I'm having a problem with all the classic cars I use in RaceRoom. From time to time, it seems as if the car is in neutral during braking for a short time, without touching the clutch and the gear lever. Then the gear engages again and of course locks the driving wheels. I use a Thrustmaster TH8A H-shifter with an Heusinkveld Sim Pedal Pro 3 pedals set. Here are some videos of this problem with the FRJ, Fabcar 935 and VW Scirocco. I have talked about this problem with Alex Hodgkinson but he has never been able to reproduce it. If you are using a H-shifter with clutch and have already had this kind of behaviour of if you have any idea of what may cause this, please let me know.
In these videos I noticed that the moment the wheels lock up, the rev rise too. What is it? Is it related to the problem?
Yes it is. It's when the gear is engaged again after being in a false neutral. It feels just like if the cluch is depressed for a second and then released. The revs drop and then rise when the gear is engaged. It's not something new for me as I explained to Alex. I remember having this issue in a Group 5 hotlap competition more than 3 years ago for the first time but it did not happen too often. Now, it happens more frequently and it's very annoying when you get this problem at Tiergarten after a complete lap of the Nordschleife as it ruins your lap. Thanks for your help.
I had a similar problem with some GT3 cars a few years ago. What kind of steering wheel are you using? I had the Fanatec McLaren GT3 at the time and I think it had something to do with the dual clutch.
I also had a similar problem a year or so ago. I have not had it since then and unfortunately I have no idea what fixed it. I would start with making sure your wheel (if you use that) and wheelbase have updated firmware. Like Jens I have Fanatec hardware.
I use a SimXperience Acccuforce V2 steering wheel. But this problem never happened with modern cars with paddles or sequential shifting (Heusinkveld shifter). It only happens with H-shifting cars.
In FRJ and Fabcar videos on the input meter I noticed the clutch does engage a little, and when it drops back to zero, the wheels lock up. It shouldn't work like that, right?
Yes, I know, that's because my foot is touching the clutch pedal a bit, but it's so little I don't think it's enough to produce this effect. With the Scirocco, I depress the clutch and try to reengage the gear when I feel the bug is appearing but there is no effect.
Yes, it's very little and in your other videos on your channel I see you do it all the time. Do other people do that too? Still, this coincidence looks a bit suspicious to me, but I don't have any relevant experience on this topic so I don't know. Have you tried looking at a telemetry? Maybe it can reveal some more info about what happens at these moments...
I rewatched your videos in the OP and it definitely looks and sounds as if there's suddenly appears a connection between the wheels and the engine, and since the engine is spinning slower than the wheels at that moment it makes the wheels lock up. But I have no clue if a slight touch on the clutch pedal after a braking is enough to induce a clutch slip... Maybe Alex can answer that? Unfortunately no...
That's exactly what happens. The wheels are not driven for maybe a second and when they get driven again, with the engine low in revs, they get locked. I already sent the FRJ and Fabcar videos to Alex via Discord some time ago but he could not find the reason why this phenomenon appears. Thanks anyway for your help.
Have you tried at what point your clutch actually starts to disengage? I have adjusted mine so that I get a relatively long pedal throw until it disengages. So I've set a reasonable lower dead zone to avoid decoupling when just (accidentally) touching the clutch, and an upper one to get that bite point somewhere around the middle of the pedal throw. That point still differs a bit from car to car, though. You can easily test that by going rather slow in a high gear, then accellerate and start applying some clutch till revs start to rise. I suspect, that might already happen for you when you just slightly touch the clutch. Maybe it's worth a try to unbind and rebind the pedal. Also double check if there's some strange dead zone or sensitivity setting, that you've set accidentally at some point. And in case you don't already know it, there's a handy tiny tool to check if your hardware sends clean signals without spikes or the like: https://heusinkveld.com/download-diview/ Just a guess, because I cannot replicate that issue here. Hope it helps. Oli
Hey Oli. I use DiView to calibrate my Heusinkveld pedals, with dead zones at the bottom and top of the clutch pedal range. As soon as the weather cools down a bit (40° to 41° Celsius in my area today ), I will try to reproduce the problem without touching the clutch as I have added a footrest near the clutch pedal. But I really think it comes from elsewhere as it looks like the clutch is fully depressed and then fully released a second later.
You might want to increase the lower deadzone if you are still getting clutch registering when you don't want it. I have a very large deadzone for the clutch for that reason. Also, looking at the videos I'm wondering if this is differential related, given the locking under braking etc. Have you experimented with the coast and preload settings to see if that helps (or makes things worse)
I will follow your advice for the lower deadzone. I'm not sure if the differential settings can be modified with these cars. I will check.