidence. Start with pressures fairly low & work your way towards 100% so that by the end your getting most out of your brakes.
Gears, your guess will be as good as mine. I don't change them up much, if anything i might change the final drive a little where needs be. On tracks like Laguna Seca i'll change it towards the acceleration, just to suit the gears i need for cornering. I dont think big changes need to be made, although i have seen some crazy transmission setups that are really fast.
Hope this helps.